Gyan session 3 - How to network for your dream internships and jobs

The solution is simple if your friends or family work in your target company. Just reach out to them, asking for a referral. I have many cases in the US where parents play a critical role in connecting their kids with executives in other companies. Their executives are golfing partners, friends of friends, or classmates in the past. The trouble begins when you do not have friends or family to help you. I recommend the following five-step approach to solve the problem.

1) Identifying companies:?Firstly, identify 5-10 companies you want to work with. Identify companies by going to their career pages, looking at job descriptions (JDs), and asking yourself if your skills will match the skills defined in the JD. You can also shortlist companies by looking at Fortune most admired company?rankings, Fortune best companies to work for?rankings, or Great Places to Work in India?rankings, or even looking at the placement reports which list the companies coming to the top schools in your country. Finally, ask yourself, which sector and industry would you want to develop expertise in the long haul?

2) Identifying your individuals:?Use Linkedin to search for prospects working in the company. For example, assuming that you are looking for a role of a Manufacturing Engineer in Cummins Pune, you need to look for a Manufacturing Manager or a Director at the same location. The reason why you want a Manager is because an engineer typically reports to them. A Director could also be a good connection because a Senior Manager or a Director typically decides the budget for hiring an engineer. A VP is too high in the hierarchy to be concerned with hiring for engineer positions. At the same time, the VP is the right person to approach when the position sought is at a Manager, Senior Manager, or Director level.?

You could then check if you have a common connection with them. For example, both of you may have attended the same undergrad or grad school. That is a great place to begin from. Most alums are very happy to connect with their juniors. Both of you may have worked in common companies in the past. Finally, if nothing works, you could add yourself to groups on Linkedin where professionals tend to agglomerate. Being part of the same group gives you some excuse for connecting to a leader in the company.

Connecting to a person who is exactly in the same role you are applying to can help in some ways. The person can give you a good idea of the nature of work, challenges, etc. This information will be helpful in the actual interviews as you can ask insightful questions to the interviewer. In addition, the information can help frame your answers correctly to make them more relevant to the company. I reached out to five Cornell and Wisconsin alums before my Google interviews, and they all responded very quickly on Linkedin. I also spent ample time with each to understand how Google interviews worked, the company culture, work challenges, and the inside dope on what to expect.

3) Research the individual:?Do due diligence on the individual. Go on social media to track their Twitter and Linkedin posts. Read up all about them. When someone posts professional content on social media, it is meant for public consumption. Every content creator knows that despite the frustrations of creating online content, the greatest satisfaction is when someone watches the content and benefits from it. So spend a couple of weeks liking posts, asking relevant questions, and engaging with the person before you do a formal Linkedin reach out. Your goal is to stand out as a person who is genuine and not there just for the transactional benefit of a referral.

For example, while interviewing at General Mills, I watched the youtube video of a VP who talked about the General Mills work culture. When I mentioned to this VP (one of my interviewers) that I had watched her videos and asked her some follow-up questions, I could sense that she was delighted that someone had made an effort to watch her social media content and ask insightful questions. I immediately felt that the interview had gone in my favor.?

Researching individuals and engaging with them is time-consuming and tiring. Hence you cannot follow the machinegun approach of messaging dozens of people on Linkedin with a generic message and hoping someone takes the bait and responds. No leader bothers to respond to a generic message on Linkedin as they receive dozens of messages daily. Some have even burnt their hands by responding in the past, so they are wary now.

4) How to connect:?Never ask for a referral in the first Linkedin note you send to the individual. Instead, ask for a meeting in your message. A sample note could look like this:

Dear Mr. Shailesh Kumar,

I'm a final year student of Amity Engineering College interested in working in Manufacturing. For the past couple of years, I've been following the success of Tata Motors, and your Linkedin profile, especially your career journey, really impressed me. I have been following your posts and particularly liked your recent Linkedin post on engineering design.

If you ever have 20 or so minutes, I'd love to hear more about how you started working in this field and what skills you believe are most relevant to the profession.

Thank you so much,

Tina Sharma

Keep the note customized and professional. End the message with a request for a meeting. Note that business leaders may not sometimes respond to individual messages. If 20-30% of folks respond, you are lucky. People don't respond for all sorts of reasons - they may have fallen sick, there may be a personal emergency at home, they may be on vacation, they may have become super busy overnight after taking over a new project, and so on. So assume good intent. It is ok to send a reminder after two weeks and another after two more weeks (if you are desperate). Move on after that.?

5) Handling the meeting:?From a company's perspective, there is nothing like an informal meeting. Every interaction is measured and watched. Hence, you should be super professional if the leader agrees to talk to you. Even if you get invited to a coffee chat, consider it a formal round one of an interview. Make sure that you are ready with a set of meaningful questions to ask the individual. Be friendly and not deferential, as it is an informal meeting. Do not sabotage the discussion by making inappropriate jokes, being too friendly, or arguing on contested topics.

If the meeting has gone well, it is acceptable for you to ask the leader at the end of the session if they can put in a referral for you. Most leaders would expect this question based on personal experiences with people and would be surprised if you didn't have a specific ask at the end of the meeting. Sometimes they may refer you to HR for them to take it forward, or they may pass it to another team manager to do the needful. Interviews take time and patience, so wait it out.?

Conclusion:?I will close the discussion by saying that a friend of mine wanted to work in India after doing his Masters at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I recommended that he try referrals in his target companies, but he was not sure how to begin. Since my friend was interested in Pharma, I suggested he reach out to Kiran Mazumdar Shah, CEO of Biocon and one of the most respected doyens of corporate India. While he dismissed the idea, I urged my friend to give it a shot as he had nothing to lose. It turned out that Kiran responded to his message and connected him with her HR and leadership team. As a result, my friend did end up getting an offer and going to work in Biocon India. Hence, do not underestimate the chance a random message can have on your career!!

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