Making Moves with Professional Networking Strategies
Growing your network isn’t as simple as clicking a “connect” button. Well, as you read this on a professional networking platform, you may be thinking, “actually, it is.” But there’s more than one way to go about ensuring that the community you’re building is beneficial to your standing in the professional world.
Various pathways lead toward your career goals, and smart networking and professional connections will help you find people who can open doors to greater prospects no matter the stage of your career path.
What is networking?
Networking on a professional level means connecting with individuals who share similar interests in growing your industry and reaching new heights in roles you hope to master or have already excelled in.
One of the best networking tips you’ll ever receive is that a strong professional network is as much about what you get out of it as what you bring into it. Relevant, respectful, and mutually beneficial relationships come first, and having a successful professional network is a natural result of that.
If you are aware of how valuable it is to have a network, you need to remember that you are also part of someone else’s network for a reason. Either because of your expertise, knowledge, or potential. So be mindful of that, embrace it, and become an active member of your network by adding value.
Read more about leveraging your network here: How to Properly Grow and Leverage Your Professional Network
How networks work
True professional success comes from collaboration, not just standalone efforts. That's why networking is a critical and powerful subset of soft skills in the workforce.
Networking skills develop naturally when you diversify relationships beyond the scope of daily business communication and interactions with stakeholders or people within your industry. This proves that strategic attention and intention are necessary for professionally impactful connections.
Consider these minor tweaks to your networking approach:
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Keep in mind that networking isn't simply about exchanging business cards. It's about building and fostering mutually beneficial outcomes. Test out how these few changes can encourage better networking practices so that you can create powerful alliances and expand your professional reach.
Check out this article for more in-depth explanations of how these small changes make a huge difference: 4 Little Changes to Boost Your Networking Skills
Strong connections begin with strong communication
How we communicate, verbally and nonverbally, greatly impacts how we conduct business. In a previous week's issue, we covered soft skills in the workplace, and an important one to keep at the forefront of professional development is, you guessed it, communication.
There are plenty of interpersonal skills to sharpen while on the job hunt, meeting with new hires, and even for those everyday standard requirements of our working lives, all of which communication has a heavy hand. Even for recruiters, stong and effective communication styles are necessary for building quality connections with candidates and clients.
Creating and participating in professional communities requires some key qualities that communication plays a crucial role in, such as:
Professional recruiter Julie Gross knows a little something about making conversation a selling point in workplace settings in this gpac podcast episode of The Howl. Give it a listen:
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