Every Young Professional Needs an Elevator Intro Speech

7-22-2010

You find yourself in the following position. You’re at a networking event and a hiring manager from a company you’d love to work for is making his way around the room. If you play your cards right, you’ll have a chance to shake his hand and try to wow him. But what do you say? How do you make a great impression and stand out from the crowd? This is where your elevator intro speech comes into play. Here are five steps for crafting a solid elevator speech.

Networking for Career Success – 4 Strategies for Job Seekers

6-06-2010

Career networking. If the very words make your stomach drop with dread, take heart. You’re not alone. Most people view networking as something ominous. But with unemployment rates still soaring, networking is something you can’t afford to ignore. In fact, as many as 75 percent of people get jobs through networking contacts. Check out four career networking strategies that can help you find your next gig.

3 Ways to Keep Your Next Networking Event Flowing

2-22-2010

Flow is the most important part of attending a networking event. Nothing is worse than feeling stuck with a less-than-interesting conversational companion all evening. But even if your new connection is the most interesting person in the room, you aren’t maximizing either of your efforts by clinging to each other all evening. Learn three great ways to manage your transition out of a conversation, good or bad, with style and finesse.

Networking Tips for LinkedIn

1-14-2010

Dear WCF, I work for a Fortune 500 company and joined LinkedIn about six months ago to increase my circle of industry contacts. Recently I attended a networking event and had a pleasant conversation with “Joe” who is in the same field. Joe is currently unemployed, about ten years older than I am, and looking for connections too. So when I got home I e-mailed him saying that it was nice to meet him and while I didn't have any contacts for him right now, I'd like to stay in touch via LinkedIn in case I run across any in the future. To my surprise he responded that he didn’t feel he knew me well enough to recommend me and refused my invitation. Was I out of line?

Networking Tips for the New Year

1-06-2010

The term networking can turn some people off, let alone the act itself. Whether you’re nodding in agreement or not, at least one piece of information below will hopefully be useful to you. It might help to think of networking as meeting new (and often times interesting) people. Here are some tips to help you dust off your networking (a.k.a. people meeting) skills in 2010: networking can be learned, helps you find a mentor, requires homework, and is a two-way street.

Twitter 103 – Using Twitter to Promote Yourself

11-12-2009

You know the basics of Twitter and how to build your Twitter network. This third and final post offers some questions and answers to help you use Twitter to promote yourself effectively. For example, what should you tweet about? How many followers should you have? How can you promote yourself with a Twitter bio? ...and more!

Twitter 102 – Use Twitter to Build a Network

11-06-2009

Welcome to Twitter, Part II. Earlier this week, I wrote about the basics of Twitter and how to get started with this social media phenomenon. If you’re following along, you’ve hopefully created an account (using your real name) and attached a photo to your profile. Now, it’s time to figure out how to effectively communicate and network via Twitter. This post  helps you decide how you want to use Twitter and covers ways to build your network with Twitter's help.

Twitter 101 – How to Use Twitter

11-02-2009

Facebook and MySpace are all about sharing and connecting with friends. LinkedIn is geared towards professional connections and networking. YouTube is the video sharing site that offers you the option to create your own “channel”. Digg and Delicious are social bookmarking sites where you can share and find content from any online source. And now there’s Twitter, the social media “microblogging” site that has taken the world by storm. But how do you use it?

How to Use Social Networking to Find a Job

10-26-2009

Dear WCF,

I know that connecting with as many people as possible is important in my job search. I’ve joined LinkedIn to expand my contacts, but I’m still not sure how to use social networking in terms of finding a job. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help, Job Seeker