Sital Ruparelia

I want to take the unusual step of reproducing a comment which was left on the blog. The following comment was left by networking expert Andy Lopata in relation to the networking post earlier this week:

“Many people will only talk to people who are familiar with the market in which they work when they are looking for new work. They risk overlooking the friends, family and other connections who may not work directly in their market, but who may have excellent connections who do. The more widely you spread your message, and the clearer and more concise that message is, the greater chance you give yourself of getting the position you are looking for.”

It’s a great point and reminds me of a client I worked with during the last downturn within financial services post after the bursting of the dot.com bubble.

The market, like today, was tough and I remember telling the client from the outset that he would find his next job via his network. He did not really believe me and kept saying he had very few contacts and that he “wasn’t good at networking.”

But once we got clear about the opportunities and contacts he was looking for and developed a clear message for his network,  opportunities started to show up – and sure enough he had 2 excellent job offers via his network.  

Interestingly, the job offer he accepted arose via a family member – a stay-at-home mum who had been out of the job market for years and supposedly “didn’t know anyone” when first asked. But after some further prompting, she came up with a close contact with a highly relevant vacancy to fill.  

As Andy says, don’t overlook your immediate contacts because they don’t work in the areas you searching within - you never know who else they are connected to.