Preparing The Ground

When you go on holiday, how much preparation do you undertake?  Do you literally wait until your first day off work before deciding where to go?  Or, like most people, do you pick out your holiday destination in advance and sort out all the necessary details?

You’ll look at doing the following:

• Booking your holiday resort
• Checking your passport
• Booking your travel
• Packing your clothing
• And if you’re like me, you’ll spend about 5 times rechecking you’ve got the correct documentation!

You get the point – it’s normally all sorted out in advance, with little left to chance.

Well that analogy works with networking.  One thing I have to stress to clients is that they should start building up their network NOW.

“Oh, but I won’t be looking for a job for a few months”.

That’s fine, but there’s nothing to stop you from working your network now.  By ‘working’ I mean ‘helping’.  Start contacting the people in your personal and professional networks and find out what they’re looking for.

• Who would they like to be put in contact with?
• Who in your network would be a useful contact for them?
• Which companies are they interested in?
• Which line of work are they involved in?

The more help you can give people now, the more likelihood that they will want to reciprocate the favour when you need their assistance.  So get cracking on warming up your network and don’t leave it until you’re desperate for a job.

SMART Goals

It’s always good to have a plan.  It doesn’t mean it has to be rigid, it just needs to get you moving forward in the right direction.  So what goals can you start setting yourself in terms of your networking?  And make those goals SMART goals.

SMART stands for:

Specific - what exactly do you want to accomplish?

Measurable - how will I know when it is accomplished?  

Achievable - is the goal realistic?

Relevant - does the goal seem worthwhile to your overall plans?

Timed - what is the target date by which you want to achieve your goal?

So get some SMART goals down on paper so that you can start devising a networking plan.  Start thinking about who would be a really useful network contact for you.  Think about the direction you’re heading in.  Are you looking for a promotion in the same line of work?  Are you looking for a career change into something completely new?

You might connect with a contact and get instant results.  But usually networking takes time.  So why not take the time to spruce up your network NOW, to get it ready for your next major career decision in a few months time.