Coffee ☕️ Day 8 - Networking Advent Calendar
The Networking Advent Calendar is a 24-day long training program to build your networking muscles (and your network)! Not sure why you should do this? Missed Day 1? Read more here.
Day 8: Schedule 2 virtual coffees
In university, we learned about the ideas of social capital, weak and strong ties among and across groups in a society. They didn’t mean much to me beyond my essay assignments. But when I landed my first full-time job in Germany, it suddenly hit me — all my first 3 job offers came through my weak social ties. People that I already knew but were not in my friend circle. (See mom, majoring in Sociology CAN get me jobs!)
Networking isn’t just about exchanging your digital business cards with new people. Your existing network is already a huge pool of untapped resources and knowledge. “But I don’t have many LinkedIn connections,” you might say. That doesn’t matter, because you’ve definitely built professional relationships outside LinkedIn.
This task today invites you to strengthen your relationships with people you already know, and will walk you through the who, what, how.
Who
Here’s a non-exhaustive list to give you some ideas:
Extended family members who work in a similar field
Friends of friends who work in a similar field
People in your hobby group who work in a similar field
People who went to the same school or university as you, even in different years (in fact all 3 of my first job offers came through alumni connections one way or the other)
People who worked at the same company as you, even when you didn’t directly work together
Former managers or mentors
Interesting people that are in your professional community (doesn’t matter if you never interacted with them directly)
Interesting people that you follow on social media (a bit more of a stretch for a “weak tie” but I’ve had lovely virtual coffees with people that read my newsletter)
What
“What should I write to them about or what should we talk about in the virtual coffee?” A virtual coffee is just a different way of saying you want to catch up. It’s simple — in every virtual coffee, you want to do 3 things:
See what the other person is doing
Tell them what you’re doing
See if there’s a way you can help each other
It’s always nice to start the conversation by getting the other person to talk about themselves, or chit chat about what you have in common. Then comes the great opportunity of using the bio you wrote (and let them know if you’re open to a new job). Finally, make sure you’re not only asking for their advice or help but also offer the same in return. These 3 points can even be used as the agenda of your virtual coffee.
How
Reconnecting with people you already know is probably one of the easiest ways of networking, because they are much more likely to respond positively, and you don’t have to worry about writing a smart cold message. Open with your common connection (university, community, mutual friend) and keep it personal and genuine. Some inspiration for reach out messages can be found in a previous issue and in Day 3.
To be ready for any type of potential virtual coffee, I always keep my 30 mins Calendly link readily available, so that as soon as the person says yes I can easily schedule a call for us. You can even make your Calendly link public on your personal website.
If my recruiter colleagues have hired people in nightclubs and through dating apps, you can be hired through your weak ties!
Are these networking exercises helpful? Any feedback for me? Looking forward to hearing from you!