Event 🥂Day 7 - 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 or missed Day 1, read here; to read Day 8, go here.

Day 7: Attend 1 networking event

At the start of the pandemic, people were telling me that they couldn’t attend any meetups or events. The good news is that we’re now far enough in the pandemic that there are plenty of online meetups or events. And you don’t have to travel anywhere and can simply join from the comfort of your home.

These days, sadly, I’m guilty of the opposite — signing up to too many networking events online and never showing up to any of them. Therefore, today’s task is not about attending numerous events, but pick one that can really benefit your career so you (and me) can commit to it.

Where can I find these events?

If you joined at least 2 communities from yesterday’s task, then those communities are already a good place to start.

LinkedIn also has an Events feature, and you can discover events to attend by searching by keywords and filter for events. One small issue is that if you choose to “attend” an event, it’s public to your network (not sure if you can change it in the settings).

I searched for “product management” events and these are some of the top results.

Make the best out of an event

If you want to learn the most from an event, here are some tips from my own experience:

• Don’t sign up for an event during your working hours. I always thought I could just squeeze 30 mins but meetings always popped up.

• Post at least 1 or 2 comments or questions. Online events cannot offer the same level of interaction as in-person events, so you’ll need to put in a bit more effort to be more involved. It also helps engage others in the discussion.

• Connect with a few interesting people on LinkedIn afterwards. Your chances of connecting with strangers are much higher if you mention the shared event experience.

• Bring a friend! Just like in-person networking events, you’ll feel more committed to an online event if both you and your friend or colleague are going. You can also have post-event discussions and digest any learnings.

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Are these networking exercises helpful? Any feedback for me? Looking forward to hearing from you!