 Hello, everyone, and good evening. My name is Jill Klees, and I'm your iSchool Career Center Liaison. Thank you very much for joining me tonight. We are going to talk about a fun topic, and I'm sure as I say fun, most of you are cringing, and I get it. I really do, honestly, but my hope is that after tonight's workshop that you will be able to think about networking in a very different way, and one that I hope will not make you cringe. So I do encourage you to ask me lots of questions. I love to keep my workshops informal and interactive, and the best way to do that is to hear from you. So please do type your questions in the chat box at any time. This session is being recorded, and it can be found on the Career Development site under Career Webcasts and Past Recordings. The page looks like this. So it's right on that Career Development tab at the top, and to the left navigation, you find Career Webcasts, and that's where you can find links to upcoming workshops and the links to all the past workshops that I've done. Just so you know. So as your Career Center liaison, I am available to you through email, through phone, and video chat. Most people reach out to me through email, and I'm here to work with you on your career-related questions. I can critique your resumes. We can set up mock interview sessions, or I can work with you really on whatever you need that has a focus on your career and your job search. I do recommend checking out the resources on the Career Development site. So again, everything you want to find is under this Career Development tab right at the top. And if you can't find what you're looking for there, then by all means contact me. I'm here to help you. So let's get started. Networking. Tonight we're talking about tips to make networking work for you, and we all know what networking is, so I'm not going to go into that. And we all know that it's important, but few of us really enjoy doing it. I became really clear about this many years ago, where, you know, as a Career Development professional, I'm talking to people and I'm toting the benefits of networking to my clients, but I realized that I was just as uncomfortable with it as they were. But then I also realized that looking back over my career, every position I have ever gotten has been through some form of networking. And I'm not kidding, that's absolutely true. Every position I have ever gotten when I look back since high school, all the way up to present day, it's been through some form of networking. So it prompted me to think about, you know, how did I do that if I can say I don't really like networking either, how did I do that? So I realized that I had found a way to make networking work for my own personal style, and you can all do that too. So I encourage you to be open minded tonight and listen for strategies that you can adopt and put into action for yourself. So networking is still the number one job search strategy with research showing that it's about 75 to 80% of the jobs that people get are through some form of networking. The problem is that if many of us are reluctant networkers, how can we make this strategy work for us? Because we know networking is important, but we have a hard time making ourselves do it. Or we just aren't doing it correctly. And when job searching, simply applying for jobs online doesn't work and here's why. First of all, you got to think about this, right? Only about 20% of available jobs are ever posted online. Secondly, hundreds of people apply for those 20% of the positions that are posted. So your chances of your resume making it pass the applicant tracking system and pass human resources and into the hiring manager's hands are pretty slim. So your best option when you're doing your job search is to find positions through your networking connections or you find a position that's posted online or posted online through a job board. Then you reach out to your network to help you then get your resume into the right hands of someone at that company. Does that make sense? I'm gonna dive a lot deeper into this, but just kind of overall. That's what we're talking about here. So hopefully that makes sense to people. And again, if you have questions, please just type them in. So here's a fun picture. We are all familiar with what I call traditional networking. And this type of networking is still super useful and you're gonna find yourself in these situations whether you like it or not. It's uncomfortable for most people, yes. But when you think, when you stop to think that everyone is doing the same thing and really feels the same way you do, it makes it not quite so bad. So for traditional networking situations like this, here's just some overall tips for you to keep in mind. You wanna make eye contact. Unfortunately, not like the gentleman here who says one of the little sandwiches coming out with his eyes closed. You do wanna make eye contact. You wanna make sure that you have a nice, firm handshake. These are some basics, right? We should know these things. Nice, firm handshake. If you're not sure if you have a nice, firm handshake, practice with somebody, that's an important thing to do. Your name tag when you're at events goes on the, actually I'm not even saying, which side left or right does your name tag go on when you go to networking events? Go ahead and type it in. You think your name tag goes on the right side or the left side? Let's see what people think. I've got left, left, left, left, really? All the left, somebody said right. All right, we need a drum roll here. What do you do with your hands? Oops, I missed what Felicia's saying. What do you do with your hands when you're standing in a group like that? All right, we'll talk about that one in just a second. In the middle. Nice, Jim. Your name tag actually goes on the right hand side, people. The reason for that, just imagine it right now. You put your name tag on your right hand side. When you reach out to shake hands with somebody, you use your right hand, right? So the right hand goes across. That means if your eye follows your arm, right off your fingertips, you're going to run right into that person's name tag. That's a way for you to see the name tag and to remember their name. So it goes on the right hand side. So if you learn nothing else tonight, that's one thing you're always going to remember. So let's see. Well, that's a good one too, Ellie, because people read from left to right. I suppose that's true. But it really has to do more with work, reaching out with the right hand. Let me hit Felicia's question. So what do you do with your hands when you're standing in a group like that? Well, let's take a look at people. We've got some people who are holding on papers. Maybe it's their resume. We've got somebody that's holding on to something to drink. We have other people that they're holding a portfolio. People, most of them are doing something, holding a drink in their hands. So when you're at an event, though, you're going to have something in your hand, but you want to make sure you keep that right hand free so that you can shake people's hands. You don't want to have both hands full. You want to be able to reach out, make that connection, shake hands with people. Sometimes people, when they don't know what to do, Felicia will put their hands in their pockets, probably not the best option, but have the hands out, hold on to something. Hopefully that helps a little bit. All right, the that was the name tag quiz. Other things in the networking event, definitely you have to smile. You got to show your energy. You want to be positive, energetic, be friendly. Here's something else you want to think about. You got to be prepared with an introductory question. You got to keep something in your back pocket, right? Something like, hi, what do you think of a conference or this meeting so far? You know, what brings you here tonight? Figure out what's going to kind of be your go-to question so that if you feel like you're awkwardly standing there and then someone's next to you, you could turn to them and say, hey, so what do you think of the conference so far tonight? Oh, what made you come tonight? And then if you're going to ask those questions, then be prepared to answer them yourself because very well that person might just say, oh, what brings you to the conference tonight? But that's a good way just to start the conversation. Okay, who says networking has to be traditional, right? I find that if I can network in environments that are more conducive to my personal style and my interests, I am much more at ease and more likely to be myself, which in turn makes networking feel easier and really not like I'm networking at all, but rather I'm just being friendly. I'm just talking to people. So start to think of non-traditional places where you can network and realize that you can meet people anywhere and everywhere. So I've just put up some pictures here on the screen. I mean, literally you can meet people so maybe you're meeting people for coffee, maybe you went, I'm thinking of this top left picture, maybe you went with one person to get coffee and now they're meeting some other people so that's extending your network. Maybe you volunteer somewhere. This happens to be Second Harvest Food Bank. You meet lots of people where you volunteer. If you go to church regularly, there's people there that you meet. You can be standing in line at Starbucks and you meet people just being friendly, just getting off your phone and turning around and making eye contact with somebody is an amazing way to make connections because if you notice nowadays, people don't look up. Everyone is looking down at their phones. If you happen to be a person who's actually looking up and make eye contact with somebody, that's a really great way to just have a conversation. Find out where people work, find out what they do because you never know which networking connection is going to be the one that pays off for you. So you can meet people, you have virtual classes, but you can certainly talk to people virtually. You can join meetups, meetups of areas that are interesting to you and they don't have to do anything with work. They can just be personal things. I like to go on a hike, I like bike riding so you can find meetups that way. Kate's got a comment that says, my husband has made so many fabulous contacts by just saying hi to the person sitting next to him on an airplane. That is excellent, Kate. That's absolutely true. It's just come stepping outside your comfort zone and saying hello to somebody and starting a conversation. So I want you to think about that and keep it in mind and I want you to think really big in terms of where and how you can meet people because there's opportunities everywhere. Could be at the gym, could be in a yoga class, could be an educational class that you're taking all over the place, just be aware. So when you think about networking, how about let's try a fresh perspective on what networking really is. So rather than thinking of it as a stressful kind of schmooze fest where you're forcing yourself to go into an awkward situation and forcing yourself to have to meet everyone in the room, think of networking, let's switch it around in our heads and maybe let's think about it as a way of just establishing a relationship or a genuine connection with another person and gathering some information. Because when you really break it down and you want to have solid quality networking connections, not quantity, they really are going to be about a relationship and a connection with somebody else. And I found that you can do this by just being friendly and relying on your own natural curiosity to ask questions about where someone works, what they do, how they got their job, ask them for advice they can share about getting your foot in the door at a particular company or an organization. Be clear about what you want to say and what you want to ask. So a little preparation ahead of time in terms of how you might introduce yourself to someone and the questions that you might ask can make a big difference in your confidence level. So say you're going to go to, say you can just go to some sort of an event. Maybe it's an event in your community because it's not necessarily going to be on campus because we're all in different places. So you're going to an event in your community and you know it's going to be a good opportunity to meet people and talk to people. But you're feeling a little nervous about it. So if you think about it in your head and you think, all right, I'm going to go to this event and I'm not going to put my pressure on myself to meet everybody that's there. I'm just going to meet a couple of people. And here's a couple questions that I'm going to have sort of prepared, I'm going to keep them in my back pocket. So as I go up to people and I'm introducing myself and I meet them, I have something to say. And maybe you're going to say something as simple as like, hi, my name is Jill. So where do you work? You know, and then they're going to talk about it and you're going to say, so what kind of work do you actually do there? And maybe as this conversation continues on, you might say something like, well, I'm going to be graduating with my MLIS in December. And I'm looking for an information instruction position, either in an academic or a public library setting. You know, what advice can you share with me about my job search after graduation? I mean, if that seems like appropriate for the conversation you're having or where you're at, but you can throw things out there. You're not asking that person for a job. You're just asking them for some information and for some advice. And most people like to talk about themselves and most people remember what it was like to be in your shoes and they're willing to share advice. Felicia's asking, does networking ever feel like you're overstepping privacy boundaries though? I get that question a lot, Felicia. And I have to say, we can have a conversation about that, so people can chime in and give me their thoughts. But I don't feel like that. And I think you have to try to not think about that because that's not really what it's about. Again, it's just I'm just being friendly and I'm just chatting with people and I'm just asking people questions. And so I'm not asking them something personal and I'm not asking them to get me a job, but I'm really just kind of getting information that helps me figure out what my next step might be. Is that a place that I'm interested in working? Would I like to talk with somebody more about, you know, who works for that particular organization? Something like that. Did somebody raise their hand? I heard the ding. I don't see a hand up. Who's got a hand up? Go ahead. I can get off the microphone. I'll leave you like to pick it up. Here, go ahead and get to pick it up. I was going to say I feel exactly like that. And I can remember I was taking interpersonal communication over the summer because these are the skills that I don't feel like I have. And I feel like when I get into a group, there are two different types of people. There are people who want to do the work without getting to know each other, touchy-feely part. And then there are people who can't work well with other people unless they feel like they know them and can trust them to some extent. And for me and for, I think, other people like me, I do feel like people asking me personal questions when we're just supposed to be working together does feel like a violation of privacy. It does feel like they're trying to get to know things about me. They have no business knowing about me when that's not what our relationship is. It's a business relationship. But I realize that other people don't feel that way. Other people genuinely feel afraid to try to work with people they can't trust, and they need that connection. So I feel like if I want to be the successful person, I have to be the person willing to give in that situation and be uncomfortable myself so that the other person can be comfortable. Does that make sense? Yes, that does make sense. Thanks for sharing that. I think there was a couple things that popped up for me when you were sharing your thoughts on that. And one of them is you get to choose what it is that you want to share with somebody. So if you feel like somebody is asking you something and that's too personal for you, you don't have to answer it completely the way they might want you to. You have the control to answer it in a way that you want to and only provide and share the information that you want to. So always keep that in mind. And the questions should always be things that are safe. When we're talking personal, they're not hugely private personal kinds of questions because that would be inappropriate. But to ask somebody about where they work and the kind of work that they do or how they got started in that field, those are just curiosity questions. And those would be safe questions to ask. So hopefully you don't feel like those kinds of questions are too personal. So Ellie says, people like us always feel like if we aren't being forthcoming, then we're lying and that's a whole new level. This is an interesting, we're kind of going down an interesting path here with people. And I'm wondering what that whole piece about, if you aren't being forthcoming, then your line is about. Do you mean if your intention is to ask or your intention is to get a job from somebody but you're not saying that? And then is that where you're saying you feel deceitful because that's really what you're looking for? No, what I mean is if people are trying to get to know each other and they're saying, oh, so how's your family? And maybe I have a non-traditional family and I don't want to talk about my family because it feels like personal business and it feels like something that could be threatening to my getting a job in the first place, which this actually happens to be true about my life. Then it feels kind of violating to try to explain, oh yeah, my family is great. Like everybody talks about their husband or their wife or their kid or whatever and it becomes complicated when you can't divulge information about yourself, you know, be completely honest. But then you also feel like you're being dishonest and makes it very complicated when people want to know things about your personal life. Yeah, I see what you're saying now. So the question that you're asking, you know, people are saying stuff like that about your family, that's not, that is crossing a bit of a line over into a personal area because they don't know who you are. So you don't have to answer those kinds of questions because you were saying that I'm imagining that I'm at a conference, I'm standing here with people that I don't know, I just met them and someone says to me hey, how's your family? I personally wouldn't want to answer that either because they don't know who my family is or who I am. So I might just say something as simple as yeah, they're great and then my next question might be a work-related question and you just change the subject and you go to where you want to go. So I'm not talking tonight at all as I'm talking about networking and finding a way to make it work for you. It has nothing to do with getting into personal questions and crossing lines and boundaries with people by any means. This is all about just finding a different way to make networking in situations be comfortable for you and first that means you need to figure out what works for you, what's your own personal style and then everything I'm talking about tonight are just suggestions. So you need to find the suggestions that work just right for you. Okay, yeah, you can absolutely change the subject. You don't never have to answer those questions if you don't want to. Okay, oh, here we go to the other one. Yes, agreed, agreed. This is all, this should not go heavy stuff, people. This is all on the light side. You're just meeting some new people and you're just trying to find out what's going on out there and where do you work and what do you do and how did you get your job and if you were just when you first graduated, wow, how did you get your foot in the door? I mean, it's those kinds of questions. Okay, so oftentimes getting the conversation started wherever you're at, I think that's the piece if we think about it and you guys can chime in, but that's the piece I think that causes the most anxiety. You know, we might be nervous and maybe we're hesitant and we don't want to go to a certain event, but we pull it together, we get ourselves there, we walk in the door and then it's that, oh no, what am I going to say if somebody walks up? What I'm saying here by myself, that causes a lot of anxiety. So you may need to try some different approaches and then see which approach works best for you. You don't want to force this, right? We want to keep things simple. We want to find what works for your personal style, what's true for who you are so that learning to do networking and starting to make connections with people isn't as painful as we often imagine it to be in our heads. So at a formal networking event, you might start by looking for people who are standing alone or maybe they're standing in a long line. The long line is because basically they're stuck there, right, so they can't run away from you. But my tips here, if somebody's standing alone, I want you to be fearless. I want you to take a deep breath. I want you to say to yourself, nobody's going to die here. I'm going to walk up to this person. I'm going to put my hand out to shake hands. I'm going to introduce myself and I'm going to ask them what they do because remember, people love to talk about themselves. So just let them. Sometimes being quiet means you don't have to come up with all of the things to talk about right away and you can take their conversational lead. So there's somebody that's standing alone. You might walk up to them and just say, hey, my name is Jill. How's it going tonight? I noticed you were standing over here by yourself and I thought I'd come say hi. Or maybe you just walk over and say, hey, my name's Jill. What do you think of the conference so far? What do you think of the meeting so far? And just let the conversation go on its own. It's not always going to turn into some great, you know, networking connection like we're talking about, but it might, right? It might. It's all about just practicing and being able to start talking to people. So here's some other things that you might be able to talk about and these are things that I want you to jot down if any of these kinds of things start to work for you because these can be some of those tips that you try out when you have the opportunity. So you might ask people about, we've talked about this, what they think of the event or what they think about the speaker or what they think about the topics that are being discussed. Or even worse case, you can ask them about the room that you're standing in. Oh, wow, it's a beautiful architecture in this room. I mean, there's always things that you could say. We've got some comments here, so let me see what we've got. I love the Wonder Woman pose, the power pose. I think that's super, super important. So Kate says, if you're really nervous beforehand, go into the restroom, yes, and do the victory pose or the Wonder Woman pose or the power pose, they'll call it. Arms up in a V, it's like Wonder Woman, right, for 10 seconds. There's YouTube videos about this, or not YouTube, TEDx, TED Talks about the power pose and it's very true. It's actually a technique that people will use before interviews. They will go into the restroom and do this. And it's, I mean, you could all do it right now. I'm standing here doing it and you can't see me, which is so great. But I'm standing here doing the power pose. And it truly is, you take a nice deep breath, you lift up your chest, you look feel like Wonder Woman or Superman, and then you just go for it. And then you do have to remember, no one's going to die. Just give this a shot. All right, so here's some other things. Again, if they're wearing a name tag, you can ask them about their name. If somebody has like an interesting name or unusual name or it's a name you really like or your daughter, your son has that name. I mean, that's a reason to strike up a conversation with somebody. Again, the typical, ask them where they work. Ask them about the company where they work. Ask what inspired them to come to the event. I think that's a great, great question. That's one of my favorites. Oh, thanks, Kate. The science behind the TED Talk. Maybe we should do a blog post about that. That'd be kind of fun. So I like, what inspired them to come to the event? Or what are they hoping to get out of the event? Those are great questions. And you've noticed these questions are open-ended questions. They're not the yes, no, you know, closed answer. They're open-ended. You can throw those questions out there and see where the person goes, see where they bite. If you're at an event with people from all around the world, maybe there's very diverse or it's an international crowd, you might ask them where they're from and strike up a conversation about where they're from. If you're in an event for a professional association, which I hope that all of you find yourself in that situation at some point for a professional association, ask people, so what made them become a member, right? Why did they pick ALA or SLA? Ask them or ask how long people have been a member. If all else fails, here's the all else fails, tip in your back pocket. If someone's a sports fan, a lot of people are sports fans, stay up on current sporting events. I think it's football season right now and hockey season. I'm not a sports person, but if there's some big something happening, I do usually know about it and I can usually bring it up and talk about it. And then if that person is a big sports person, they're going to take off and run with it. Amy says, be cautious about asking if someone is as poor as you are because they might not, they might be the speaker. That would be hysterical, frankly, Amy, and that could be a good way to make friends really. You're like, haha, just kidding. It could be a good one. Oh, baseball playoffs are also, thank you, see, I don't know, I don't know that much, but it does, it gets good to always have the sports stuff in your back pocket. So overall, just be curious, right? For some people reaching out to strangers comes naturally, probably not for most of you or you wouldn't be on this workshop tonight. For other people, myself included, it does take practice and it takes time to build up your confidence to the point where you can actually enjoy meeting new people instead of being anxious about it. Things do get easier when you have an opening question that works for you. It also helps that once you realize that often the stranger who's standing in front of you is also looking for a way to reach out to you, too, and it's also hesitating for the same reasons you are, that alone is an interesting conversation starter. So maybe you say something like, isn't it funny? We're both trying to think of something to say first. I mean, there's a lot of ways you can play off this and I kind of think we overthink it and we make ourselves much more anxious and nervous than we have to be. So like I say about interviewing, networking and making connections with people, it's a skill and you can practice and you can get better at it and I can say that from my own experience. People can't believe but when I was a child in particular, I was very, very shy. And then most of my, you know, young adult years, I was very, very shy. And then at some point I just thought, who cares? Just, it doesn't matter anymore. And now I'm just talking to people and it's really fun. So I know there's hope. There's definitely hope. Okay. So another helpful networking tip is to change your personal definition of networking success. We've touched on this just a little bit but again, success means to you that you need to go to a networking event and you've got to work the room, right? I've got kind of air quotes around that. You're going to work the room and you connect with as many people as you can. It's kind of like speed dating, right? That's going to make you feel anxious. That would freak me out. So how many of you think of network or how many of you think, wait, what's the question I want to ask you? Let me think about this. Let me make sure I get this right. So how many of you think about networking in terms of if you were going to a networking event it's like you have to work the room or it is like speed dating? How many of you think that? Let me just see that. Raise your hands. Show them hands. So not too many. Okay, good. Well, that's actually good and then not that many people think that. I always think that that's like something in our head that we feel like if you have to work the room. Okay. So here's an alternative. Consider networking success as meeting and connecting with the minimum of two new people. That takes the pressure off, right? Just thinking of it like that. I'm going to go to this event and if I meet and connect, not just meet, but I connect with two new people and connecting means we talk for a bit. We're going to exchange information. Maybe it's a business card. I'm going to go back afterwards and connect with this person on LinkedIn. Now I've made a solid connection. So if you do that with just two people, a minimum of two people, think about it as success. You've now made a connection. You've made a quality connection versus quantity of connections and then hopefully this is someone that you can actually follow up with. Make sense? All right, another tip. If you are a self-proclaimed introvert or you just prefer less crowded places as an alternative to formal networking venues, make a conscious effort to conduct your networking in less social, more casual and informal settings. So with that, you could reach out on LinkedIn to meet someone for coffee, for example, or you join a meetup group in an area that's of interest to you. And again, as I said before, the interest area doesn't have to relate to the work world. It could be things that you like to do like walking or hiking or cooking or any other kind of interest-based groups. That is a great place to network and talk to people because people know people. So even if you're doing a meetup group that is just a group of people that like to go on hikes, you go and you start talking to people, you're probably going to be surprised that you're going to come across people who maybe also have a master's in library and information science or their neighbor does and their neighbor works with the library, you know, your public library and you're like, oh my gosh, I would love to talk to that person. I mean, crazy things like that happen. So who said this? Was this Kate? No, this was Felicia. So I'm guessing if you don't have a LinkedIn account, you'd be wise to sign up. Yes, that is a very wise thing to do, Felicia. In this day and age, honestly, everyone should have a LinkedIn account. All right, Elijah says, will the Career Center be hosting an event on social networking tips? I thought that topic might be covered tonight. I'm going to talk a little bit about LinkedIn, but LinkedIn, when we talk about that, will be its own separate topic, because that one needs its own hour to go into everything about LinkedIn. There are some that I've done in the past that you can find on the recordings page. I'm not sure if you were on earlier. I think you were on, Elijah, when I showed the page where you can find the recordings to past workshops. There are some there on LinkedIn too. So Kate's LinkedIn is one of your biggest questions. All right, cool. So we will get there and then feel free to ask the questions. Okay, so this one's important. So the one final step that I want to share with all of you, pay attention to this one. Successful networking isn't really successful unless you do one thing. And that one thing is to take action and follow through. Thanks for putting the website up, Kate. Here's how I see it. With every networking connection, there is an opportunity attached to it. And it comes down to whether you choose to act on that opportunity or not. And this is very, very important and I've learned this over time. This is the final step. We might get out there and we might connect with people and we might get a business card and we might connect with them on LinkedIn. And then that's it. We let it die. So if we don't take action and we don't follow through, all those networking connections really don't mean anything. So when you make a connection with somebody, you do want to go back and send a message on LinkedIn or send them an email which is even more personal. Letting them know that you enjoyed the conversation, you enjoyed meeting them. Even if that individual, you know, doesn't have anything useful for you in terms of, they don't work at this company that you are interested in or they're not hiring. You know, a lot of people say, well, if they can't do anything for me, then I'm just going to let it go. That's not what networking is about and that's not what I'm talking about tonight. I'm talking about making connections with people and then you never know when those connections are going to play out. So even if the individual we're talking about doesn't have a job or they don't know someone who knows someone at this moment, those connections are going to pay off for you. So here's something I want to ask you. Think about these questions. Say you hear of a job lead when you are talking to someone. You know, asking you these questions, you can answer them yourself. You don't actually have to answer in person. But you're talking to someone in an event. They go, yeah, you know, I think my company is looking for somebody who has kind of your background. I heard them talking about, you know, we might need somebody who can digitize some information in one of our offices. You know, you might want to follow up and give somebody a call. So my question to you is, do you take action and follow up? Do you take that extra step? Do you ask that person for the name and the contact information of this person that you should follow up with? And then did you follow through and actually contact the person? So that's the final step. If your answers are yes, fantastic. Honestly, if your answers are no, then you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Here's another example. Say you meet a new person at a networking event and they give you their card and they say, give me a call for coffee so we can continue our conversation further. The question is, do you take the next step and follow through? Do you contact them? Do you send the email? Do you go, hey, it was really great to meet with you. I want to give you a call so we can follow up on our conversation and meet for coffee. You know, when are you available? Or I'm available next Friday. Does that work for you? Do you do that? Here's another example I want you to think about. Are you, say you're wrapping up an internship or you're wrapping up a volunteer position that you've had and one of your coworkers gives you the name of someone that she used to work with at another company and recommends that you give this person a call who she used to work with to do an informational interview and check in and see what they might be, you know, they might be doing some hiring or what they've kind of got going on down the road. Question, do you call the person and set something up? Do you follow through and take the next step? That's the important part. Here's another one. Say you're at a San Jose State University or say you meet, say you follow up and say this. Say you follow up with a San Jose State University alum. Maybe you met this person at a professional association and you do meet the person for coffee and the person is asking you at coffee, what type of job you're looking for? And say she says, you know, we aren't hiring right now but we might be in about six months. Why don't you give me a call back then and check in? So my question to you, do you put that on your calendar for six months out and call that person back in six months to follow up? That's the taking action step. So you can see that the follow through in the action is an extremely important element to the success of your networking relationships. So what opportunities might you have missed because you did not follow through on the action step? So making your networking contacts, building your relationships and cultivating your relationships are not going to do you any good if you don't take action and follow through on those potential opportunities. Questions, thoughts, comments? Hi, Jill, this is Amy Nykamp. It's interesting, I wish I'd had this seminar 30 years ago when I first graduated from college with a degree that I wanted to use as a diplomat or a translator, interpreter for the CIA or the State Department or whatever. And I had all sorts of contacts. And I started out pretty strongly with meeting people that my sister would put me in touch with or other people, but I didn't follow up enough and I didn't get any of those jobs. And so 30 years later, I'm starting over with a new career in mind to be a librarian. But who knows what would have happened if I'd had all this at my fingertips 30 years ago? Yeah, that's a good point. But now, at least 30 years later and you're doing something different, you have learned your lessons. And my hunch is you are exactly where you're supposed to be right now for whatever reason you are exactly where you're supposed to be. And going forward with this next career, you will do different and you will do better and you will make the connections. I don't know if I'm going to say it right. It's a show you. Thank you. Yeah, I'll try you. I have a question about informational interviews. Oh, sure. I have been like pushed to conduct informational interviews so that I can figure out where in the library world I want to settle down. But I've kind of reached the point of realizing that I don't know how to conduct an informational interview when I don't have enough information to formulate the questions whose answers will give me the information that I actually need. Does that make sense? Yes. It absolutely makes sense. All right, so two things. So, and I'm not, would you be a favor and post the link? So we have a whole section on the career development site about informational interviewing and the questions, sample questions you can ask, which will be helpful. So I think Kate's on. She might be able to post that for us. And then the other thing is really what, here's what you really want to do. You want to really sit back. Thank you, Kate. You want to sit and you want to think about, okay, I'm going to meet, say you were going to, say you were going to meet with me, right? So you'd sit and you'd think about, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to have this conversation with Jill. And I know Jill does career counseling for library students. And that sounds kind of like an interesting career. But what do I want to know from Jill? So you don't, just personally, you sit there and you think about, what do I really want to know from her? What do I need to know so that I can decide if this kind of job is the right job for me? So the questions are going to be different. So the ones on the website that Kate put up, those are sample questions to give you an idea. And some of those questions might work perfectly for you. And some of the other ones might help you think of the other questions you want to ask. So for example, you want to ask people, first, you know, tell me a little bit about what you do. What's a typical day like? Maybe what's important for you, Shaiyu, and I'm just going to make stuff up. Maybe you're looking for a job that has some flexibility. Maybe you don't want to work a nine to five. You want a flexible job, or you like to work in the evenings, or maybe you like to work on the weekends because that just works better for your life. So you're asking questions about, well, what's the culture like? And what's a typical day like? And what kind of hours do people work? And is there flexible schedules if people go into that line of work? What kind of background do you look for, for people to do that kind of work? How did you get started doing that job? What was your first job? How did you know that was the job that you wanted to do? I mean, you just sit and you think about what is it that you need to know to decide if that's the right thing for you? And that's how you formulate your questions. So it's almost like you're working backwards. So I hope that makes sense. Did that answer your question? Because you and I can always talk and email back and forth offline, too. It's a start. Thank you. Okay. Keep follow up with me. We can talk more about it, okay? Okay, great. Okay. So here's a little bit about social media. The use of social media makes it absolutely possible for you to be connected to hundreds of people, which in turn really opens up the possibilities of what is possible using your connections, right? Because the same principles we've been talking about apply to online social networking as well, meaning with online networking, you still can't just hide behind your computer. You've still got to get out there. You still have to meet people. You still have to talk to people face to face, whether they're geographically close and you go meet for coffee or lunch, whether they're international and you set up a Skype or Google Chat so you can actually see people and talk to people. You still have to make those connections and get out there, but you can use social networking as a way to find some of those people. So here are a couple of tips. This is one. This is called the LinkedIn Alumni Tool. How many of you are familiar with this? So that's kind of what I was afraid of. One person. It's an awesome tool, but a few students actually know about it or how to use it. So I put the, it's linkedin.com slash alumni. So what you're going to go in, see where I have it circled up at the top. So you have your LinkedIn profile, you're going to go under my network and it will actually say alumni. So you're going to go to this alumni tool. Where I have it circled here, it's a library and information science. You can put in whatever major you want to put in, but I put in this particular major. And this is showing San Jose State. So this is going to be showing people, you can see there's 6,689 people that pop up right here who have gone to San Jose State and have a library and information science degree. Where it says where they live, where they work, what they do. This changes, right? This is always going to change. You have to open up the page. There's other options as well. You could look into things like where they live, which we have, where they work, what they do. These are the other options that you can't see from this screenshot, but what they do, what they studied, what they're skilled at. I think it's really important to see what their skills are. And then you can see also how you're connected. But it's fun to play around with this because then you can see what are the different kinds of things people are doing with this major. What are some of the different places they're working and what are the skills that they have? And then you can start to identify some people and then this is another way to connect with them and reach out to them. So all of the graphs, again, this is just a screenshot so you're not being able to see how it can move, but all these graphs are very interactive and you can filter all this alumni data so it just kind of gets some of the results that you're looking for. So I highly encourage you to find some time, spend some time here playing around with this. And then it's almost like you can stalk people. And I mean, it's in a good way because you can actually, like I said, where are they working? You know, what are they doing? Let me look at their profile. Let me see the first job that they had. You can check all this kind of stuff out and it's really, really super cool. So that is a great way to make connections with people who went to the same school that you are going to and have the same major. So Kate says, say you find people you actually want to connect with. Do you send them a message saying hi and blah blah blah? No, it's not weird at all. That's a perfect thing to do. So you could say it's exactly that, you know. Hi, I'm Kate. I noticed through LinkedIn that you also went to San Jose State University and you majored in Library and Information Science. I'm a current student. I highly recommend using the student card, right? You can get away with a lot being a student. So I'm a current student. I'm interested in, I'm just going to make something up from what we can see. I'm interested in corporate librarianship and I see that you're working at Apple. And I would love it if I could take 15 minutes of your time and talk with you on the phone about what you do at Apple with your library degree. That's it, right? So send a message, reach out. Again, these are your people. These are people who went to the same school or the same major. They want to help you. They remember what it was like to be in your shoes. So don't feel weird. Don't feel uncomfortable. And here's the thing. We're all grown-ups. If for some reason a person doesn't want to get back to you or doesn't respond, then they don't. And carry on. Go pick somebody else. It's not like they're going to remember your name and they stick it up on a board and that Kate Davis, I'm never going to talk to her. You know, no one's going to remember that stuff. Just reach out and talk to people. Be professional. Be appropriate. Don't be pesty. Don't be annoying. You know, maybe you reach out twice if they don't get back to you, let it go. Okay. All right. One more thing I want to show you. That's good. That's Kate says plus, Alice, people are generally pretty nice. I would say so as well. All right, here's another cool thing. So again, this is still on LinkedIn. Up at the top, so you've got your profile. You go in. You go to interest. I circled interest. Under interest are going to be groups. And I hope that you have joined groups. This particular one that I've brought up is the San Jose State University School of Information Group. This has 2,000 people. Not a lot compared to some groups, but 2,000 is still a lot more than you've got right now, right? So join the group and you'll be able to join because whoever's at the administrator will see that you are going to school here so they'll put you into the group. Here's the important part that I want you to pay attention to. When you join this group, you are now automatically connected to all of these members, all these 2,170 people. You are now connected to them. So right here where I circled members, you could actually put in a particular person's name if there's somebody you were looking for. And then when it pops up, because your members are already connected, you could automatically send them a message because you are connected to them already. It's super cool. But again, a lot of people don't know about it. So I want you to go in and play with it so you can see what I'm talking about. And then if you have any questions, feel free to email me. Let me see if there's anything else I want to tell you on here. Oh, I might have it on the next slide, do I? I don't. Okay, let me go back here. So for example, under interest, you might join the ALA group on LinkedIn. That does not mean that you necessarily have to have paid for the professional association for ALA. You could be an ALA member on LinkedIn through their group. That's different. So that means then, if I put in under interest and I brought up ALA, however many members there are that way, I would have access to all those people to send them messages too. So you can see we're just using LinkedIn as your one piece of social media. You are now going to be connected to thousands more people who are in the same interest field that you are. All right, let me check some chat. We've got some stuff going on here. Oh, what do you think they changed it to, Kim? I was playing with it just the other night. And it did, I was a member of like this group and it allowed me to send a message. But let me know if you think they changed something. And then Kate's put up another blog post for us. So go in and play. It's a great way to connect. Okay, how much time? We've got just a little bit of time so I just want to point out a few more good resources for you. Here are the alumni career spotlights. This is actually on the School of Information's website. You'll find it under people. And you can find alumni career spotlights. So what you could do here is you could go in and you can check out what our alums are doing. And if they're doing something that's of interest to you, then by all means reach out to them and ask to do that informational interview. Hey, you're doing exactly what I want to do when I finish with my MLIS. Could I set up some time to talk with you on the phone because I want to hear all about how you got started. Right? These are people. Again, these are your people. They were right where you are. So check them out, research and reach out. Kim says, I read recently that they were turning this capability off but they may have gotten too many complaints for doing that. Let's hope because it's one of the best. I find it one of the best reasons to be using LinkedIn. So let's hope it's still there. I was playing around just a couple of nights ago though when I was putting these slides together and I thought I was able to still pull up the member spot and send someone a message. OK, so that's career spotlights. You also want to do community profiles. So again, that's under people, community profiles. These are your people. These are either current students, recent grads, older alums. You can read about what they're doing, how they're using their MLIS. And if it's interesting to you, reach out to them. If you can't connect with them somehow, they didn't give contact information in their profile or they're not a current student, look them up on LinkedIn. And I'll bet you can find them and send them a message that way. And these are going to be the friendliest people. These are, I mean, you don't know them so you could say they're strangers, but they're not really strangers because these are your people. They all want to help you. OK, questions before I move on? All right, I get this question all the time. So people ask me, how do I keep networking connections alive? So these are just a few of my own personal tips. I would love to hear from all of you. But these are some things that I do to keep my connections still connections. I've, you know, for an example, I still am connected with an old supervisor who I stopped working for 14 years ago. And she is still a person that I always use for a reference when I'm getting a job. I mean, it's been that long ago because I keep in contact with her. How do I do it? I always send a birthday message. So I make sure with my connections, and these are my good connections, right? These aren't just like people I just barely met. But the people that I've worked with and old bosses and people, I will find out what their birthdays are. And I put it in my calendar, and each year, like January each year, I create my new calendar for the coming year, and I put people's birthdays on there. And I send either a birthday card, which is always fabulous because nobody does that anymore. But if I forget, and I was running out of time, I may send them a personal email. I try to avoid just the Facebook, hey, happy birthday, because everybody does that, and you want it to be somewhat special. So an email is good. You could put a cute little picture in your email if you wanted to, or send them a card. That's a great way, even if it's once a year, just to check in with somebody. You can always send a holiday greeting. Could be a New Year's card. Could be a Valentine's card. Could be Christmas if you do that. Whatever, send somebody a card. It's fun. Felicia says, what if you have an old friend you hardly connect with, but they work in a place you're hoping to work at or a place similar, is it odd to reach out to them through Facebook? I don't think it's odd anymore, especially through Facebook. I think that's what social media and Facebook are really about. So I think it'd be absolutely appropriate. In fact, you could say, hey, we haven't talked in so long. I'm currently going to library school. I wonder what you're up to. Let's get together and have coffee, something like that. Thinking of that, I have a friend, or the third bullet point, meet up for coffee or lunch. I have a friend who I just met a couple of weeks ago for dinner. We met at our very first real jobs, so that was holy smokes. That was like 30 years ago, and we still meet once a year, at least, that's probably just really about once a year, but for dinner. And after all this time, and it always feels like no time has passed, but we still keep that connection. So you don't have to meet and talk with people a lot, but sometimes once a year is all it is, but it keeps it going. So you come across an interesting article and it makes you think about somebody that you know. Send it to them. Hey, came across this article, made me think about you, thought I'd share it with you, hope all is great. Maybe let's get together soon for coffee, something like that. Maybe you get a new job, or for a lot of you that you're in library school right now, information school, and maybe some of your contacts don't know that you've made this change, or that you're interested in making this career change, could be a really good reason to reach out to them. And just kind of keep them up to date on what's going on with you. If you are going to be going to a conference or a workshop, you could check in with one of your networking people, your contacts, and just say, hey, I'm going to the conference next week in Chicago, and I was just wondering if you were going to go, it would be great to meet up with you. Whether they go or they don't go, it was a way to reach out and connect with them. If they are going to go, then it's fabulous that you get to meet up with them. So these are just a few of my tips. If you have any tips that you like to use to keep in contact with people, please go ahead and type them in so we can share. But these are just great, great things that have worked for me personally over time. My last key points, do find your own networking style. There is not one style, right? What works for you? What's your personality? And find a way that fits. When you make a connection with somebody, cultivate it, right? And remember this one, I think it's one of the most important ones with each networking connection. There is that opportunity attached to it. So take your action and follow through. Don't just let that networking opportunity die. Take that next step. And always ask yourself, are you making the best use of your networking connections? And that's really it. So we have about two minutes left. I appreciate all the questions that came in through the workshop. If you have something else you want to share, please do. Kate, you want to pick up the mic? Hello. Thank you so much for this great webinar. I've learned a lot. I'm inspired now. I do have a question about reaching out and connecting with the people in our classes. Because if you think about it, they are the perfect people to reach out to. A lot of them are in the field or just getting started. So they're great resources. So in the years that I've been in grad school, I've really tried to reach out and connect with people and say, do you want to connect on Facebook or keep in touch via email? Then they always say yes, but then there's no follow through on their part. And then I'm left thinking, what do I do? Do they not want to connect with me? Is it, are they just not comfortable? I don't know what the next step of taking action is there. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a really good question. And other people feel free to type that time in your answers as well. But my hunch is that people get so busy that they actually forget. And they just don't pick it up. And then some time has gone by and then they feel awkward. So then they just let it die. So what you could do is take the initiative and put it out there again. And I would be okay to put it out there, you know, two times, a couple times. And then if you don't get anything back, if you're the only one that's putting on the effort in, then I might let that one go and I might move over somewhere else where you're sort of, you're getting something back. But I tend to think of it as, I think it's natural that we always tend to take things personally. Why isn't that person calling me back? What's wrong with me? You know, we kind of go there. And I think the reality is that mostly we're busy and sometimes people forget. I think a good, here's a perfect example actually. A friend of mine, actually it was the friend I told you about that we meet once a year. So I had dinner with her probably three weeks ago and her husband had recently got laid off. So her husband, and I know her husband. So he had, he sent me a message on LinkedIn the next day that said, hey, you know, I don't know if you heard that I got laid off. I'd like to meet with you at coffee so we could talk some strategy. So I'm like, yeah, that's great. Let me check my calendar. Well, I totally forgot to check my calendar, right? So just today, it's been three weeks. Just today I sent her a message. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Here's the dates I can meet. I would love to. So it really was one of those things where I forgot and he could be thinking, oh man, she just blew me off. She doesn't really want to meet with me, you know? So I tend to think it's those situations. So hopefully that helps. I was looking at Elijah's. You're very welcome.