Networking from home
With meetings and conventions having moved online, now might be the perfect time to freshen up your contact base by reaching out to those with more time and willingness to talk
Maybe you were never comfortable networking at the office or striking up a conversation over a boxed lunch at a convention, but after half a year working inside your own four walls, oh, the chance to meet new people!
Pandemic or no, for people who want to accelerate learning about new subjects, strengthen career prospects or meet social goals, “networking is at the heart of finding opportunities and exploring them,” according to Miranda Kalinowski, head of global recruiting for Facebook. Fortunately, while team meetings and industry conventions have moved online, the new normal has opened as many doors as it has closed.
Expand your network
Connections can and should come from every facet of your life, including your civic, school and social groups, Kalinowski said.
They can also be discovered in new settings, perhaps on the neighborhood walks you take to break up the work-from-home day. People you reach out to may be more open to connecting now, Kalinowski said, because they are no longer commuting or taking business trips, and have more time to talk.
If the people already in your network are much like you in their education, race, geography and industry, focus on diversifying, said Amy Waninger, author of “Network Beyond Bias.” It’s also OK to join groups that “are not ‘for you,’ ” she said. “Say you are there to listen and learn — then do that.” Women, for example, may want men at their conferences to hear about the problems they are facing, “not to tell us what to do,” she said, but so they can help fix the office environment.
Kalinowski said you could also diversify your network by aiming for more “cognitive friction” — connecting with people who have different ways of approaching problems and getting things done or have different priorities or values.
Go beyond geography
The pandemic has leveled the playing field in some ways, said Tiana S. Clark, who has worked as an Air Force intelligence analyst, public school teacher and now in Chicago as a sales director for Microsoft. People aren’t bound by location, personal obligations or financial circumstance that had prevented them from being able to attend conferences or join after-work events.
Networking from home can even offer higher-quality interactions, she said, because “you are reaching out to someone intentionally, someone you’ve done a little research on in advance, not just striking up a conversation with whoever you run into at a conference.”
There are a plethora of professional and interest-based organizations online to join. A few Kalinowski recommends are Fairy Godboss and Power to Fly, which connect women with job openings and career advice, and Stack Overflow for software developers to learn and
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