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Building a career is not all about “what you know” but also “who you know”.
Don’t get it twisted; your skills, hard work, knowledge, and years of experience are essential to getting the professional recognition you desire, but do you know what would make the lonely journey easier and faster? A professional network!
What is a Professional Network?
A professional network refers to your connections, contacts, and relationships in your chosen career path. And the process of building these interactions is simply referred to as “professional networking.”
You can leverage a professional network to build your profile, get new opportunities, embrace new perspectives, and build confidence, among other things.
Professional networking is a lifeline for business/career success, and your question should be, “How do I build and leverage a professional network?
In this article, we have put together easy-to-practice tips on how to build and leverage a professional network. See them below;
5 Easy Steps to Building and Leveraging a Professional Network
- Reconnect with past relationships.
You mustn’t burn bridges because you do not know who you need tomorrow. For all you know, that old colleague you despised could become a decision-maker in your industry tomorrow.
- Choose Quality Over Quantity
For a platform like LinkedIn, look out for individuals, experts, influencers, or companies with a firm or growing voice in your industry, and follow them. Don’t follow anyone because that could flood your feed with unnecessary content, making you miss out on relevant information in your industry or career interest.
- Connect with Others Genuinely – Don’t wait till you need something from them
Social media has made it easy to connect with organisations and individuals but ensure that you are professional in your approach before getting too comfortable or making requests. Ensure that your online presence also exudes professionalism; you can share relevant articles or content there frequently.
- Attend Virtual Webinars, Mentorship Programmes, Career Fairs, and Relevant Conferences
Virtual meetings are excellent ways to meet new people and industry experts at almost no cost. Many of these events require you to sign up online by filling out a form, where your basic details, including your email address, are retrieved.
Whatever they might be sharing in the future – industry insights, educative information, and so on- would also get to you.
And that brings us to the need for you to sign up for newsletters from reputable organisations in your industry or area of interest.
For example, if you want weekly insights on building your career, you should sign up for TweakMyContent Newsletter. There, we give weekly insights on how to develop your career, brand yourself for career success, and other related content. You can sign up in 1 minute.
Attend physical events in your industry as often as you can as well. Be intentional about meeting new people, but never be pushy about it.
Remember that it is not only about building relationships. You must be intentional about nurturing them because every relationship will prove itself useful one way or the other.