When I met with my career coach yesterday, I was feeling less than generous about my networking efforts thus far. Two weeks after my job search declaration, I had no concrete leads on job openings that I might qualify for, let alone anyone at those companies to serve as a referral. In light of that, I’ve decided to make a list of as many tangible gains I can think of from those meetings to remind myself that 1) progress has been made, and 2) broaden my mindset when it comes to defining networking.
Since I began reaching out to contacts, I have:
- access to a real coding challenge used by a successful start-up
- been connected to a weekly meetup which I will attend for the first time tonight
- had my resume and LinkedIn materials critiqued and reworked
- gotten added to two additional Slack channels
- signed up for two Udemy courses to continue educating myself during this process
- practiced and refined my answers to major cultural interview questions
- accessed three additional job boards that I was not previously aware of
- been offered introductions by a recruiter in the event that an affiliated position opens up
It’s actually a substantial amount when taken as a whole. I think the most important thing that is not immediately apparent when reading it though is that every person from whom I received this info was someone who already had a fairly direct connection to me, whether person or through a common organizational affiliation. Every attempt I’ve made to reach out to someone without those shared elements has been unsuccessful. My hope is that over the next week or two, I am able to come up with a better strategy for initiating contact with them on which I can report back.