Meghan Mathias, Staff Writer
Networking is an essential skill to develop during your college years. Though it is important to know how to network with others, it is often met with much resistance because the subject of networking is one that brings on feelings of confusion and fear among others. The good news is that there is hope because there are a variety of ways to learn how to network with professionals for a job after graduation.
Networking is simply an interaction with other professionals to get better acquainted with people in the field that one wants to obtain a job in. This can be with one single person in a company or it can be with multitudes of people in the generic field of your choice: either way, it is a great benefit to build relationships with people who already have jobs that you want to have after graduation. There are a number of ways to network with other professionals, which makes the process of networking one that is very rewarding and hopefully without any confusion.
One of the best ways to network is to attend social gatherings that schools or companies host. Saint Leo has networking intertwined within the school because of their alumni. Past graduates from Saint Leo often get together and this can be a good opportunity to network with others who have once been students at Saint Leo because they can tell you of what is to come after graduation occurs and that there is an amazing life to be lived outside of Saint Leo. The alumni have jobs that could interest students who currently study at Saint Leo and they have connections within their company for more graduates of Saint Leo to take a hold of. It’s also helpful to know that when networking, a person does not have to have a complete transformation on their personality. People are still allowed and even encouraged to have the same personality with the actions of being friendly and respectful prevalent in their meetings.
Professionals like to see the uniqueness of a person but they also like to see that students can be genuine towards them. When business cards are handed out, make sure that you write the name and date of the event that you first met, to make contacting in the future easier to do and it also shows that you remember when you met. A unique tip when e-mailing a person that you have begun to network with is in the ‘subject’ line of the e-mail personalize it by inserting their name into the subject along with a interesting sentence such as ‘it was great meeting you at ___’, this not only shows that you are very interested in establishing a better relationship with that specific individual but it also shows that students can be unique in trying to contact someone, whom is often very busy.
Another great example to have a better networking experience is to ask questions that are open-ended (questions that ask who, what, where, when and why) to gain the most knowledge about the company that one can gain. These type of questions allow for a better conversation when networking with others and also make the conversation flow better which definitely helps in carrying a conversation with someone that you do not know very well.
Networking can be tricky to maneuver but the outcome far outweighs the obstacles that present themselves during networking. Using the tips above, networking will become something that is effortless in the future. Networking is a great tool to advance your knowledge of the novel careers that one can get after graduating and it is also a great way to enhance the chances of getting a job after graduation, which is the end goal upon graduation.
