Networking for Success!

May 26, 2009 by: Peter B. Giblett

Career outlooks within IT are changing at the current time. Over the last year there has been a major change within corporate IT.

Staying in work or getting a new job depend largely on having a strong network. Within your network quality is usually more important than quantity. However you may need to build a large network in order to make that all important connection that results in the next job.

Please leave comments about your own networking experiences. I think this is an area where we can all continue to learn and share our best tips

Building a network usually means talking to people, connecting. Traditionally this has been done face to face, which has often been difficult for technologists. However the world is now changing, which is in part good news for tech folk. We are now able to leverage social media as a way to build our network. Mind you it is important to turn electronic connections into real ones.

This necessitates talking to people, either by picking up the phone, using email, etc. Quality is certainly more important than quantity when it comes to building an active network, but today you do have to talk to a wider audience in order to guarantee success. Tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others will help you grow your network and make new connections. I believe that it is best to build a wide set of connections on-line in order to connect with those that can help you, but you MUST always treat every new connection as a previous jewell. You are privileged to be a part of their network. Not the other way around!

Networking is about helping the other person, not about YOU! You win as a consequence of offering assistance. Part of the problem is that the whole process can seem very slow. You do have to remain focused on your goal in order to succeed. Payback will eventually come.

So as I previously said IT has changed. The new world leaves us with smaller corporate IT departments. So we do have to be more incentive in the work that we do and we certainly need to have a Plan B that will get us through the lean times.

The future is going to be a complex one and we may have to be incentive in order to survive. Trouble is we have invested heavily in our skill-set in the first place.