5 Ways To Master The Art of Career
Career networking is an excellent skill to learn and develop for a healthy professional life. It is not only important but, in fact, essential if you aspire to lay the foundations of a solid and flourishing career.
Career Networking involves conscious and planned investment towards building mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with your colleagues, friends, family, and professionals from previous organizations or even completely different fields altogether. It acts as a safety net that you can resort to while shifting jobs or climbing the success ladder.
You can create an informative and highly competitive space to remain motivated and diligently focus on your career goals by networking. You can also utilize the resources and opportunities shared in your network to skill up, advance your capabilities, and pursue the job of your dreams.
Here are five ways to master the art of career networking and bridge the distance between you and your dream career –
- Invest efforts in building relationships with the people around you –
Career networking largely depends on the value of your relationship with the members of your network. It is crucial to nourish these relationships and remain on good terms with the people around you. Only when you respect and value your equations with your network can you be in a position to appeal for help or seek advice, etc., at any given point when need be.
It would help if you also put effort into building an esteemed personality, appreciated and admired by the people around you. For this, you must be authentic, considerate, and approachable.
- Retain and maintain those relationships even after you switch workplaces-
It is easy to build and maintain relationships with your immediate colleagues with whom you have to interact daily. But the task is to retain the value of these relations even after you switch places and drift apart in your professional lives. Leaving your previous company on good terms becomes extremely important in career networking and otherwise.
When you leave companies on good notes, you allow the possibility of returning to your previous employers, colleagues, etc. You can confidently reach out to them whenever you require their assistance in your professional journey.
- Expand your network by connecting with successful, hardworking professionals active online-
Besides connecting with the professionals in your immediate circle, you must also seek mutual connections. And even lookout for unknown successful professionals and attempt intelligent ways to communicate with them. You can then gradually work towards augmenting those connections over time.
- Engage with the professionals in your network and assist them by sharing resources and opportunities whenever possible-
A golden rule in career networking is being active and engaging, especially on social media platforms. LinkedIn is the most appropriate platform for career networking. It is free from the clutter usually found on other social media platforms.
It is crucial you actively share your thoughts, ideas, resources, and opportunities around you with your network to be in a position to receive the same from your network.
In its simplest sense, career networking is a give-and-take practice in a professional setting.
- Support and root for the professionals in your network when they succeed-
When you consolidate relevant information and resources and share them across with your network, you will indefinitely receive appreciation from them directly or indirectly. You must follow suit and practice the habit of rooting and appreciating the members of your network whenever they achieve success or reach milestones.
This consistent showering of acknowledgments results in authentic relations. When you share genuine respect and admiration, you are more likely to be heard and helped when in need which is precisely the whole point behind career networking.
Once you establish your network, actively engage and create a noticeable online presence, you can seek help efficiently. Be thoughtful as you navigate your connections, and be sure to choose the right person before making any appeals. It is always better to resort to strong connections for advice, favors, or other bits of help.
Career Networking does not have a foreseeable end, just as the future. It is a continuous cycle of building new ties and strengthening those ties. You have to consistently expand your connection to secure the future possibilities as much as possible.