Networking with Friends and Family

Developing a list of target organizations and people that work at those target companies should be one the first tasks of your job search. This list of target organizations helps friends and family to understand the kinds of companies that hire people like you. Oddly enough our family and closest friends don't really understand the work that we do.

Try to be very clear with those that are trying to help you. For an example, I am looking for an engineering job for a water district. Give them a small list of companies that you are targeting (EBMUD, Dublin/San Ramon Water District, etc.)and ask them if they know anyone that works in those organizations. They may surprise by saying why don't you check into company xyz, because they are a competitor and I know the CFO. That would be an ideal response, it helps you to expand your target list and identifies and inside contact.

Networking with colleagues is a more effective method of networking; after all they know your work skills and the industry. Former colleagues can be helpful with the brainstorming, since they worked with you and understand your expertise. Often this “brainstorming” with old colleagues can lead you to explore ancillary job positions with former suppliers or customers where your experience and skill will be valued. Colleagues can help you identify target organizations and
introduce you to someone who works in the target organization.

Colleagues are going to be less helpful, if you want to change careers or your industry is retrenching and no jobs are available. For example: jobs in real estate and banking in 2008 and 2009 were very scarce; construction had virtually halted and loans were impossible to get. Job seekers in those industries had to transfer to other industries. In cases like this, I ask the job seeker to make up a list of 50 companies that interest them within a 15 or 20 minute drive from their house.

I ask the job seeker to rank the companies based on his/her interest in the organization: A, B, or C. Finally, I ask for the top 5 and I give the assignment for the job seeker to research the company, look open positions that are posted on their website, or other job boards like www.indeed.com
or posted on www.linkedin.com.

www.linkedin.com is a very useful site for job seekers because it can be used to research potential job positions and people that have those jobs. For example, Pacific Gas and Electric has over 10,000 employee profiles on Linkedin. You scroll down and view every job that every person has. Let's say that PG&E is one of your top A targets. They have 84 job postings listed today. They have a Manager of Materials position posted for Fremont. You happen to be an expert in warehouse operations for the construction industry. You are now more interested in PG&E because they have been in the news about the need to upgrade their infrastructure. You are starting to develop a
story of why they should be interested in you.

You can do and “advanced search” in Linkedin and look up people who work in “warehouse operations” at PG&E. You will come up with a long list, some not helpful, but a few that are very valuable. If you only have the basic free version of Linkedin you may have to do some further searching using Google to get enough information to contact the person. Why contact them, well they can tell you how they got their job at PG&E. They can tell you if they like the work and
what the culture is like. And they have the potential of helping you land a job. They could potentially walk your resume into the hiring manager.

Compared to family and colleagues where your ties are very strong, your connection to people that you learn about by doing research on the internet is very weak. You can strengthen the tie by asking your strong connections to introduce you to the person you discovered on the internet. You may belong to a job networking group like the one I host on Monday nights at St. Raymond in Dublin or St. Isidore in Danville has a networking group on Monday evenings. These kinds of groups are where job seekers come together to help each other. It is a good place to find people who know people who work in organizations that you are targeting.