How Do I Stay in Touch on LinkedIn or After an Informational Interview?

How Do I Stay in Touch on LinkedIn or After an Informational Interview? | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Someone wrote wanting a few ideas about how to stay in contact with someone. It’s easy!

An Outline for An Informational Interview

Someone wrote to me with the question that basically translates into, “how do I stay in contact with someone on LinkedIn or after an informational interview without seeming like a pest?”

I would hate it when people would call me up every day, twice a day  and go, “Hey!  What’s going on?”  They try to be “friendly.”  I understood what they were trying to do.  They want to stay in contact.  But when I worked in search, my job was not just to help this person for the job, but to help hundreds of people find jobs.  What they were doing was taking me away from the things that I need to do to help them and everyone else. I understand the game plan is to be top of mind.  But these days, it is a lot easier than it used to be.

You used to have to call.  I remember when an old girlfriend would mail articles to people.  She would complement of a newspaper, scotch tape them onto a piece of paper, mail them to someone.  That’s the way it was in The Stone Ages.  These days, it is a lot easier.  Here are a few very simple ideas.

The 1st thing is sharing stuff that you think would be relevant.  That’s all my old girlfriend, quite obviously.  The easiest way to do it is when you spot something on Facebook or LinkedIn that is relevant, forward it to them. You can also subscribe to a service like feedly.  Feedly basically works with RSS feeds and will deliver information to you on your phone or on the web that you could, again, share with someone.

You can also continue the conversation over the course of time.  For example, he met someone for an informational interview.  You are involved in the conversation on LinkedIn.  Continue the conversation consists of something along the ones of, “I was thinking about what we spoke about and something came to mind.”  It can also be an article that you found that relates to the conversation.  For example, they shared something about their wife/husband/partner, whomever it is and you think it might be interesting to them.  Forwarded to them.  Drop them a note.  As I’m recording this, is a few weeks before Christmas, maybe you’ve not stated in as good a contact as you might have.  My thing is that Christmas and New Year’s times are a great time to network with people who you have contact with in the past.  Drop a note and say, “I was getting ready for the grace and your name came to the top of my mind  and I thought I would connect with you and maybe we can get together in January.”

You can also do the occasional note in the mail that says, “let’s get together on a few weeks and talk about opportunities I’m looking at, get your input . . . Any number of things that allow you to talk about continuing the conversation helps to build the relationship.

Follow me on Facebook.  Follow them on twitter. Comment to them.  Share articles.  Share meaningful quotes to you.  As I get carried away with some of the meaningful quotes. You want to share things that are purposeful because, again, the idea is to continue a professional conversation with someone you don’t know personally all that well.

Those are a few ideas.  There are hundreds of things that you can do to continue the conversation.

[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRBiM3ppe8E[/svp]

Questions to Ask on an Informational Interview

ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.

Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? People hire me to provide No BS career advice whether that is about a job search, hiring better, leadership, management or support with a workplace issue. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us 

My courses are available on my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us/courses The courses include ones about Informational Interviews, Interviewing, final interview preparation, salary negotiation mistakes to avoid, the top 10 questions to prepare for on any job interview, and starting a new job.

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