Networking? I Don’t Know What to Say! | No BS Job Search Advice

Alex Freund is a New Jersey-based career coach. He posted a message in his feed on LinkedIn and invited a number of us to comment.

He wrote, ” Often, when I prod my clients to do more networking they say, “but I don’t know what to say”. While this for me comes naturally I can appreciate that introverts have some challenges. For those, here is a list of topics to ease into a networking conversation: career progression opportunities, ask about company culture, their management and organization, how about their learning and development programs, employees’ job satisfaction,  any innovation and technology, diversity, and inclusion, life balance, and wellbeing, change or stability and I can go on and on. Remember that you can practice such topics initially with friends and family members. If you feel comfortable only then expand such with your network. “

I thought many of his recommendations as being related to informational interviews.

Thus, I replied:

What you offered were questions I associate with informational interviewing, rather than networking because they don’t sound like relationship-building questions. They sound like the questions that can be asked when someone is trying to find out about an organization. I’ll defer to two interviews I did with Michelle Tillis Lederman, CSP, SCC, Leadership Speaker Lederman https://youtu.be/DXJ8rpsy7z4 and Kelly Hoey – Networking Expert 📖🎙🚕🐧🏡📚https://wp.me/p4aIk1-fIk

 

Alex’s advice will be helpful to many of you. So will mine.

 

ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

Jeff Altman, The Big Game HunterJeff 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, all 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 more than 1900 episodes, and is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council.

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