At Career Prep Weekend (CPW), we’ll have a slew of impressive industry practitioners. You know what that means — great networking opportunities! Making a good impression can create a lasting connection and potentially open the door to career opportunities. But… how do you actually do that?
Many students (myself included) have a love/hate relationship with networking. While it’s clear that there’s great potential, the process tends to feel daunting, stressful, and tiring. I totally get it:
If you find networking overwhelming or struggle to answer these questions, I’d like to offer my Comprehensive Guide to Networking™️ — a collection of advice from my own experiences (on both ends of networking events) and borrowed advice I’ve received over the years:
Do you remember during freshman-year orientation when you had a hundred students come up to you and ask you the same 3 questions?
“What’s your name?” ”What’s your major?” “What do you like to do for fun?”
BORING! Just how you felt in those repetitive conversations is exactly how industry practitioners feel getting asked and answering the same basic questions over and over again. Successful networking is a product of asking good questions — those that lead the conversation in fresh and interesting directions. If you struggle to come up with questions on-the-spot, here’s a simple preparation process:
Familiarize yourself with who you might expect at the event and figure out who you are most eager to meet. For each person, dive into their educational history, job history, publications, etc. What questions do you have about their work? What are you curious to know about them?
Bonus: Memorize names and faces if you can. This will not only help you easily locate the people you want to talk to at the event, but also allow you to use their name in conversation.
Believe it or not, they want to get to know you too! If you’ve only prepared to ask questions and not answer questions, you risk being thrown off guard and rambling to overcompensate. You should be able to concisely voice your thoughts, opinions, and motivations about your academics and industries/roles of interest. Even if they don’t explicitly ask, you can incorporate your key points to make it feel more like a conversation and less like an interrogation. Consider answers to questions like: