Vaclav 🧭 Sulista

Networking should not be about you, but it should be about the other person. What we do so every single day on LinkedIn is the following scenario: A new contact approaches you; the second message is about selling something or asking for a job! How annoying is that? The only way to succeed with your networking efforts is to do something other than just doing networking purposefully!

Unless you are an artist,. musician or professional sportsman I would fully focus on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best platform to transport your professional brand. The best way to do it is to produce content, that is adding value to your community and shows your professional skills. Creating a regular newsletter is something that helps a lot. Not only you can demonstrate your knowledge, newsletters are a great resource of new connections. If someone is subscribing to your newsletter and you are not connected yet, a short thank you message in a connection request leads in most of the cases to a new connection.

The major mistake what most people are doing is that they network in a "purpose-driven" way. " I am going to talk with this person and they will do business with me". First of all, networking is never about you and your need for doing business, but it should be around the other person. And in most of the cases, it's not the person you are going to network with, that will buy some from you, but people will recommend you to others. So be interested in other people, in their careers etc. and don't try to sell anything.

Only highly ignorant people are going to a job interview without doing in-depth research not only about the basic numbers like turnover, employees, main competitors etc. but as well about the company's culture and values. I strongly recommend visiting websites like www.kununu.com to read reviews from the employees.

It's straightforward. You should hire me, because my skills and experience perfectly matches the requirements of your job description. Should I elaborate a littel more in detail? I wouldn't talk too much about the career goals, as most companies do not care about your goals, but about how you can contribute to their success.

There is a famous misinterpretation that only extroverts are great networkers. Introverted people do not have that many connections, but qualitative better ones. I strongly recommend reading the book "Networking for People Who Hate Networking" by Devora Zack. This book is an excellent myth-buster about networking from the point of view of an introvert. I am an extrovert in real life and digitally shy. So, creating connections on LinkedIn with new people was a big issue five years ago. Today, it is a routine for me and does not hurt.