Now is the time to differentiate your personal brand so will stand out from the ever-increasing crowd of job seekers. One of the best ways you can do that is with recommendations. Yes, we are back to talking about networking, which is your best source for recommendations.
One of the things that I have discovered recently through our NETSHARE Regional Meetings is that executives tend to view recommendations and referrals, and networking in general, either as a transactional process or a relational process. If you think of networking as transactional, then every recommendation becomes a trade, a quid pro quo, which limits your overall networking potential and, I believe, brings the value of some of those recommendations into question. If you think of recommendations as relational, then you are required to establish a relationship with the other party prior to offering a recommendation. This means you have to put “skin in the game,” and get to know the other party before you can offer a recommendation, and vice versa. These kinds of recommendations are more reliable, since the prerequisite is an established relationship and some deeper knowledge of skills and capabilities.
LinkedIn is a good place to start refreshing your recommendations. All of our career coaches note that anything you accomplished before one or two years ago has no value in today’s job market, so you should seek out recommendations from recent colleagues, customers, and clients. Using LinkedIn, you can either make requests directly of your network contacts, or you can do what Jason Alba recommended in our most recent Experts Connection session, rely on your networking karma. Make recommendations for people you know and have worked with in your LinkedIn network and they will, most likely, reciprocate without prompting.
This is what I like to think of as the ecosystem of interdependence. If you help others, they will naturally want to help you in return. That’s why personal networking is so important. It’s one thing to gather LinkedIn recommendations, but it’s something else to get one of your associates to surrender a valued contact with a recommendation. Meet your contacts face to face whenever you can to establish the kind of rapport you need to get those valued referrals, with a recommendation. That’s why we created the NETSHARE Area Meetings, to give executives a monthly meeting place to get know one another, and to build value in those relationships.
If you haven’t been to an Area Meeting, now is the perfect time to start. The next monthly meetings start next week so be sure to check out a meeting in your area. It’s time to get connected!
