Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with Barbara Safani, owner of Career Solvers based in New York City.
Some job seekers keep coming up to bat but can’t connect with the right placement. During this week’s call with career coach Barbara Safani, one of the callers said he has been lucky and has been through multiple rounds of interviews in the last nine months, but he’s still looking. Apparently many of those job opportunities were closed due to budgetary constraints. He asked Barbara if there is something else he should be doing.
Her immediate response was, “Yes!” Maintain contact with those executives with whom he has been interviewing. They are now more than just names in an e-mail database, but real people who now know you. You have a relationship with these professionals, and the fact that they felt confident enough in you to recommend you for employment shows you have made a favorable impression. You need to turn these recruiting relationships into part of your network.
Don’t limit your discussion to the job at hand. Throughout the interview process, you should have gained a good understanding of the challenges facing the company. Keep your eyes and ears open and forward pertinent information to your new contacts to give them something that might be beneficial, or at least interesting. This will help cement the relationship.
Now you can work with your new networking contacts to see if they can refer you to someone else, either within the company or elsewhere, who might be able to help you achieve your goal. Is there someone who might be a good mentor; who can help deepen you knowledge of the company and its business (and thus increase your value)?
Recruiting interviewers as networking contacts uses the same principles you already are applying to expand your professional network. Anyone you meet in a professional context is a potential ally in helping you land your next opportunity.
