Networking Tips for New College Grads – Part 2
It’s still not what you know, it’s still who you know. You know? Get-It-Done Guy offers six more must-have networking tips for new college grads to get you started on building strong, lifelong professional relationships.
Today’s episode is Part 2 of my series on Networking for New College Grads. In Part 1, we learned about why networking is super-important. We covered where to meet people with similar interests and how to start building a connection once you’ve met. Today, we’re all about building an even stronger foundation.
When you attend a conference or presentation where you meet a lot of new people, you need to keep them sorted out in your brain. Collecting their business cards and writing what’s memorable on the back won’t always do it. Let’s look at a few more tips for making your connections stick.
6 More Networking Tips for New College Grads
#1 – Take pictures together
If you’re going to make a new friend, it’s always a fine idea to remember what they look like. Your smartphone can help. If you’re at a conference, take a selfie together with your new contact and make sure your nametags are visible. Voila!—instant visual reminder.
If you have good rapport so far, ask for a selfie. Send your new contact a copy if they want one.
If you’re somewhere where nametags aren’t a thing, take the selfie holding up your business cards so they’re in view. Now you have picture and contact info in one image. Even though you’re relying on technology to make and preserve a connection, the dynamic is “We’re in this (this picture, that is) together!”
Not many people gather contacts this way … yet. When I’ve asked people to take a selfie with me, they’ve always liked the idea and gone for it. If you have good rapport so far, ask for a selfie. Send your new contact a copy if they want one. You’ll remember each other better and even have a picture you can paste into your address book entry.
#2 – Have a place to keep cards
Decide where you’re going to put the business cards you receive, and then always put them there. Maybe it’s your right jacket pocket. Maybe it’s your wallet. Or in the little pocket at the back of your Moleskine notebook. Just make sure they’re in one place so you can review them later and put together your followup.
At the sustainability summit I attended last week, I met a college senior who gave me his card. I was so impressed with his networking savvy that I put his card right in my jacket pocket. Or maybe it was in my program. Or my Moleskine? Because I hadn’t chosen a place to store business cards, the card was gone when I got home. Undoubtedly stolen by aliens.
(If you’re the person I met at the sustainable mobility summit, please send me your contact information!)
#3 – Add the cards to your address book as soon as you can
At the end of the day, review the cards you’ve collected. Ruthlessly decide who you want to stay in touch with, and then enter them into your address book. Not your Facebook, Insta, or any cloud service. Put them in your physical address book, so if those online services were to go away tomorrow, you would still have their information.
Add a tag, as described in episode 406, “How to Organize Contacts for Maximum Productivity.” In the notes field, add the tag TENTATIVE, since you just met this new contact. Also enter notes about where you met and what you talked about.
#4 – Connect via linkedIn
Although physical cards are good for memory, connecting online makes referrals easier. You can learn more about someone from their online presence. Plus, LinkedIn is a good place to store your contacts over time. Once you’ve entered a person into your address book, send them a LinkedIn contact request. You may never use the online connection, but it costs nothing to create, and just might turn out to be useful someday.
#5 – Reach out to follow up
Remember how you’re going to be proactive about his? Now’s the time. It’s easy and tempting just to sit back and wait for your new connection to contact you. They won’t.
“But they might!” you cry. No, they won’t. They’re too busy dealing with their own work, their life, and their Twitter feed. It’s up to you to reach out to them. No one’s going to do it for you.
A one-time contact is forgettable. But investing the time and effort to connect one-on-one makes you much more memorable.
Once you’ve made your initial contact, schedule a follow-up call or in-person meeting. A one-time contact is forgettable. But investing the time and effort to connect one-on-one makes you much more memorable. That’s how you start building a real friendship that will become part of your enduring network.
#6 – Say Thank You
If someone you meet does you a favor, make sure to drop them a thank-you note. You can send it by email, but if you have their physical address, send an actual card. Yes, you’ll have to do all that work of getting a card, writing words on it, and then sealing it in one of those envelope thingees, which may involve licking glue. Gross. You may even have to search for instructions on how to write an address. (Who does that anymore?) Then you’ll need to put a stamp on the envelope and put it in a mailbox.
If that sounds like a lot of work, well … that’s why to do it. People will be impressed, and they’ll remember that you went to all that trouble to thank them.
Maintaining Relationships Takes Effort
Learning to build and maintain relationships is the number one survival skill for a social animal. You are a social animal. You must learn the relatively few in-person skills needed to build relationships.
Remember people by taking pictures together. Establish a place to keep your cards so you remember them long enough to add them to your address book at the end of the day. Then, connect via LinkedIn so you’re friends offline and online. (Also, LinkedIn needs to build your profile, and every friend connection helps). Reach out to follow up, and remember to send thank-you cards when people do you a favor. I can’t guarantee these tips will lead to you making a new bff, but they’ll help establish a strong foundation for a business relationship.
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Work less, do more, and have a great life!
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About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
