Staying Connected in the Work Force
Advice for new college grads knee deep into their first job – or for anyone in the work force.
In a past episode, I gave out some advice to new college grads. Here’s a quick tip for those grads now that they’re likely knee deep into their first job – or anyone in the work force:
You’ll meet people in your job who you know will be crucial throughout your career. Touch base with people regularly, by phone or in person. Friending on Facebook or connecting on LinkedIn does not grow the kind of relationships where people do big career favors for each other.
Make a good impression, get their contact details, and put them in your address book. Don’t just link to them on Facebook; make sure you have a separate record of them somewhere. Use your address book notes field to jot down where you met, and anything you want to remember, like what they do, their hobbies, and their favorite soup.
I keep both work and personal contacts in one address book, and note which are which in the notes fields. If you are using your employer’s address book system, however, keep them separate. Make sure you know how to export your work address book to a format you can import at home. If you leave your job–and you will—you’ll definitely want to be able to take a copy of your address book with you, and you don’t want to leave your personal contacts behind for the IT guys to snicker at.
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.
