Taking the awkwardness out of networking and making it work for you was the theme of an event, Master Your Networking Game, held at Manchester Metropolitan University by CIOB’s Tomorrow’s Leaders, Generation 4 Change (G4C) and Constructing Excellence.
Recognising that a lot of people starting out in their career find networking deeply uncomfortable, the event showed how to master the networking game with talks from experts and activities.
Professor Perry Shard from John Sisk and Son talked about the soft skills of networking and the importance of networking. He asked: “Are you a frog, an elephant and hummingbird or a unicorn?”
Are you early in your career, taking on new responsibilities and listening and never forgetting, like an elephant? Are you trying to move vertically and hop up the chain of command, like a frog? As new opportunities come along you adapt and move sideways, like a hummingbird. Or are you going to go down a different path, like a unicorn?
Rebecca Moloney of Career Garage shared tips on personal branding and how to use LinkedIn to expand a network.
Thought-provoking questions
She said to “think more recruiter” and make sure your LinkedIn reflects you as a person, not just the facts on your CV. When creating posts, ask thought-provoking questions to get others interested, express genuine interest in others by commenting and resharing their posts and be professional and friendly.
The session allowed a chance for attendees to practise networking on tables with people they had never met before, with facilitators on each table from CIOB Tomorrow’s Leaders, G4C and sponsors Seddon, Macclesfield Infrastructure Development (AstraZeneca), Betts Associates and Ibstock.
Tomorrow’s Leaders expanded during the event, welcoming new representatives for the north west of England: Ben Taylor and Isabel Armer for Manchester; Isobel Evans and Suklane Riaz for Cumbria & Lancashire; and Petra Appiadu for Merseyside & Cheshire.
