sponsored by The First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan and St. Mark’s  Episcopal Church

The Objectives of the Networking Process.

1)    To communicate information about you

Who you are in terms of what you have been doing and what you are good at, what values you can add

What you want to do next in terms of the roles you might play in what industries.

2)    To establish new rapport and be remembered

Being remembered is essential to successful career management.  To do this, you must clearly and enthusiastically state your case and be in charge of making the two way discussion work  Do not take this objective lightly.  By communicating to your network that you know what you are doing, you have taken a big step toward ultimate success.

3)    To get and give a variety if information which leads to more knowledge

This is the most difficult objective for many people  It is really a form of market research directed at finding out about business issues in the markets you are exploring.  It will involve talking about organizations and people in those markets, what their problems are, how they are addressing them and how you might help.

4)    To get ideas about where and how to explore elsewhere

This is the bottom-line of networking.  Listening for and extracting names, officially called referrals, of other people you might talk with in order to get more insights into the dynamics of your marketplace.  You should try to get two to three names form each contact.  If you meet this objective, your network will never die.

Next, you need to be aware of the differences between a Network Discussion and a Job Interview.  These differences are discussed on the next page Network Discussion vs. Job Interview.