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August 10, 2009
Keeping Your Contacts Enrolled
Over time, thoughts and ideas will occur to the people within your social network about how they can help you with your job search.
You want to make sure you are at the top of their minds (that they have automatically become "enrolled" in your support group as you search for your job) so they'll feed helpful information to you and you'll have an opportunity to help them in return.
How do you get individuals "enrolled" in your job marketing campaign? Express appreciation for the help you receive and help them in return.
Think of your online network as your job club, your mastermind group, or your support group - consisting of individuals who want to help and be helped.
If you experience a benefit from a referral, let those in your network who helped you get that referral know how valuable it was for your job marketing effort.
By showing genuine appreciation for the help you receive through your network, you'll also be demonstrating -- in a dramatic way and in a real situation -- your ability to establish effective interpersonal relationships, implement a creative marketing campaign, and conduct an extensive business research project.
In doing so, you're showcasing your skills in strategic planning, personal sales, business writing and project management for recruiters and hiring managers.
Specifically, here are 10 ideas I've collected for helping members of your network become active participants in your job search:
- Check in with your online network each day to tell what progress you've made, what set backs you've had, what you're feeling and how you view you're current situation as a job seeker.
- Set up your contact management system so you are automatically flagged each day which contact people specifically need a follow-up communication from you now -- and then do it.
- Reactivate those contacts you have identified as "sympathetic" to your situation but who have not corresponded with you during the last few weeks.
- Listen to the dialogue within your network to find what individuals within your community need.
- Collect information that you believe is helpful for specific contacts and share it with them on a routine basis.
- Volunteer to introduce people you know to others (and make recommendations within your social networks) because you believe they would enjoy -- and help -- each other.
- Provide useful, new information each day that addresses the broad needs of your network -- either through a blog, Tweets or on your Facebook wall or LinkedIn group.
- Use StumbleUpon to highlight articles or web sites others have created that speak to your needs and the needs of your network.
- Ask thought-provoking questions within your social networks that are related to your field of interest -- and which get the attention of members within those networks.
- Use www.ping.fm to dynamically update multiple sites -- such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Delicious and others - with your status updates. As a result, you'll always be on the dashboard of others within your various social media.
You can keep you contacts enrolled in your job search by routinely doing one, two or three of these networking activities in just 30 minutes a day -- perhaps 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening.
It's not much different than keeping the contacts enrolled that you gain through in-person informational interviewing. To find how that works, go to "Keeping Your Contacts Enrolled"
How do you keep your network interested in your job search efforts?
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Posted by Liz Seger at August 10, 2009 06:25 PM