TGIF or is it?

Today happens to be a Friday.  For me personally, it is the end of my workweek for KCDEE. Over the weekend, I will relax a bit, do some work around the house, AND I will check in on my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.  When I am out running errands or attending planned events, I will look to see if there is anyone with whom I can network.

I am not in the job search mode at this time, but I will continue to work on my network by trying to foster the relationships I have built.

What do you do over the weekend to either build your network or improve the connections you have made?  Do you use the time to build a plan for the coming week?  Do you look for free or low-cost community events where business owners may be promoting their services (and potentially seeking individuals to hire)?

Proper Planning

Do you have a LinkedIn account?  How many emails do you have posted to use?

You may want to have at least two listed: one for your current employer and one that is a personal email account. 

If you are in the job search mode, you should have a professional sounding email address that is your main email contact for employers to connect with you. Professional email addresses will allow a potential employer to know that they are contacting the correct person.  Using your first name and last name at gmail, yahoo or hotmail is acceptable.  Even if you are a huge fan of sports or another activity and love your email address that reflects that, you should not use that for your professional persona unless it is the name of your business.

By having two emails listed on LinkedIn you are saving yourself some time.

• Say for example that you have two interests for which you belong to completely diverse groups on LinkedIn.  You don't want to clutter up your work email inbox with personal interests so you could have those group notifications sent to your personal email.
• Additionally, should you find yourself down-sized or out-placed, you still have a current email address to which you can switch your primary email contact.  This can be done even if you forget to do it before your last day as long as you remember your email address and password. change your primary email address

If you have spent the time to make your profile reflective of you and your experiences, it would be a shame to lose all of your work because you have only one email address listed.

Are you in Kane, DeKalb or Kendall counties?  Would you be interested in a hands-on workshop to help you either set-up or improve your LinkedIn profile?  Send me an email at Dee Reinhardt

A Handshake & A Business Card

Networking these days means different things to different age groups.  Babyboomers still think of networking as the group of people at one location who were called together because of a common interest - like a chamber of commerce meeting, professional organization, a mixer, or a group of like-minded individuals.

Gen Y (born 1970 - 2000) thinks of networking as Facebook, LinkedIn, tweet-ups and all internet based forms of "networking".

Both are valid frames of reference, but let's for the sake of this blog article look at what you can do with a handshake and a business card.

After recently attending a face-to-face networking event, I returned to my office with a handful of business cards that I had personally spent a few minutes discussing the person's business with them.  I learned a bit about what they do, what their company does, where it is located, whether it is local or international, and what benefits my organization could provide for their organization.

They in turn found out about me, what I do, what my agency does, that we are locally based with "sister" organizations located nationally, and that we have programs that could benefit their company's human resource bottom line.

Using those business cards, I will see if I am able to make a connection through the social media networking paths I use.  This has afforded me the best of both worlds of networking - on-line connections and a handshake and business card.

This method is effective not only for business and sales efforts, but for those in the job hunt.  Seek out events where you can meet individuals from a company in which you are interested.  Ask about the organization, the corporate culture, they types of career paths available, how the person likes working for the company.  If they aren't the human resources person, they may know the person.  If you make the next step to linking with your new contact on an on-line professional network, you have just established an opportunity to reach out to the human resources person.

If you would like to read more about in-person networking link here.

What form of networking do you prefer and why?