Are You Networking?

Lynch, Liz. Smart Networking: Attract a Following in Person and Online. McGraw-Hill. 2009. 190p. bibliog. index. ISBN978-0-07-160294-1 $16.95
Liz Lynch is the founder of the Center for Networking Excellence. Her top three strategies for networking success are: using LinkedIn, enhancing your online profile by writing a blog and commenting on other professional blogs, and building reciprocal relationships through conversations that convey a sincere interest in helping the other person. The Center for Networking Excellence website http://www.networkingexcellence.com includes videos, a blog, and other resources to help you refine your networking skills. In addition, her networking quiz will help you to evaluate your current level of networking competence and point to directions for further development. BOTTOM LINE Used in tandem with the website for The Center for Networking Excellence, this book provides practical strategies for beginning and seasoned information professionals who want to give and get the most out of their business relationships.

Networking Event

On October 20, 2009, I attended a presentation by Liz Lynch of the Center for Networking Excellence. She has some great ideas for successful job hunting in this challenging economic environment. The key qualities for success that she cites are: be creative, be resourceful, and be persistent. As an underemployed job hunter in search of a full time position, I have had to draw on each of these qualities to move from being unemployed to underemployed. Now, I'm drawing on Liz Lynch's expertise in my quest for a full-time job.

Her top three strategies for networking success are: using LinkedIn, raising your profile online by starting a blog and commenting on other professional blogs, and building reciprocal relationships through conversations that convey your interest in helping the other person; as well as exploring how she may be of help to you. As a novice blogger, I especially appreciated her suggestion to start out by finding interesting items to blog about and by writing two or three sentences about them. Although some of my blog postings are longer now, starting with two or three sentences helped me to overcome my fear that blogging would be too overwhelming a task to pursue in addition to other job seeking strategies. In her 180 page book, Smart Networking: Attract a Following in Person and Online,

(New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2009)
she covers blogging and social networking in great detail. Her section on blog content, "A Baker's Dozen of Content Sources and Ideas," features 13 ideas for bloggers who are looking for new strategies.

Although some of her suggestions are more relevant to well-established business owners who are expanding their range of contacts than to unemployed job seekers, she provides workable suggestions for job seekers as well. The book includes a bibliography, and there are two sources that have especially sparked my interest:

Alba, Jason. I'm on LinkedIn--Now What???: A Guide to Getting the Most OUT of LinkedIn (Cuperton, CA:Happy About,2007)

Leeds, Dorothy. The 7 Powers of Questions: Secrets to Successful Communication in Life and at Work (New York: Perigee Trade, 2000)

Liz Lynch's Center for Networking Excellence website includes videos, a blog, and other resources to help you refine your networking skills. Her networking quiz will help you to evaluate your current level of networking competence and point to directions for further development.
 http://www.networkingexcellence.com/