Keeping your network alive after the summer - Part 1
Well, you made it through your internship. Hopefully, it was an awesome experience, and you learned a ton from it.
You might have taken advantage of the opportunity to meet people at your firm. (Bonus points if you leveraged their network to meet people at other firms.)
You also likely went through all sorts of informational interviews and built a network before even getting the internship you just finished.
So, by this point, your LinkedIn connections have grown rapidly, and you have a bunch of email addresses and LinkedIn connections.
But how do you stay in touch with this network of people you’ve built?
Someone recently asked me this, so I thought it might be a useful topic for a weekly email. Let’s dive in.
There’s quite a bit to discuss on this topic, so I’m splitting it up over two weeks. Here’s part 1…
Why Bother?
No question about it; time is our most precious commodity. So, if you’re going to dedicate time to something, it needs to be worthwhile.
Instead of explaining why it’s important to stay in touch with your network, let me highlight what you risk if you don’t.
- People forgetting about you
- Contacts being less willing to help
- Perception that you’re not really interested in their help
- Belief that you were just using them for short-term needs
- Losing touch permanently if they change jobs
None of these are guaranteed to happen. But it’s a real risk, and the last thing you want is to find out the people you were counting on to either provide a reference or help you get your next job aren’t there for you.
What's The Goal?
To start with, let’s define the objective.
You’re not trying to make lifelong buddies with these people, though that could happen organically.
The goal is to keep your network active so that they can potentially help you out, or you can help them out. The second one is important. You won’t be a student forever, and helping goes both ways. In fact, the more value you can provide for them, the better.
Also, don’t limit your thinking to “helping me get a job.”
You may have met someone who works at a competing firm similar to the one you’re interviewing with. Getting some insight into that company or the people on that team can be really valuable to you.
Ways To Stay Connected
So let’s assume you’ve concluded that you need to stay in touch with your network; the question then becomes, how do you do it?
So the first step in the mechanics of staying in touch is…
Divide Your Network By Intensity Of Contact
The simple reality is that you only have so much time, so it makes sense to prioritize your contacts.
Everyone is busy so strangely enough, you’re doing them a favor as well by being judicious in how intensely you stay in touch.
There will be some folks with whom you don’t vibe as much, but you’re still happy to help each other. It will seem weird to them if you employ a high-touch approach.
I recommend thinking of your network in three categories.
Low Touch
The first category is people you’re connected to on LinkedIn. This is pretty much everyone you met and got to know at all in the summer or before. Don’t forget to include other summer interns you met.
A good practice might be to send a connection request right after you’ve met them for an informational interview or connected with them some other way. This is when the memory of you is freshest and they’re more likely to click “accept”.
I will show you how to use LinkedIn to stay on this group’s radar.
Medium Touch
This category is for people you need to connect with infrequently but still want to have some personal connection.
This might be people who are going to serve as references or more senior folks who you’ve met along the way.
They are typically not peers.
They are folks who can really move the needle and are interested in helping you. Unlike the high-touch group, you might socialize with them at industry events, but they aren’t looking to become your buddy.
High Touch
Peers who are around your career stage are in this category.
In addition, and this is kind of broad, but it would also include folks who are within 10 years of your career stage who don’t fit in low or medium touch.
First, What Not To Do
When it comes to staying in touch, it works best when it feels natural and not forced/ artificial.
The best way for it to feel natural is to connect with them when there is a reason to connect with them.
It is beyond weird to receive an email from someone trying to stay in touch without purpose.
“Hi Ashley.
Hope you’re well. Just wanted to say hi.
Best,
Pete
Ok, Pete, but I’m not quite sure what to do with that.
“Thanks, you too?”
So what is a good reason…well, I’m glad you asked.
Next Step - Have A Strategy For Each Category
Everyone - 1) Write on LinkedIn
Writing on LinkedIn is an ideal strategy for the low-touch category.
The great news is that writing on LinkedIn (targeting low touch) will also help you stay in front of mind with the mid- and high-touch parts of your network since just about everyone is on LinkedIn.
I strongly recommend that you write periodically on LinkedIn. Aim for once a week but at a minimum once every two weeks.
What to write about, you may ask? The options are endless. You could write about
- The most interesting thing you learned in the past week in your classes
- Companies in your industry (after some research)
- Advice that you would give to a version of you from 2 years ago.
- Books you read recently or podcasts you listened to.
The last one is probably the easiest. Find a system that works for you, but one simple approach is to use Ali Abdaal’s approach for books. For our purposes, you don’t really need to go past level 5 in his approach.
For podcasts, I’d use a similar type of approach or create your own.
So, with everything else going on, why on earth would I suggest spending the time doing this?
A few reasons…
1) Your network will see your writing pop up in their feed periodically. This is going to help remind them of you.
2) It will help you by forcing you to read about and listen to relevant and valuable content. It’ll help you even more by digesting and writing about it.
3) It will help your job search. By consistently writing thoughtful content, you are essentially waving a flag as someone worth paying attention to. Let’s say for a moment that you’re interested in marketing.
Do you think it would help your chances of securing your Dream Job if you had spent the last 6 months writing weekly about insights you’d gained from marketing podcasts and summaries of the top 12 books for marketers?
How about if you’re interested in tech and shared insights on LinkedIn from tech or tech business-focused podcasts? On top of that, what if you wrote business summaries after analyzing the companies you found most interesting in your niche?
You could then point to your body of work to potential employers who’d likely be impressed by your initiative and the insights you’d already gained.
4) It makes it easier to connect with people and is a VERY good reason to reach out and speak with someone.
Maybe you could write reports on companies you’re interested in working for. You start writing a few of these business analyses, and you have a great excuse to connect with people at the company of the next one you’re working on or as an add-on to something you’ve already written.
Everyone - 2) Offer Help When They Need It
Everyone - 3) Congratulate them on career milestones.
Who doesn’t like being recognized for their accomplishments?
Keep an eye out on LinkedIn for new job announcements or milestones (which LinkedIn sometimes resurfaces) and fire off a 30-second congratulatory note with some note of personal connection.
Closing thoughts
Next week’s email will be about staying in touch with the Medium and High Touch group.
I know this can seem like a lot to do, but trust me, it’s manageable. Next week, I will also show you how to do it in a very manageable way.
And by the way, start getting acquainted with Notion if you aren’t already. It is an unbelievably helpful tool to manage this and many other things, including your job search.
I’m approaching the point of view that if you’re not using Notion, you’re doing it wrong.
If you haven’t already signed up, go ahead and use my affiliate link to sign up. It’s free unless you’re signing up for a team plan, in which case I’ll get a small commission at no cost to you. However, anything I’m showing you will work on the free version.
Have a great week, and we’ll talk again soon.
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