Networking

Networking is an important part of career planning and involves building positive contacts with others in your field. If you are hoping to have an academic career, particularly one with a strong focus on research, it is vital to build a network through which you can come to be recognised as an authority in your field. If you are not planning to make a career within academia, developing contacts with people in the occupations that interest you can help you to reach a more informed decision about what you want to do and it can also be a way of finding out about vacancies which have yet to be advertised (or which may not be advertised at all). Once you have settled into your chosen career, having good networking skills will help you to do your job more effectively and achieve promotion.

Networking is a two way process that can be of mutual benefit to you and your contact. Successful networking can:

offer you support and encouragement
help you to collaborate with colleagues on a professional level
establish contact with others who can provide information and insight into careers and institutions to help with your decision making
provide useful sources of vacancies (not all jobs are widely advertised)

You should aim to develop contacts wherever possible.

within your department
professional conferences, workshops and meetings
careers fairs and careers information days

Effective networking

There are a number of resources to help you develop your networking skills.

Vitae Website

This website has a section with useful practical advice on networking. The emphasis is on networking for academic purposes, but much of the advice is also relevant to those looking for a career outside academia. As well as more traditional networking techniques, this site deals at some length with thus use of technology and social media in networking.

Women in Technology Website

Although this site is designed primarily for women seeking careers in science and technology, the advice which it gives on networking is of relevance to all job-seekers, especially that on using the telephone in networking and the list of questions which are good to use as conversation-openers .

Graduates Yorkshire Virtual Career Coach

This section of this website entitled ‘10 Top Tips to Reveal Job Opportunities’ has advice on how to use networking techniques to find out about job opportunities which haven’t been advertised publicly

Events organised by the Careers Service

Attend Careers Service events where you have the opportunity to meet employers and explore areas of work in an informal setting. These include:

Employer presentations - allow you to find out more about a company
One-to-Ones - allow you to meet employers and ask them the questions.
Fairs - recruitment fairs to help you find out more about areas of work and employers.

You will find up-to-date information about forthcoming events on the ‘What’s On’ pages of our website.