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Career advancement minute: Building a career network

March 08, 2013

Heather Frattone L’98, Penn Law’s Associate Dean for Career Planning and Professionalism, talks about the importance of networking.

Heather Frattone L’98, Penn Law’s Associate Dean for Career Planning and Professionalism, talks about the importance of networking.

 

Transcript

Networking is an integral part of every job search, but it is also a very important part in your overall professional development and throughout your professional career.

You want to think about, number one, who is the person you are meeting with and why do you want to meet with them? Number two, what do you want to get out of the conversation? What is it that this person can tell you that would be helpful to you? You really want to spend some time thinking about what the purpose of the meeting is so you can be really targeted, not take a lot of their time, and get to the meat of what you are looking for. And three, and very importantly, maybe most importantly, is follow up. In most cases, these relationships are going to be critical to you throughout your career. Whether it is in resolving an issue at work or looking for another job and it is really important to think strategically about developing and maintaining these relationships.