CageBreak

Hello CageBreak Team,
I work in the financial services industry, and have been a regular reader of your site. Can you please share your suggestions for successful professional networking and which options work best? Many Thanks,
Sam @ Boston

In the past, about 10-15 year back, in the “pre-Internet time”, professional networking had high execution barriers, and was possible to do by only a few really well connected people, because it was difficult to reach people – imagine trying to send postal mails or trying to call people without your profile visible to them! It was very effort-intensive. In fact I remember occasions, when some well-connected people used to offer their services for a fee. This was useful in business development in new markets and geographies, and also for career growth.

Today, professional networking is not effort-intensive, and anyone who has a desire to network can do it. There are numerous online tools to do it. Here are my suggestions:

• LinkedIn is the best, followed by Facebook and YouTube (yes, YouTube can be a very useful networking place for many industries).
• Then there is Xing - a relatively smaller site, but with top quality members.
• I don’t think MySpace and Orkut are well-suited for professional/business networking.
• There is another site called: Spoke (which you can test for your given industry and networking needs).

Professional networking has become a very important aspect of the career growth and job search process. You need to develop and maintain a live network, where you are seen as valuable contributor. It is annoying if someone tries to connect today, and tomorrow they start asking for favors.

You must invest time in building a rapport with people who are doing things you like. I observe that most people don’t do this right. For example, you have 500+ connections on LinkedIn, but if you are not seen by them as a valuable person, that network won’t yield much for you.

The best way to grow your professional network is to give it a fixed amount of time every week – like 2-3 hours, and you will see great results in 6-12 months. All the best!