Career Change in Your Future? Master these 3 Networking Skills Now!

If you feel "stuck" in your current career, "satisfied but exploring" or seriously looking for a career change, rejuvenating your network of connections could be the avenue to new opportunities. Whether your contacts are former colleagues, friends and family, someone you met at a formal networking event, folks you might have taken a class with or a neighbor you met at your kid's soccer game, building a viable web of contacts is important to successful career change. Keep these 4 tips in mind as you recommit to building your network.

1. Make time to maintain your contacts

How many events have you attended, collected business cards and found them months later tucked away and forgotten in a coat pocket? Have you changed jobs, vowing to keep in touch but find that months later you are completely out of the loop? All of us have. It is also understandable since new roles come with new responsibilities and routines and often lead to a whole new group of contacts. As people move in and out of town and sometimes in and out of our lives, some of us are definitely much better than others at staying connected. Some people who are masters of networking make it a rule to spend 20 to 40 minutes daily just keeping in touch. If you are one of these people who plan to stay in touch use your calendar software to schedule calls or emails. Look for software with reminder capability to jog your memory.

2. Become a resource for the people you know

It is important that you connect with people not just for your own benefit, but so that you can become a resource for others as well. Too many people think that networking means getting information and help from others, but never think it means they can also connect to offer help. Always think of how you can help others connect with each other as well. This way you will have not only one, but two people who might now be looking out for you. Certainly you also want to follow through quickly with new contacts that may have been referred to you. It is common courtesy also to make sure you alert people you know that you might be passing their information on to someone else who could benefit from the referral.

3. Keep a record of information on new contacts

If you participate in conferences or business networks it is good idea to find a way to immediately record information about new contacts you meet. Without recording information quickly, you might forget where you met, what the person does, who else was there or how you could become a resource for that person. A friend of mine, who I consider a power networker, makes notes on business cards as soon as she gets to her car or even the ladies room. One small-business owner keeps a voice recorder in his car and keeps notes on people he meets. He includes as many details as possible from the personâ??s name and nicknames; details of the meeting, including where they met, who else was in attendance and even details about something interesting about what the person may have been wearing or what they spoke about. All this information became fodder for conversations with that person at a later date. He also takes notes on how he could become a resource for this new contact. Not everyone might want to go this far, but creating some system to keep notes and not just relying on memory is a good idea.