You might think that the only time you are really networking is when you carve a couple of hours out of your week after work to attend an industry happy hour or educational session and meet a few new people. However, did you know there are five things that you can do during a typical work day that will keep you top of mind with people in your network.
- How’s your headshot?
If you’re using Gmail or Microsoft Office 365, did you know that you can upload a picture that accompanies every email you send that will show up in the recipient’s inbox? This literally gives you the opportunity to be top of mind, or at least at the top of inbox, for each person you email that uses Gmail or Microsoft Office 365. With that being said, make sure you like the headshot that you upload!
- Comment, Like, Share
You may not think your after hours tweeting, light reading on LinkedIn or photo posting on Instagram and Facebook are doing anything other than helping you keep up with friends and family, but it’s actually a form of indirect networking that can benefit you and potentially your career. If you think about how many people are in your network that you’re able to get periodic updates from, every time you comment, like or share on one of these social platforms, you’re essentially giving a mini-update of your own. How many people do you think you have on your network on each of these platforms? Yes, you can count your Aunt Ida. Is it hundreds, is it thousands? Think about how many people in your network could be looking to hire someone, or works for a company that is hiring. Just putting something out into your social networks can take mere minutes and have the most unexpected, delightful results.
- Raise your hand
This probably doesn’t happen to you every day, but throughout the course of the year your boss or company likely looks for a volunteer to represent your organization at a fundraiser, industry event, or even speaking engagement. Raise your hand and offer to go. You never know who you’ll meet, or the experience you’ll have that will come back to benefit you later in your career. Even though you may have to step out of your comfort zone to do this, you will almost certainly be happy that you did!
- Back away from your desk, at least for lunch
You probably think that it doesn’t matter if you eat at your desk or in the company cafeteria. However, if you go to the cafeteria, you may have to endure some polite small talk, but you also might meet someone who can connect you to the next opportunity in your career. This likely won’t happen during one lunch hour in the cafeteria, but if you find yourself making another friend or two in another department, or getting to know your current team members better, those are lunch hours well spent. You can never have too many friends at work, or at least people that know of you beyond your name appearing on a department roster. A study by Rioux & Berthal discovered that Internal promotions have a failure rate of 14 percent, and external hires have a failure rate of 22 percent. This supports the reason behind why leaders hire out of their own cafeteria!
- Phone a friend
Ok, you can text a friend too, but don’t underestimate the value of a phone call to check in. We’d encourage you to get lunch on the calendar with a former colleague, former boss, or someone you met the last time you went to a networking event. You have to eat lunch, right? We all can get so wrapped up in what we have on our agenda at our current job that we can forget to take time out to keep in touch with people who we have met throughout our careers. These connections can be your biggest advocates, and some of the best people to give you insight on what opportunities you might want to pursue to align with your strengths.
Here are five easy ways to network throughout your workday, some of which don’t even require you to leave your desk! Put them into action and see just how easy it is to keep in touch with your network without having to carve out time after hours every week.