As a student, you have likely heard someone tell you about the importance of making connections and networking. I know I have! It is critical to have a network of professionals across your field to help guide career decisions, offer insight on opportunities, and potentially provide mentorship and sponsorship. Here you can find resources and guidance to make you a pro at developing and growing your network, and a few tips that I’ve found useful in working through initial nerves.
What is Networking?
Networking is the skill of curating a group of professionals, usually in your field of study, that can help grow your career goals and aspirations by guiding you through questions, providing experiences to influence your thoughts, introducing you to additional connections to provide advancement opportunity, and more. Networking is seen as vital to those early in their career paths because it often opens opportunities for growth that could not normally be found on online job boards, forums, or from people outside of your industry. These connections are most often beneficial to each party involved, for the experience gained can lead to career development and social connections for both participants.
Where to start?
Before the pandemic, a lot of networking was in-person. Companies, societies, and other professional organizations would visit campus with the sole purpose of networking. Like many other events, though, we have had to adapt this to maintain social distancing. Now, many of these events occur online. Check out the Events tab of Handshake to find online events from countries worldwide, especially near career fair time. I’d also really recommend connecting with professionals you know on LinkedIn and becoming a member of Grainger Mentoring. Grainger Mentoring is a platform from UIUC that lets students connect with alumni. You can search for alumni by their major, job, and more! From my experiences with online networking, I can find it hard to reach out to potential mentors, and I can psych myself out of it too often. But with Grainger Mentoring, I know that all of the people on that site signed up because they want to help students like us. The site also helps students construct messages to send to professionals, which has helped me take that first step in reaching out. And all of the mentors are incredibly friendly! Several career peers have organized virtual meetings with connections found with this site and found the informational interview extremely helpful.
In-person networking events were becoming scarce even before the pandemic, and their resumption at all is uncertain. Adjusting to the new normal of online networking is in the best interest of all students. And, personally, I find that initiating communication by email or other online method is easier than initiating communication with a professional in-person. I can seek help writing emails from our amazing career advisors and plan out what I want to ask.
Reaching out to your Connections
In your network, you want to make sure that you can get the most out of your connections without burdening them or yourself. When first reaching out to someone you’ve recently met, an email from your Illinois.edu address or a LinkedIn message is generally the most formal. Make sure to remind them of who you are and where you last spoke/met, or the online platform that connected you. Remember to be brief and to the point, while still having a valuable purpose (asking a career-based question, about a job posting, etc.) and be sure to be patient while waiting for them to reply. Don’t be afraid to ask to set up an informational interview if you want to learn more about their role. Often, I get nervous when first reaching out, but I can overcome this by considering that almost every professional has at some point been in the same situation as me.
Remember to never ask directly for a job, sponsorship, or mentorship. If anything, these opportunities will come naturally from connections by developing and curating your network.
There are endless resources available if you are looking for more guidance on networking, and career websites like Vault are a great place to start. Here’s a Vault article on networking tips, and another on marketing yourself. Advisors at ECS are also more than happy to answer any and all questions you have, so send an email or schedule a meeting if you want personalized expert help!