Job search skills include active networking.

Networking is so important for ongoing career success that I’m prompted to share a story about a current job search I’m helping with. The example I offer here demonstrates the importance of keeping doors open.

My client works in the corporate sector. He has a long and distinguished career, and at the young age of 57 years is obliged to retire from his Partnership role at a top consulting firm. This is a situation confronting many top level executives in what is commonly know as The Big 4 accountancy practices.

Since being asked politely to pack up his desk, my client has been having lots of lunches. His waistline is expanding, as is his card-wallet. The lunches are for the purposes of connecting and re-connecting with past clients, ex-colleagues, and other potentially influential business people. In the past few days alone my client has received a number of calls. His phone is buzzing and so is his self-esteem, now that those lunches, or what in career development speak we call, ‘informational interviews’ are reaping rewards. One of those calls was from an ex-colleague with whom my client has had barely any contact in 10 or more years. But, by virtue of having kept communication lines loosely open, the ex-colleague heard “on the grapevine” of my client’s situation.

The lesson here is to be active in your networking. Do not under-estimate the value of maintaining contacts. It is not enough to create a LinkedIn account. That profile needs to be maintained, updated regularly and the networks nurtured. Then there are other ways of keeping contacts alive, besides through LinkedIn.

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