Internship Podcast: Internship: Networking

Welcome to the Internship Podcast Number 7 for Summer 2008 brought to you by the Career Services Center at Jacobs University Bremen. In one of the previous episodes we told you that it is important to create a good impression because of the networking opportunities during the internship. Although networking is still a buzzword since the 90s, it is an invaluable tool for a job seeker. It is not WHAT you know but WHO you know that matters as they say. For career’s sake, Bill Gates sold to IBM an operating system that he acquired via networking. Networking is difficult for many people. Sometimes the point will be lost, sometimes you would think it is useless, you may feel uncomfortable and be unable to keep up to your aim. In the end you will resolve to searching jobs the conventional way - checking job postings. Checking onliny those 15% of the available jobs and competing with the other people who were not successful in understanding the concept of networking. That’s where your skills come into play - your ability to entice people about yourself. There are a few basic tips on how to approach networking. 1. Know yourself and your goals 2. Know where to start and how to approach. 3. Prepare and impress Don’t stop after goal achievement. Let’s look into your skills and goals. You are in the middle of your internship. You have achieved he goal to get an internship. So why would you care for networking now? Because now you are in the ideal setting to start building your network. You are, hopefully, right there - in the industry or academic sector where you may want to be in the near future. You have an internship, right? So you MUST have skills, right. And most probably you have made the summary of these skills in the CV and the motivation statement with which you had applied. Reevaluate them now - think about HOW your skills will be of use to an employer. To know this you obviously need to know what the employer needs. Having clarified these two aspects of the career context, you would be more adept at clarifying the goals that you want to achieve with your networking efforts. But also remember that you should also think about the other person - how can YOU HELP the other party? For example, if you are doing an internship at a university, under the supervision of a researcher who investigates the influence of stress on the immune system, you are potentially, a biochemist, or a biologist, or a psychologist, with all the necessary qualifications and skills. You know that your supervisor will not have an open PhD position in the next years because he just got new PhD students and he won’t be applying for additional funding for the next year when you will be looking for a position. So, what can you do? Is this the end of your pursuits with this researcher? It would be a waste of your internship time if you do. Researchers rarely work alone and around your supervisor there is a bubble of other researchers working on the same topic and complementing each others’ work. Why not set up as a goal to get to know a little more about them and to establish contacts through your supervisor? Some may be jealous of you leaving them but if they don’t have the infrastructural resources, they would be happier to keep you in the team although not under their supervision rather than loosing you to another research group. Same thing may happen in an organization where a department doesn’t have the finances to hire you at the moment but another department may have the financial resources and you may be able to do the job there until you can relocate to the original department. Now let’s look on how to start and how to approach a networking opportunity. First thing you may want to prepare is your elevator speech. There is a lot of information on the web as to what an elevator speech is and we will have more information about that on our website soon. What it is in a nutshell is a personal movie trailer, or a 30-second to 2-minute commercial about yourself. Your qualifications, your skills and your aspirations. You may want to start with a broad introduction to hook them. Grab their attention so that they remember you. In the same way you would want to keep the interest of a reader of your cover letter, the researcher or the HR manager you are talking with would need a reason to remember your face. Instead of saying “I am an humanities student doing research on reading attitudes and am looking for a job in publishing”, you may want to spice it up a bit with something like this: “I am an interdisciplinary student combining psychology research and new media and developing new media tools for the Career Services Center at Jacobs University and am looking for a position which would allow me to learn not only how to use the tools of new media but how to program and customize them for my own needs and interest in understanding intelligent e-learning techniques”. Bulkier than the first but more informative. Second important aspect of your elevator speech is to connect. Why are you actually talking to that person? Do they happen to be the only person around to talk to or is there a particular reason that you want to establish contact with them for? Make a positive remark about their company or research group. Maybe they were the inspiration to pursue this field (although this may sound tacky), or maybe the stocks of the company are have risen impressively much lately, or maybe you read something impressive about their recruiting strategy. Keep it courteous and don’t overdo it. Next, comes the important part. The previous sections were simply easing the context and enticing interest. Now you have to justify the interest. Now you have to make the last minute worth it the time invested by your listener. Show your expertise and focus your unique strengths. Keep it short and straight to the point but don’t forget your achievements and your projects. Use your enthusiasm to draw a picture of your future professional plans. Employ facts only for illustration of your emotions and passion. Let’s look at an example. A very straight-to-the-point way of explaining your achievements would be simply take sentences out of your CV: “As part of my activities in the Career Services Center, I have been responsible for teaching several of their seminars, for all the marketing efforts in student communications and for the development and implementation of new media technologies in the daily workflow”. Would you hire this guy if he told you that in person? Well, I know I wouldn’t. And during your internship you will have an even greater opportunity to do more than is required from you, to show your passion. At the end, you will be able to use that as a tool for your own promotion. You may want to say more like this: “After integrating in the team at the Career Services Center as an assistant for the marketing efforts and the teaching of some seminars, I worked on the development of new more effective and up-to-date methods of teaching and training. As part of this initiative, the department launched its first series of podcasts and this was the first series of podcasts that the university published and now we have other departments expressing interest in using these new methods as well after seeing the success of the internship podcast.” Far from perfect, this snippet gives you an idea of how you may want to use the objectively available information to your own advantage showing the passion that you put into your work. In the end, it is important to remember that you have a listener - and that the point was not simply to show off but to show off so that they remember you. You could ask for a business card if you have not received on yet and you can also give yours. It may be also useful to ask for advice in this moment. Instead of ending abruptly after the business card exchange, simply ask “Whom would you advice someone in my position to contact?” or “Do you know someone in your organization that may be interested in looking at a proposal for the incorporation of these new means of communication?” At this end, you should, just like in your motivation statement, thank them and show that you will be pro-active. Don’t improvise. You may think that you know all of these things about yourself. But you don’t until you have to say them. So write down the script and practice. Get a mirror, get a friend, get a pet. Record it and listen to it. Send it to us. Do you sound confident? Do you feel bored? If you are bored by your own words, how would someone else feel about them? Can you keep up eye contact, can you stand up-straight? Can you smile genuinely? Can you ask meaningful questions? Networking is not only about you getting to introduce yourself, it is about establishing a connection. For example, you can ask the person how they started in this field and what their career path has been like. And finally remember - although you have gotten the job or research position you were looking for through the networking you did, it does not mean you have to toss all the old business cards in the trash. You never know when the people from company X will need a new junior manager. In the dynamic world today, careers paths, companies and positions change fast and because of this, you won’t be hired exclusively because of your GPA but also on the basis of your flexibility, your transferrable skills, your passion and communication skills and of course the people you know. The phrase “it is not WHAT you know but WHO you know” has a perfectly legit meaning. This was this week’s overview. Don’t forget that should you experience any difficulties in your communication, you can always contact us at k.mihov@jacobs-university.de or l.godineau@jacobs-university.de , i.folkerts@jacobs-universty.de . If you would like to contribute to the podcast and share your experiences, feel free to send us your pictures, to record a question or to simply drop us a line. Send them to us and we will include your stories in the shows to come. Music for today comes from the band Panama Internationals from their album Too Many Freaks Not Enough Stages.

Mevio | July 14, 2008

Tags:. .communication. .happen. .development. .company. .elearning