Whether you’re looking to make a big career transition into a new role or field, or if you’re looking to move within your current organization, networking is a key part of career growth. Networking is also a proven strategy to find jobs, especially the ones that aren’t posted, and secure interviews. But sometimes it’s hard to remember that networking can have a lot of different purposes and can truly make all the difference in designing your next step!

When you’re tempted to reach out to someone for a networking conversation, there are three big questions to ask yourself first: 

Why am I reaching out to this person? 

What’s the purpose of this conversation?

 And most importantly:

What does success look like for this conversation with this specific person?

If you know the purpose of the conversation and what success looks like, you can then create a strategy for the best ways to request a meeting, map out strategic questions to ask, and get clear on what you want to share about yourself.

Remember, networking is just a fancy way of saying building relationships with people – and there are many ways to do that. 

Here are three different types of networking conversations that have three distinct purposes:  

 

1. Genuinely Exploratory Conversations

If you’re considering a career change, you’re probably starting with a genuinely exploratory conversation. These types of conversations sound something like: 

“I’ve got a few ideas for where I want to go next. One is to do what you’re doing – but I want to understand more about your work and learn about what it’s like to do this type of work. Can I chat with you to hear about what your role/industry is like right now?”

Examples of great questions to ask for these conversations are:

• For someone transitioning into this type of role/industry, what do you think would be most important for them to know about it?   

• What projects are great examples of the type of work you do?

• What keeps you up at night?

• What trends are you seeing for these types of roles/in this type of industry or organization?

• If you were me, and looking to move into this type of work, what would you suggest are 2-3 resources or places I should go to learn more?
   

2. ‘Talk Shop’ Conversations

If you’re looking to grow your network and/or find out about opportunities that are more in line with the type of work you do now, ‘talk shop’ conversations can be super helpful and powerful.

A ‘talk shop’ conversation is more peer-to-peer; it’s an opportunity to talk about what’s going on for you and them at work. This networking conversation sounds something like: 

“We’re about to launch this next big initiative and I would love to connect with you to hear how you have been navigating similar work. I’d love to hear how things are going for you and lessons learned!”

Examples of great questions to ask for these conversations are:

• How did [X project/piece of work] go for you?

• Are you seeing similar trends/situations/work play out in other parts of the organization/industry?

• What excites you most about what you’re working on currently? 

• + Specific questions related to your industry and type of work.

For example, if we were going to have a ‘talk shop’ conversation, we’d reach out to other career coaches and ask them what they’re seeing with their clients and what their clients are struggling most with right now. We’d ask what marketing strategies are working best and what their biggest pain points are as a coach these days.

‘Talk shop’ conversations are great opportunities to get insider information to help you be at the top of your game and well connected in your field. They may also open up opportunities before they’re posted on a job board.  

3. Making the Case Conversations

If you’re in a job search, you might be more likely to have a ‘making the case’ networking conversation. This exchange is when there’s a specific job you know is open to candidates and you want to make sure your application gets seen. Or, it might be when you’re looking for work and want to talk about opportunities that you see for how you could contribute to a specific organization or team in some capacity. If you’ve been looking for opportunities to do some freelance work, you might have a lot of ‘make the case’ conversations to increase your chances of finding some short-term project work.  These conversations sound like:

“I know your team size has increased dramatically in the last year, and I can imagine your HR team may be stretched with filling roles and finding great candidates. As a recruiter who has sourced candidates for hundreds of positions over the last few years, and increased the pool of diverse candidates by 30%, I’d love to hear how things are going for you and see if there might be ways for me to support you and your team.”

It could also sound like:

“I’ve been a Marketing Coordinator for the last two years supporting the team with everything from digital ad campaigns to content creation to analytics tracking –our qualified leads increased 20% YOY, so I’ve had great experience putting successful campaigns into action. I saw there’s a Marketing Manager role open at your organization. Would you have 20 minutes to connect and share how your experience has been at X company? I’d really value your insights and advice as I put together a great application.”

Specific examples of questions to ask in these conversations are:

• How has working at X company been like for you?

• What have you enjoyed? What’s been hard or unexpected?

• What do you think will be most important to the hiring manager looking to fill this role?

• Is there any type of experience or skills that you think are important to speak to in my application?

• Is there anything you would suggest I do after applying for the role to increase the chances of my application being reviewed by the team? 

And if you’re genuinely wondering if the company would be a good place to work, you could ask about the culture with a question like “What would you say are two things that currently work well about the culture? What are two things that need improvement?” or “What adjectives would you use to describe that team and/or the hiring manager?”

 

To Recap: First, ask yourself a few key questions before reaching out. Consider what success would look like for this conversation. What’s the purpose? Is it to get information to help you explore and gain clarity around where you’re going next? Is it to connect with peers and trade information and insights? Or, is it to get noticed for a specific opportunity and secure it?

The purpose of the conversation frames how you ask for the meeting, the questions you ask in the meeting, and how you frame your experience.

Don’t let the term networking scare you away, it’s just like making a new friend, and you never know what doors it can open – now or in the future. Happy Networking!