009: Networking your way to a job even if you are an introvert

Hello, hello. How are you doing? It’s Toni here from Tonicollis.com, the place to go to up-level your career in leadership and in tech. How is your week going? How is your Tuesday, if you’re listening to this the day it drops? I really hope you’re all doing well. I have been busy once again, always busy. August is full of lots of exciting things for you all and I’m excited to announce… Actually, I was going to leave this until the end. I’m not very good at that! But I’m excited to announce my latest free masterclass for you. So at the end of August, on August the 27th, there is a one hour LinkedIn masterclass where I’m going to be talking about the easy way to network you to a new job. See, this is why I was going to leave it until the end, because I was going to tell you about networking first and why it’s not extremely uncomfortable and icky.

But here’s the thing, in this masterclass I’m going to talk about using LinkedIn to get you a job offer by networking and not feeling uncomfortable, not feeling icky. I’m going to talk about the seven myths on job hunting in LinkedIn that are holding you back from the super-drive career. And I’m mostly going to be talking about how to use your LinkedIn profile to immediately generate job offers. Some small, quick tweaks that you can make to start getting more interest from recruiters, from your network and start reaching out. And I’m also going to give you my simple recipe for a standout headline, because this is the most crucial part of your profile. So all that said and done, I’m giving you lots of stuff straight away in this podcast, but if this sounds good, then make sure that you head over to ToniCollis.com/leveraging-LinkedIn-masterclass. I will put that link in the show notes. I don’t want you to miss this one. This is going to be super powerful and it is totally free, so make sure you sign up because places are limited.

But let’s get back to today’s show, because I have a lot to cover on networking today because, here’s the thing, I know I’m going to talk about networking specifically on LinkedIn in that masterclass, but let’s get some principles in networking down. Let’s talk about how to make it less uncomfortable because I know that it’s really easy to just feel like, “Oh, it’s simpler to just put in 100 job applications and then you get nothing back.” And people will say to you, “Well yeah quality, not quantity.” And you’re like, “Well, yes, I know the theory, but it still doesn’t do anything for me.” What if I said to you, “The quality is partly who you know, and that’s what gets your resume to the top of the pile?”

It kind of feels really icky, right? It feels like I didn’t want to play the game where it’s not just a merit-based reason for getting me to the top. If that feels like you, I’m here to burst your bubble a little bit, my love. With kindness, as always. Here’s the thing, if you’ve ever been somebody who’s hiring or a hiring manager, anything like that, you know that when you’re faced with 1,000 resumes, on some level you make some really tough decisions that possibly aren’t fair, however good your intentions. The busier you are, the less well you’re going to deal with those good intentions. So we need to get you ahead through your other ways. The other thing is, don’t forget that between 65 and 95% of jobs aren’t advertised. How are you going to find those if it’s not with your network?

Okay. So I’m hoping that you kind of get the point of networking. I have been talking about it for a long time. Just talked about it now. Networking is the only way to get yourself to that stellar position, but how do you go about it? Especially when you’re an introvert, yeah me too by the way, when the idea of networking turns your stomach, ties it in knots, you have a physical reaction to it, get hot, sweaty, cold, shivery, I don’t care, but that just fills you with dread. And especially how do you do it during COVID when we can’t just pop off to conferences, when we’re supposed to be networking? We can’t go to specialized networking events, which are all set up with it. I’m here to tell you that, as an introvert, it actually gets easier during COVID. Yeah, we don’t have to go to all those events that make you all icky.

There’s a place to hide as an introvert, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. So let’s go back to how networking doesn’t work. The things that do you feel icky, by the way, are also the things that feel icky for the recipient. So all those things you’re telling yourself, “I can’t do that because it’s just really uncomfortable.” That’s probably because you shouldn’t be doing it. So, first of all, cold emails are a copy and paste affair. This drives me nuts. I talk about writing unique introductions, nice friendly email introductions, messages on social media, on LinkedIn. I don’t really view LinkedIn as social media anymore, by the way people. It’s so different from the others because it is professional and it’s full of decision makers, whereas those same people aren’t on the other social media platforms.

So kind of segue there, but I think it’s useful to stop thinking about LinkedIn as social media. It’s different. Professional social media, you need to get rid of the social bit and then maybe. But yes, these cold messages and emails or copy and paste isn’t their personality. There’s nothing in there. They just do not work. When you know that underneath, they’re going to immediately turn to selling you something as soon as you engage with them. You’re like, “Why would you be interested in me?” The number of businesses that reach out to me, because I’m a business owner and it’s somebody I’m like, “They know nothing about women in tech.” And they just ask me how I’m doing. I’m like, “Okay, do I respond?” And, “I’m fine, thank you.” Or something like that. And then they come back and tell me that they’ve looked at my profile. They don’t say anything specific, but like, “Oh, you posted some great things. Thanks for sharing. I’d love to know more about your business.”

And I’m like, “I know where this is going. I just know where this is going.” That isn’t building a meaningful relationship. It is partway down the road of trying to be personal and trying to build a relationship first and they’re trying, but I know where it’s going, right? We’re not stupid people and it’s much better for me to know some value upfront to know whether I should continue this relationship. Why am I going to invest time in getting to know you if there’s nothing of interest or value? So tell me about you as well as about asking about me. I’m getting ahead of myself here, but I just want to say why these cold emails really don’t work.

Sending someone’s resume before they know you. Yeah, so I get emails every now and then. I get less now, but I used to get a lot of resumes landing in my inbox when I worked in corporate asking if I would consider it, if I would review it, and just asking for an opportunity and nothing else, just the resume. Right? Even if you’re asking for me to just review it, that’s an hour’s work, couple of hour’s work. As somebody who now does this for her clients, there’s a reason why I don’t sell resume writing as a service because I will do it for my clients because I love and adore them, but I am never going to sell this as a service because it’s not something that lights me up. Because a really good resume takes a couple of hours for somebody like me, who even knows what they’re doing to take a draft and really polish it. So why would I do that for you by email? Why would sending me a resume help you get a job even? Good question.

The other one that really gets me about networking gone wrong is when you ask for something big, not just like the resume here, but hours of time mentoring. I get daily requests to mentor. Gosh, I feel like this is turning into what not to ask me for episode. By the way, I do genuinely love receiving your emails, everybody and questions in particular. Do keep them coming, but don’t ask me to become your mentor. When I don’t know you at all. Why would I do that? I have many women I coach and some that I mentor. And honestly, why would asking me after a two sentence introduction if I could mentor you at work? It’s a good question. Think about that next time you’re thinking about how to ask for a mentor. Mentors are amazing. Do not get me wrong. And many of us should mentor more.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ask for mentors and we shouldn’t be mentoring. I think this is an amazing thing to do.,Both for mentors and mentees. Mentors can get an awful lot of mentoring as well. But here’s the thing, I don’t know you. Why would I give you that much time? So asking for big things, you just kind of have a pile of requests building up in your inbox and believe me, at some point we just go through and delete them. And also, sometimes I’ve had people say, “Well, ask for a big thing and then when they say no, ask for something smaller and you guilt trip them.” So that’s an interesting negotiation technique and it’s something I teach in negotiation skills. Quite a lot of the time, for example, salaries. Go in above where you want to be, so you can come down to where you want to be in the negotiation.

In this particular context, no. This is like slamming the door shut. Ask me for something big, you can guarantee that unless you spark their interest in another way, they’re not going to open another email from you. When I was working in corporate, I got over 1,000 emails a day. It was a full-time job just to manage my inbox. So believe me, asking for something big like that so you can negotiate down doesn’t work in the networking context. Ask small and when you do ask for something, be sure to follow up with a thank you, by the way. This is the other thing that gets me. When I have helped somebody and then they don’t say thank you afterwards. Gets me every time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect at saying thank you. I’m sure I’ve missed people over the years. I’ve had so many amazing people help me, but I do try to say thank you.

So when you do get help, make sure you say thank you promptly and precisely. I’m going to talk about this more, but those are things to avoid. So if you’ve done those things and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, networking is uncomfortable. It doesn’t work.” That’s probably why, because those things are uncomfortable and they don’t work. But I also know the networking your way to a job can feel lonely and exhausting, right? If you’re in a job, you feel that you can’t tell anyone that you’re job hunting. You can’t tell anyone how unhappy you are. You might have told a couple of close friends, but possibly you’ve chosen those friends precisely because they’re not in your industry. If you’re out of a job, it can feel even more lonely because the urgency is piling up, the pressure’s there, you’re embarrassed maybe that you don’t have a job.

And you seem to be reading from job hunt strategy to job hunt strategy. You’re trying to land a job in an industry that you feel like is shrinking in terms of opportunities every day, even if it was pre-COVID. I think as soon as we start looking for jobs, we feel like, “Oh gosh, it’s just there’s no jobs out there for me.” By the way, people are hiring right now. Just in case you’re thinking they’re not, they are hiring right now. It’s odd that with the job hunt, we think we have to tackle it alone. If you had any other crisis in your life, we turn to a friend, a partner, a professional. If your washing machine breaks down, you get out a professional to help fix it probably, unless you’re super handy at home.

So why don’t we do this with a job hunt? Why don’t we turn to our friends, our families, our partners, professionals? Why do we feel that we have to do this alone and why does it feel so lonely? It’s a good question, because here’s the thing, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. So many people turn out that phrase. I have no idea who originally said it, but it’s so true. And what does that immediately conjure in us? The old boy’s network. I feel uncomfortable even just saying that. Growing up, that was the thing that was bad, that was evil. It was the thing that made me different as a woman in tech, as a woman in physics, before I moved into tech. It was the thing that was the thing we’re fighting against.

But here’s the other side of that, what about the amazing women’s networks? What about those? There are some amazing networks out there. I’ll just say for starters, the Leading Women in Tech community over on Facebook and LinkedIn. But here’s the thing, when we view networking as directly related to that old boy’s network, no wonder we feel so super uncomfortable about using it and we think to ourselves, “The job hunt, I just have to do that by myself. This is the way it is. I am going to solve this problem without that network, because that reminds me of the thing that we’re trying to change as leading women in tech.” So let’s get rid of the snooze and the eye rolls, though.

And let’s talk about the amazing women’s networks out there. Despite the reputation of the old boy style of networking, the icky, uncomfortable, full of sliminess, backroom deals and an air of smokey, yuck, and some places that we would really rather prefer professional things don’t occur in, networking a way to a job is making sure that your name profile and skillsets is the one that is coming to somebody’s mind when they’re thinking about writing a job description, or even before that, when they’re thinking about whether they need somebody in this place.

I have had roles created for me and many of my clients have this too. Your network talks to you about what you do. You talk to them about what they do and suddenly there’s this mutual spark of interest and they realize that having you in their company would make their lives easier and make their lives more profitable, have a return on investment. And suddenly they create a job for you. That’s your power of your network. It’s not about that horrible old boy’s network. It is about getting your name in front of the right people at the right time.

So let’s talk about networking events. The big thing that obviously is off the table right now, and probably one of the reasons why many of you feel like this is something that’s well suited to extroverts. For introverts like me and maybe many of you who listen to this podcast, just is like, “Oh my goodness me.” Have you ever been that person that heads straight for the canopy table, gets themselves the glass of bubbly and then goes and stands in the corner, observing the room, waiting for when it’s exemptible to get out of there? Yes? Yeah, me too. I have done that on far more occasions than I wish to admit. And by the way, I would probably even do that now. I don’t go to conferences right now. Who does? But actually, I haven’t been to an official networking event in years, except ones that I’ve run.

And actually even networking events that I run, Women in HPC events, when I was the chair of the charity women in HPC. There would be a whole kind of different affair. And also because I was leading the event, my job there was to connect people. I’d go around the room introducing people to other people and deliberately moving on. That was what I was there to do. So it was kind of different. I wasn’t there to build myself my own network, I was there to introduce others. And that’s when I realized the right way to network. The right way to network is to always give.

It was during that time is when I really accelerated my career. I was doing everybody else favors, and suddenly they would always be thinking about me and opportunities would land in my inbox. They wouldn’t necessarily come at those events. The number of times somebody said, “I really need to chat with you afterwards. Can we have a private chat?” And then the next day at the conference that I was at, whether it’s networking that was seeing place, we’d go out for a coffee. And that was where the real networking happened.

Here’s the thing, that kind of networking is quite often accidental. You’re in a networking event, do you find the right person? Do you meet the right person? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s still networking. The time when you start getting to chat with somebody and your interested in what they say, and it feels like you’re building a genuine connection, a friendship, a spark of mutual interest, and you end up with exchanging email addresses or phone numbers and promising to meet up again next week, or have a virtual coffee, that is the accidental networking that is real networking. That is the kind of networking that is going to open doors. That’s the kind of networking that doesn’t feel like networking.

When you meet up a week later, you should have more plans, more drinks, more excitement. You’re like, “Gosh, I just wish we could figure out how to do more stuff together.” And suddenly they start opening doors to you. They start sending you introductions. They’re like, “I should really put you in touch with my friend, Jamie, who has this thing that I think you’re going to be interested in.” And then maybe Jamie introduces you to somebody else. That kind of networking is strengthening a network, a cobweb if you like, of connections that will always serve you. That original person might be the person that opens a door directly and offers you an opportunity, but it’s more likely it’s going to be their 20 connections that they introduce. That is true networking, because true networking is about making friends. Professional friends, yes, but friends.

It’s not about reaching out to people and feeling uncomfortable and getting on a call with them and being like, “So just tell me what you do and maybe I want to work with you.” No, this is about problem solving for each other and sharing ideas and inspiration. But during COVID, that initial outreach piece, what we were doing at a networking event or a conference historically, so how do we now do that? Because reaching out to somebody, for example, by email or LinkedIn, it feels simple, but how do you start making a genuine connection that might flourish into a friendship or might not? And why do I say LinkedIn, by the way? Well, because here’s the thing, as I said, I would get thousands of emails when I was in corporate and LinkedIn was the way I kept connected with my network and not my email.

If you sent me an email, there was a really good chance that if it didn’t immediately grab my interest, it wasn’t at the top of my radar at that moment that I was in my inbox looking for something to do with the project I was on, it would get ignored. It would go off the bottom of my inbox. Believe me monitoring my inbox, and for many professionals, is a full time job in its own right. Something that I would love to talk about at some point where we need to get out of email. So I used to use my LinkedIn email inbox as my way to actually stay in touch with my network.

And many people do this. As I mentioned at the top of the show, most of the Fortune 500 decision makers are on LinkedIn, but not any other social media platform, right? And the people below them are, and the people that are them are. People in your professional space are far more likely to be on LinkedIn for professional reasons than any other network. And it’s where they are networking. It’s not where they’re going to manage their day to day projects, which is what’s in their inbox, in their email inbox.

So if people are active on LinkedIn, that’s probably what they’re expecting you to do. They’re expecting you to network through LinkedIn, but back to the original question. How do you start reaching out to people such that it doesn’t feel super uncomfortable? Good question. So, well, let’s talk about how you might reach out to me. If I now receive 1,000 messages, after you’ve all been listening to this,I will know that you’ve just been listening to this podcast episode. So for example, a really good message to reach out to me, you’d have gone and read about me, maybe you’ve been listening to the podcast and you’d pick on something about me that I said that really resonated with you. You’d maybe throw in there something funny, maybe, yes, I am a crazy cat lady and I’m quite proud of that fact.

So maybe you throw in there something saying that you are even more crazy cat than me. By the way, I think that would be a hard thing to top, just saying, but it probably would be. So the best way to reach out is to reach out and mention something about them in a short and sweet sentence or two. Show that you are genuinely interested in something that they’ve done, said or posted, and that you actually want to connect with the human, not with the opportunity that they might offer. Now, of course, we all know that building our network is about opening opportunities, but anybody who’s on LinkedIn also knows that your networking is your biggest asset. It doesn’t mean that you have to actually use that asset to immediately open one opportunity. It’s also the people they’re connected to. Because here’s the thing, I’m kind of going into some of the stuff I’m going talk about on the masterclass here.

Don’t forget to sign up for the LinkedIn masterclass, Tonicollis.com/leveraging-linkedin-masterclass. I will put the link in the show notes, but here’s the thing with your LinkedIn connections. When people are searching for something, for a keyword, for a job title, for somebody they might recruit, a skillset, LinkedIn pushes results to you based on your network. They will list your immediate network first. So being connected to somebody who’s searching for a particular skillset, even if you don’t know them very well, is really good because you’ll come up first in that search. Then their second connections, their second degree connections, this is people who, the people that they’re directly connected to are connected to. They will come up next. And then the third degree connections. And then finally the big, bad wolf is out there. It’s not clear to me whether LinkedIn continues to do first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh degree connections.

Maybe it does, but they definitely initially rank first, then second, then third degree connections. That is how the search facility in LinkedIn works. So the more connected you are, even if those people aren’t necessarily going to open doors for you, but they know people who might, okay? So the more connected you are on LinkedIn, the better. So in general, connecting with people on LinkedIn is not a big deal. Anybody who knows the power of LinkedIn should just be accepting connection requests. A lot of people will refuse if they don’t know you and LinkedIn, six, seven years ago put in a thing to say, “Do you know this person? Why do you not want to connect with them? Do you?” Because they realized that people with the privacy thing, they’re getting really uncomfortable about it. I want you to just get past that.

I want you to accept any incoming connection requests, unless there’s somebody dangerous out there. In which case, you probably need to go and talk to somebody else about that. But accept all connection requests and work on the basis that their network then becomes your extended network. So here’s the thing, going back to reaching out to them, you can reach out to people, but you have to say something personal to them. You are much better sending out just five really powerful, really well thought through, really well researched connection requests, than 100. You would probably get four out of five, even five out of five results rather than one or two out of 100 results. And it takes about the same amount of time.

So you want to keep it short, sweet to the point, you want to include something personal, maybe something funny. Yeah, crazy cat lady stuff. And you want to keep it maximum three, five sentences. You want to respect their time. If you’re going to ask for something in that initial opening, which I don’t advise you do unless it’s a very quick small thing, like introducing you to somebody in their network or answering a very specific question. But I already know, I have had people who have reached out to me and asked for a 15 minute chat about working somewhere I’ve used to work or something like that. And I will give that if I possibly can. Depends when it comes in, to be honest to a large extent, but they’re much more likely to get a yes, if they can tell me something about me that like, “Okay, they spent some time.” Yes, it is stroking our egos a little bit, but when you get hundreds of requests every week, how do you decide which one to do?

And then the next one, when you do meet up with this person, obviously right now it’s not during COVID. And actually with the nature of the tech world, it’s probably not even going to be in the same city. So it’s actually quite difficult to meet up with them in person, but if you do meet up with them in person, buy the damn coffee. The number of times I’ve been doing somebody a favor and then I’ve picked up the bill, maybe for just my, but maybe for both of them. And I’m like, “Whoa, what’s going on here?” I’ve had somebody who’s trying to get me to go and work for them, who’ve taken me out to an expensive restaurant and then made me buy my own dinner. And I’m like, “Wow, why would I come and work for you?” So buy them a coffee.

Yes, that can get quite expensive if you’re trying to network with lots of people, but I would say try and network with very small number of people who are really powerful that you can build friendships with and it will serve you better. Obviously right now with COVID, with social distancing, you’re probably going to be doing this on Zoom anyway, or some other platform, but just have that in mind. Don’t be the one he doesn’t pick up the tab. That just never looks good. And then the final thing, once you’ve actually spoken to them, however well or bad it went, send a thank you immediately that’s precise and explains a piece of value. Not just a generic thank you. Thank you for the discussion on X and giving me these valuable insights and why. Thank you for introducing me, blah, blah, blah. Here’s an introduction I can make for you.

Ideally, you’re going to give something back in that email as well, something that you can do for them. So the best network is a network that gives and takes and you should always give more to your network than you take from it. So I always suggest, as you finish up a conversation with networking, that you say, “Hey, who could I introduce you to?” Or, “Why don’t I introduce you to this person? This is why I think they’d be interesting to you.” And then they’ll reciprocate as well, by the way. And then your thank you is, “I’m going to introduce you, just in an email, introducing you. Look out for it in your inbox, but thank you so much for introducing me to X. Looking forward to it.” Or something like that. And always thank them for their time.

Okay. So, here’s how to network when you’re like, “Where do I even start?” So I’ve told you about how to do it. Who do you start with? Here’s the easy way to do this, right? You must have people in your network that you know who are just social butterflies. They are the person that has 20, 30 people around them at a party. They know everybody. I want you to start approaching them.

They’re likely to not have a huge amount of time, especially if they’re a social butterfly professionally because they would get a lot of these requests, but you know what? If they’re your friend and you can give them something, one, they’re more likely to actually pick up the phone or open the email if it’s from you because they know you. But secondly, they have a network of people. So ask questions, get curious, have a conversation with them and then ask them if they’d introduce you to people. You can tell them, “Hey, look I’m upset in my current position.” Or, “I’m out of a job. I’m looking for opportunities. Do you know anybody who might have something interesting for me? Do you know anybody in this sector that I could talk to?”

And then ask them to do the introductions. So you’ll get a much higher hit rate from being introduced by somebody you know who can speak to your value, especially if you help them writing that introduction. You give them a couple of sentences to use in that introduction. Then it becomes a much lower cost task for them. Do that and you will suddenly find that your network is growing really quite rapidly. Then there are some just good things to bear in mind with networking. Always tell the truth. Yes, we want to show ourselves in the best possible light, but let’s just be honest here. If you tell an outright lie, somebody’s going to know. Be honest about who you are, what you do, where you’re from.

Next one, be curious. This is how you get ahead in networking, asking questions. Most people love to talk about themselves. This is how I got to the C-suite. Asking people what they’re struggling with and helping them solve their problems. And then they were like, “Oh gosh, you just need to come work for us.” Seriously. It works every time. So ask questions and be curious.

Make it easy for them, do something for them and do something big for them and ask for something small. Make all requests small, even to the point of, if you’re asking for a recommendation or you’re asking for an introduction, draft it for them. Say, “Hey, happy to draft this for you. Would that help?” That’s a really good one to do. I even offered to draft emails, quite long emails to people that are sent on my behalf. Some people really appreciate that. Other people are like. “No, no I’ve got it.” But you just need to make this as simple as possible. They’re going to put their name to it, so they have to be comfortable with it, but you can hugely help them reduce how much time and energy they have to put into it.

Okay, so I hope that you are feeling better about networking, leveraging your current friendships to open new networking opportunities and leaning into the idea that this is about building friendships, not about cold calculated emails that feel icky. But let’s finish out with a leadership mindset moment. in case you are new around here, a leadership mindset moment is an actionable tip to help adjust how you act or think, to make it easier to up level so can take more positive action on today’s podcast topic.

So today, let’s talk about making the most of your current network. As I’ve mentioned, your current friends are a great way to get going. So why do I want you to into this? I want you to be open and willing to use this set of connections. That’s the mindset moment piece. Being open and willing to use this set of connections. Your network is your asset. So start using it. Start strengthening it. Reach out to them. Target 10 people you know, go and look through your connections, your contacts, your LinkedIn connections. Start with people you really like and trust. You don’t even have to stick to people that are just in your area or niche, you can start with friends. Sometimes friends who are in a different area can open amazing connections too. Anyone that you might think of as having something to do with your area is a good place to start. Yes, but it can go much broader than that. I want you to start by reaching out to 10 people that you know, that you really like, that you trust.

Tell them what you’re looking for. Tell them you are open to new opportunities, that you’re upset in your current role. Yes, there’s some confidentiality to consider here, but reach out to them and ask them if they know anyone who you could talk to. That’s it. That’s your mindset moment, being open and willing to use your current connections. You might get eight out of 10 of them replying, but I bet you will get more than five, definitely. And you’ll probably get at least 10 warm leads per person that responds. Suddenly, networking just got more comfortable.

That’s it for today’s episode. If you love this, don’t forget to sign up for the Leveraging LinkedIn Masterclass. It’s the place that you need to be if you’ve been procrastinating forever on your LinkedIn networking. If you’re scared to reach out to strangers, maybe you hate cold emails, that’s 100% okay. This masterclass is designed for people like you who don’t need to be an extrovert and who aren’t chill about speaking to strangers, then this is for you.

If you’re terrified of wasting time on your networking, this is also for you, because I’m going to try and make it super simple and easy to do. You can’t afford to waste time building another social profile and an online presence that isn’t going to turn you into a job and a good offer. If that feels like you, this is the masterclass you need. I want you to go register now, right now. The link is in the show notes. You can get the show notes over at ToniCollis.com/episode9 or just check out the show notes in your favorite podcast player. Until next time, remember to stay on your tech leadership game, follow your dreams because the world really does need that uniqueness that you bring as a leading woman in tech.