Five Tips for Cracking the Career Surface

This past weekend I was fortunate to attend the Book Publishers Association of Alberta (BPAA) conference in beautiful Banff, Alberta. When I say fortunate, I mean I was given the opportunity of a budding publisher’s lifetime. I am not affiliated with a publisher; I’m a grad student. In Banff I met some of the biggest, brightest publishers in the province, attended presentations on new technologies, visions of the future, and hiring concerns and strategies. These presentations were not only inspiring, but I firmly believe they will give me an edge when considering what I have to offer an industry that is notoriously difficult to break into. Without a doubt, I just took a giant leap towards my future.

I have to admit that, while I may be overly humble when it comes to my writing, I am confident in my networking and, let’s face it, schmoozing skills. So I thought I’d take a stab at a real blog post and give you my five tips for networking your way into the places you’d like to be. But before I begin, I have to offer a serious disclaimer. Everything I know I learned from Alexis Beaubier at the Career Centre at Vancouver Island University. Those who work for passion are infinitely better at what they do than those who work for the money. Alexis could teach a sloth how to get a job on a crab-fishing boat. So thank you Alexis for all your brilliance and expertise. Now, on with the tips.

1) Make Contact

First step is to write an email—simple as that. Find the name of a contact, not too low on the chain, but obviously not so high that you’ll never get a response, and send an introductory email. Keep it short and simple. Explain who you are, what you’re interested in, and you’d like the opportunity to ask a few questions. Remember, you’re not asking for a job; you’re asking for information. Request half an hour of the contact’s time to meet in person.

2) Have ten easy questions prepared

I’m not going to insult my brilliant audience by telling you that you should research. Of course you’re going to research the company or industry you’d like to work for. So get an idea of who you’re going to speak to and generally what they do. But easy questions lead to conversation. If you’re going to quote something from a company’s press release and ask for more on that detail, you’re going to get information about that detail. Your meeting companion is going to slip into company mode and answer as though you’re media or competition. They will be guarded and professional, and that’s no way to make friends. Ask simple questions. What does a day in the life of you look like? How’s business? How did you get started? Here are the skills I’m proud of; do you think they will apply to this type of industry? Don’t talk about yourself too much; this is important. People love to talk about themselves, so let them. Make them feel good and they will remember you for it.

3) Take the plunge

The hardest part of my weekend at the conference was entering that room. Honestly, I walked in to the first night reception, took one look at the professionals whose hands were grasping glasses of wine and my potential career, turned on my heel and escaped to the bathroom. It’s scary! It doesn’t matter how much of a people person you are, it feels like you’re leaping into the shark tank, and you are. So take a deep breath, put on your game face, and get in there champ! It sounds like advice that goes without saying, but believe me, it can be the hardest part of the whole process.

4) Be interested

Pay attention to the answers you’re given. Take notes if you feel you have to, but listen more. Easy questions make for easy conversation so be as natural as you can. Follow up on comments that feel important, ask more about topics you think your new acquaintance favours, and for goodness sake smile. If you feel a lull in the conversation try and summarize the important points thus far. It will most likely jog your companion’s memory and he or she will provide more information that might have been forgotten. Finally, when it feels like the conversation is at a close ask what you should do next. Ask if there are other people you might benefit from speaking to. By this point your interviewee will hopefully feel he or she has a stake in your success and will want to help.

5) Say thank you

with a card. Remember those things? Chances are your mom still gets you one from Hallmark for your birthday. Write out a simple thank-you card before your meeting and present it at the end. Don’t be too gushy, just a simple “it was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, and I hope to speak to you again in the future.” Be sure to include your contact information as well. This, I find, really leaves an impression on people. No one gives thank-you cards anymore, and this simple gesture will be sure to leave a lasting impression. Not to mention, people feel guilty for just throwing away a card immediately so it will guarantee this new contact will have your email address for at least a week longer. Chances are you will have more than one of these meetings, so buy thank you cards in packs.

These days it seems like anyone you talk to will tell you the economy is horrible, the job market is dismal, and hope is almost lost. Sure it’s difficult to break into a good career. If it wasn’t there’d be no Walmart greeters. However, looking for a career is exciting. It’s when you prove to yourself that, while you may not know everything, you can fire the big guns with the best of them. Every industry professional was new at some point, and there’s a good chance they didn’t have the gumption to rub elbows with the key players when they were starting out. Sure there’s a chance that an eventual job won’t come from these networking tips. There’s a chance you will choke, spit coffee out your nose all over your new contact’s tie. You might discover after you leave the meeting that you had spinach in your teeth. But no matter what, you will leave knowing more than when you arrived. It’s called experience, and apparently it’s very important in the career world.

I'll write the title later

My alarm goes off at 7am every weekday. I get out of bed around 8:30. There's a Second Cup that opened a block away from my house and it has become my new "office space" for writing my thesis. I plan on heading there around 10:00 every morning and putting in a solid 6 hours. I get there around 2 and work until about 6. Intended 6 hours always translates to realistic 4 hours, doesn't it? Right? Or is it just me? I have been distracting myself lately by reading more blogs and it's prompted me to revisit mine. I haven't touched this dusty whatever-this-is in over a year. I admit it; I have a procrastination problem.

So in true Jessica form, I figured I'd click on that scary "new post" button and fire off an inspirational rambling that will put the Nike slogan to shame! Then I realized that the simple act of interacting with this blog has essentially brought my procrastination to a pause. Maybe not a screeching halt, but at least a slight hesitation.

I don't know why I'm terrified of writing. I seem to work very hard at finding other things to do that don't involve the one thing I claim to want to do more than anything else in the world. Why don't I write more? Who knows. Perfectionism? Fear of failure? Finger cramps? I'm confident that at least one of my problems is fear of bad sentences--and I write a lot of them! But writing an encyclopedia of bad sentences in September leaves room for chiseling out the bad in February.

Let me take a moment to redeem myself slightly. I did accomplish a lot last year. I attended a conference in Spain in April, I spent the summer in Quebec City étudier le français. I joined some committees, did some fundraising, met lots of people in academia, and got all my coursework done. All things considered, I can network and cross off to-do lists with the best of them. I just can't bring myself to write.

So here's a bit of advice for me. Stop being so hard on myself, write bad sentences, write them often, and have a long talk with that alarm clock.