OUGD602 - Career track Tuesdays - Networking

I recently attended a career track Tuesday event focused on Networking. The main reason I chose to attend this particular session is because I go to events whenever I can but always struggle to find a way of breaking into a clique of people. This is one of the biggest problems for me, as a vast majority of the time familiar groups stay together at events. Nevertheless, I hoped attending this session would give insight into ways of tackling this.

The session covered why networking is important, where to network, conversation topics, body langauge and following up and my notes from the session can be seen below:

• Reach out your own sector to make new connections
• Distinguishing yourself on social media
• Set goals for events and do research
• Make Linkedin more personal

The session was really hands on, which I preferred as we were forced into situations that'd be the norm at any other networking events. As a group we had to pretend we were attending an event and the goal was to make five connections in 15 minutes, and from the pointers the instructor gave us it made the task a lot less scary. It opened my eyes to how crucial body language can be in these situations and how it can the main issue for many people.