It’s not because the business world tends to slow down during the holidays (in the Western world anyway) that it’s a bad time to network. Whether you’re looking to find a new job, new clients or raise your profile, the holidays are actually the perfect time to do that. The main reason? Most people tend to slow down; by continuing your efforts, you’ll stand out that much more. Social networks allow you to keep networking through the year. Remember that Facebook is increasingly getting more visitors than Google during the holidays…
Networking tips
If you’ve been building your relation all year round
Keeping in touch with recruiters, hiring managers and directors is still possible. Use your social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter to send messages, comment on status updates and participate on Groups and Pages. As these contacts appear to slow down during the holidays, they’ll actually be preparing what they need in terms of staff and suppliers for the next year. They’ll be catching up on reading and sharing articles…
A few ideas
- Create Lists and Circles of people that are in a hiring position and actively participate in their discussions
- Apply to jobs you see on LinkedIn or that have been shared on other networks. As other people slow down, you’ll be sending CVs
- Send holiday greetings messages via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+
- Be tasteful. For a lot of people the holidays means family time so respect that. A holiday greeting is fine; 5 per person, on each social network is excessive
If you’re just starting out
If you’ve decided to use the slow down to start networking that’s possible too. It’s a great time to start building your online presences. Remember that most managers take this slow-down period to figure out their needs for the following year. What they’ll do next, is hop on to LinkedIn and Google to fill those needs. Take the time to build those presences. It’s important to note that if you haven’t been networking all year round, you might not see results immediately, but starting now will give you a head start.
A few ideas
- LinkedIn is sexy, so beef up your profile to make sure it’s 100% complete and that your Summary and Experience have tons of interesting keywords. Make sure you tell people what you can do for them because that’s what people will search for. Remember LinkedIn is always a very powerful job-search tool.
- Fill out your Google+ profile with information about who you are and what you do. For some quick, applicable ideas, check out Chris Brogan’s video (it’s only 1:00 long).
- Fill out the Info section of your Facebook profile with career info and review the description on your Twitter account
- Review your corporate website (if you’re looking for new clients) or your personal site. If you don’t have a personal site like a blog, consider using a site like About.me
- Be keyword-rich. The purpose of all of this is to use keywords that recruiters and buyers will search for. For example, if you’re looking for a job as an HR Director, make sure all your presences mention you work in HR, for how many years, at which companies or for which accounts and that you’ve closely worked with your current Directors. Keyword ideas include: HR, Human Resources, Recruitment (if applicable), Your company, Your clients, Director (as in, I’ve worked with…)
Get creative
It’s the holiday season so add a little magic. Try to do stuff that will stand out. It should be pretty easy considering most people just wind-down, but there’s always room for creativity.
A few ideas
- Send small gifts with your CV attached to HR and Hiring Managers that you know
- Call to wish happy holidays and mention you are looking
- We all remember the story of Alec Brownstein who found a job by creatively using Google AdWords. Do something similar with Facebook Ads or LinkedIn Ads. Create an ad and target people by location and company
- If you have a blog write a post like “10 reasons to hire a [the job you're looking for] in [your location]” and finish off saying you’re looking for new challenges
- If some of the people you’re looking to target have blogs, reach out and offer to write a guest post and get a conversation rolling
The holidays are an ideal time to start networking. As most people slow down, you’ll have a head start. But sometimes the most important thing you can do is slow down and take the time to figure out what you really want for the next year.
Do you have any other networking tips to offer?
(Photo credit: Caroline)
