College time is one of the most important phases of our lives as it teaches us many important things and life-lessons. Although the college experience is largely about academics, those developmental years of higher education are also a prime time to jump-start your professional development.
One of the elements of that development, which is also a powerful career-building tools, is networking. Unfortunately, college students don’t hear much or anything about the importance of networking in their college classes as the professional networking doesn’t really fit into a conventional college course syllabus. Networking, in the professional sense, is about establishing connections with people typically in your field. Such connections could be working professionals, experts, thought leaders, or even professors.
The main objective of networking is to form relationships with those could help get you to where you desire to go. So, the earlier you start building up your network, the better. Let’s take a look at why it is important for college students:
- Establishing new connections
- To get career guidance, industry insights or internship leads
- For better job opportunities in future
- Generation of referrals
- Confidence building
Let’s take a look at how college students can start networking:
- Adopt networking in your everyday routine
Doesn’t matter if you’re an introvert or an extrovert, you can very well adopt networking in your everyday routine by doing simple activities like engaging with your professors and classmates. They can help you a lot when it will be about job searching and referrals. Not only can your teachers offer valuable advice. They can even refer your name when their past students who work at good companies now ask for help. By regularly talking to your professors, it keeps your name in the back of their minds when this question arises.
It’s a great idea to be nice to build a relationship with your classmates and teachers now, who knows, one day they just might work at your dream company, and you can remind them about the time you had spent with them.
- Be active on campus
There are multiple benefits to getting involved on campus. You make new friends, boost up your resume, and, of course, expand your network. You can do this by getting involved in honour societies, professional clubs, social fraternities, student groups etc. Not only will you be able to connect with a number of other students and people, you’ll also be able to connect with advisers and mentors.
If your college has an exhibition, a tour to exotic places, club fair or any other good stuff, go! College students shouldn’t miss any chance when it comes to networking and connecting with new people.
- Always be open to new connections
When it comes to meeting new people and developing a long-term relationship with them, there’s no such thing as “They’re not my type!”. College students should learn to see a potential long-term connection in almost everyone that they meet or interact with. Establishing a new and important connection could happen anywhere.
- Expand and enhance your online presence
Yes, we understand that meeting and talking to new people every day could be very difficult for college students. That’s when they can leverage the power of social media and the Internet.
Student can create their websites, LinkedIn profile, join the Facebook alumni group of their college and a lot more. The options are endless for those who are willing to make new connections.
- Maintain your networks
Now considering that you’ve made enough connections in your friends, teachers and other college staff. Now, you must maintain them and make sure they remember your name and face when you actually need them. For instance, if you meet someone at a book fair, greet them a message/e-mail afterward. Even if they can’t help you get your ‘dream job’, just letting them know that you appreciate the time they took to talk to you is enough to etch your identity into their brain.
To better that, you can even add something special or different that you learned during your conversation. All this will show that you were genuinely listening. Who knows, you name could just pop first into their brain when they’re looking for a new candidate for a position.
All this may sound easy but of course, it, too needs special attention and hard work in order to do effectively. Don’t just go to your college to attend lectures and get home work. So, go out there and start networking, the sooner you start networking, the better your chances are of connecting with someone who’ll help give you a little job-search boost later on.
At RMIET, the college environment for academics, sports and social life are kept at balance in order to promote the overall development of students. To know more visit – http://rmiet.org/
