Back in university when I was in business school, I had a laboring job in the summer working at a milk processing plant. I ran filling machines, packed products in trays and on skids, sorted leaking milk packages, mixed products on the blender and basically did all the various jobs in the company’s production department. It was a good job in that it was a unionized environment and paid well as a result so I was able to fund university myself.

One regret I have with this job is that near the end of my tenure there when I was about to finish university, I should have made a better effort to introduce myself to some of the senior executives there and enquire about the possibility of working in the company post graduation. The company I worked for was in turn owned by one of the largest food processing companies in the country so there might have been some great opportunities available.

The thing is that I already knew that following graduation, I was going to move to New Zealand and start working there which is exactly what I did. Things worked out for me in that regard, too but in hindsight I wish I’d have taken the opportunity to network a bit with some people at the company even to keep in touch with while I was in New Zealand and when I ultimately returned home.

I think about one instance in particular that makes me want to kick myself. About 1 year before I graduated, there was a big project at the plant I worked at where a number of the packaging machines were being ripped out on a Saturday evening and reinstalled in a more organized fashion without any lost production time so that it would be ready for the start of production on the Monday morning.

On the Friday afternoon right before the project was going to start, the maintenance staff were already starting the work while production was still operating and the work was already well underway.

I was walking from the lunch room back to the production area when I literally ran into the President of the company. I’d never met him but had heard him speak at a previous company event and he seemed like an approachable person. He worked up in the office area and production was at the opposite end of the very large building we worked in so people like me didn’t have much of an opportunity to see him.

We made eye contact and said hi to each other and started talking as we took the long walk down the narrow hallway to the production area. I asked if he was going to look at the work being done and he said yes, that’s why he was checking it out. He jokingly asked me if the work was going to be done for the Monday deadline and I said that yes, it would be done. Notwithstanding the fact that I wasn’t actually working on the project! I had nothing to do with it but he asked an honest question and I gave him an honest answer. We continued walking and talked a bit more and then went our separate ways once we got to the entrance of the production area.

In hindsight, I wish I’d have at least introduced myself a bit more formally and basically given him a 30 second commercial about myself, that I was soon going to graduate from business school in the next year, and ask him who he’d suggest speaking with in the company about possible opportunities in the company once I graduated.

What would he have said in response?

At worst he may have suggested sending in a resume to their HR department but perhaps he’d have given me something better.

Maybe he would have suggested speaking with his assistant about getting some names to contact.

Maybe he’d have asked me for a resume to forward to someone.

Who knows? I’ll never know because I didn’t do it. I had a good name in the company with my bosses so I think I’d have had a good chance to stick with the company in some capacity. Again, I ended up moving overseas anyways and things worked out just fine but who knows what would have happened had I asked him for some advice regarding staying with the company fulltime?

When you’re searching for a new job, have you ever approached trusted friends and former colleagues to refer you to a manager within their company to discuss a job opportunity with them?

I’ve had occasions where people I know were looking for a new job and I offered to refer them to a manager I worked with to see if there was something available for that person within the company.

So ideally you’d get referred to a person by having the opportunity offered to you and where you didn’t have to ask someone to refer someone else to you. Some people may not feel comfortable referring you to someone within their company especially if they don’t know you that well or to be frank, if you’re not that good at what you do.

I certainly wouldn’t recommend everyone I’ve ever worked with or know. But one of the hardest parts of the job search – as you’ve probably already found out – is getting your foot in the door. Sometimes, convincing someone to interview you is the hardest part of the process especially if they have dozens or hundreds of other people that they could interview instead of you. If you have someone in your corner who already works for the company and they are willing to vouch for you, it can help to make your job search a bit easier or at least help to improve your odds.

How can you improve the chances that people would voluntarily refer you to people who they know who can positively influence your job search and thus your career? For starters you should:

1. Let people know you’re looking for a new job. Let people in your life know you’re looking for a new job and let them know that you’d appreciate them letting you know of anyone who they’d suggest speaking with regarding your job search. Your not asking your friend to find you a job, you’re simply asking them to point you in the direction of someone they know who might be interested to speak with you.

2. Make sure you’re someone who people would actually want to refer to others. The only people I’d refer to others are those who are good at what they do, have a good, positive personality, are skilled, likable and would fit the company I’d refer them to. Basically someone who wouldn’t embarrass me and make me look bad if they ended up getting hired by the company! Are you that kind of person?

3. Be the type of person who would do the same for others. This isn’t so much a quid pro quo situation where “you help me and I’ll help you” but are you the kind of person who other people would like to help? Are you the type of person who also helps others or are you a selfish person who generally only takes care of themselves? I won’t help that kind of person and I suspect many others would say the same thing.

Something that I’ve found people often don’t do properly during their career is follow through with things to completion. One specific area is with referrals. I can think of numerous times where someone will ask me for help referring them to someone – which I’ll typically do – and then a few months later when I suddenly remember that they never told me how the referral went, they mention that they never bothered to follow up with the person I’d referred them to. They forget, they were too busy, the usual excuses.

Networking is a great way to meet new people who can positively influence your career as it is, but when you have the opportunity to meet someone that was referred to you and you don’t bother, I just can’t figure that one out. Yet I’ve seen cases including one a few months ago where I referred someone to two recruiters I used to work with after this person asked me for this help and they never bothered to contact either recruiter. You try to help people but they won’t even bother to help themselves.

I’ve seen this with reference checking too. Not letting people know that you’re using them as a reference is pretty stupid but I’ve witnesses it firsthand. A few years back I got a call out of the blue at work from a guy who told me he was calling for a reference check for a woman I’d worked with several years earlier for several months. I hadn’t spoken with her for months and yet she’d decided to use me as a reference…but hadn’t told me! It was a surprise getting the call regarding a job I didn’t know she had applied to for a reference I didn’t realize I was needed for. It took me a few minutes into the reference before I even knew what to say.

I never did find out if she got the job either. She forgot to follow up with me on that too.

The Internet provides a false sense of security to job searchers as it allows us to think we’re accomplishing something by hiding behind our keyboard and firing off resumes, tweets, Facebook friend requests and using other online tools ad nauseum…and making us feel like we’ve accomplished something.

Firing off dozens of resumes to hiring managers in response to jobs they’ve advertised on major job boards is great…until you realize that it’s just as easy for hundreds or thousands of other people to the same thing!

Tweeting and adding people as friends and thinking that this qualifies as networking is great too…until you realize that of the hundreds or thousands of people you follow and are friends with, you really only pay attention to a small handful of them. How many of those people are ignoring you too?

The easiest way to get in touch with someone and make an impression is in person. In sales, you can reach many more people by calling them on the phone or emailing them but meeting them in person often results in much better results. Having that face to face contact just adds something that a phone call or email can’t.

What do you think is better? Emailing 100 resumes to 100 nameless, faceless email addresses or meeting 10 hiring manager in person?

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then this certainly applies to the job search process too. Doing the same thing over and over again and padding your Internet stats with more friends and followers is great, but if it’s not getting you closer to a better job or career, what’s the point?

Networking is what many people tell you to do to help your career and find a new job. Exactly what “networking” means to different people though is another question…

Also, giving versus taking is often a big issue with networking. Specifically, if you’re doing all taking and no giving, it tends not to result in positive results.

Twitter is a popular method of networking that people commonly use these days. Or at least it give people the impression that they’re networking. I get Twitter confirmations to let me know that someone is following me and when I check the person’s profile, I see that they have something like 5,000 followers and they are also in turn following 5,000 people.

So do you think that this person actually has 5,000 active followers who follow their tweets – and that they in return actively follow 5,000 people – or that it’s more a case where people simply follow each other, pad their results and don’t really accomplish much?

In other words, is it simply a quid pro quo of “I’ll follow you if you follow me” or is it something more than that?

People can certainly “”meet” others through Twitter but it’s questionable how many if not most people actually use it positively. I’ve had plenty of cases where someone follows me, I don’t bother following them, and two days later they’re no longer following me.

It does bring up a bigger thought related to networking though. When you’re networking, people expect to get something in return and when you don’t give it to them, they’re likely to avoid you or stop dealing with you.

People decide to follow me on Twitter and when I don’t bother following them back, they decide to unfriend me and delete me. In most cases, I couldn’t care less because I tend not to follow people who don’t at least offer something serious, useful, or related to my topic.

I’ve seen similar actions on Facebook and LinkedIn, too. Cases where I get a request from a person I haven’t seen or heard from in years but get no actual note or email. So they want to be a friend or link up with me…but don’t bother sending any email or note regarding what they are up to or anything like that.

When it comes to real, live, actual networking though, pay attention to what you offer and if you come across as simply someone who is taking and not giving.

People who do this consistently tend to have trouble successfully networking since the person on the other side of the table realizes that the only person benefiting is you.

People still attend job fairs to meet recruiters and hiring managers, to hand them a resume in exchange for a business card and hope that something comes out of it.

In my experience, job fairs can still be a good way to meet people and to find a new job but it can take awhile. You might get a job interview quickly (and possibly a job) if you link up with an actual hiring manager who likes your background. When you meet a recruiter, it might be more a case where you have to wait until a suitable job arises that matches your skills.

There is also the question of how to actually approach these job fairs and what to bring.

We already spoke about getting some professionally made personal business cards if you’re not currently working or even if you are working but are looking for a new job. This can be a great way to exchange contact information with people you’re networking with.

On the issue of whether or not to bring a stack of your resumes in hard copy and hand them out to everyone you meet, I’m torn.

Unless they’re working like neanderthals (and some recruiters do) most recruitment companies use a resume database just like everyone else does these days so even if you hand someone a hard copy of your resume, they’re most likely going to ask you to email them a copy in Word. So in that regard, having a hard copy of the resume doesn’t do a lot except that it possibly allows the person you’re meeting with to glance at it quickly and maybe ask you a question or two about your background.

When attending job fairs these days, ask for a business card from the person you meet, have your own personal business cards ready to hand out in response (most people don’t have them so this can help you stand out from your competitors) and be ready to discuss your skills, experience, and motivation for looking for a new job. If you each have a copy of your respective business card to exchange, you’ll be able to keep in touch and it will probably help to keep you top of mind in the eyes of the hiring manager moreso than handing them a paper copy of your resume like everyone else does.

Technology can be funny. Or at least the people using it can be.

Am I the only person to get a friend request on Facebook or an invite from LinkedIn out of the blue from someone you haven’t seen or heard from in say 10 or 20 years…with no message in it or anything. Just a request to link up, and that’s it.

I typically email the person back – since that’s the mode of communication offered – and tell the person that I’m happy to hear from them, tell them a few things I’m up to and usually ask them a question or two about themselves.

And I typically get no response.

What’s the point?

I don’t understand why someone would bother to send you an indication that they want to see what you’re up to, but not bother to actually see what you’re up to, or to let you know how they’re doing.

I recently received a LinkedIn invite from a guy I went to university with and haven’t seen or heard from since 1994. No note, just a request. I accepted the invite and included an email to him. I never heard back from him.

Did he forget how to type?

Was he that desperate to get access to my Contacts list?

I can see a day when you bump into someone you haven’t seen in years and upon asking them how they’re doing, they respond by saying “check my blog.”

It’s sort of like anti-social networking. You’re kind of networking but not really since networking normally involves actually speaking with other people not just hiding behind a keyboard doing it.

In a career-related sense, actually keeping in touch with people – whether by phone, face to face, email, social websites, etc – is a great idea. Networking is a related topic and there is certainly no harm in keeping in touch with former school mates, colleagues, managers and the like. You never know when you might be able to help each other out.

When I log into LinkedIn, I noticed that when I hovered my mouse over the URL, it said “Relationships Matter.” Apparently they don’t matter all that much in some cases.

Personal branding is the new buzzword that you often hear about pertaining to career management. The term has been around since the late 1990s but has really come into play recently with the increasing popularity of various social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to name a few.

Certainly, we can probably name a number of famous people whose name alone denotes a brand of sorts. Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey are ones that come to mind.

Personal branding also comes into play when famous people attach their name to specific products or services. Paul Newman’s line of salad dressings come to mind as do the George Foreman grilling products. I haven’t tried Mr. Newman’s dressings but I have one of the early grills from the former heavyweight boxing champion and really like using it.

When the George Foreman grill first came out, it somehow made sense: he made no secrets of how much he enjoyed eating and therefore it seemed to be reasonable that he would promote a personalized line of grilling products marketed to health-conscious individuals that cooked the food on an angle and allowed fat to drip off into a pan.

The interesting thing about these people and their branding is that they became famous in their chosen field(s) and then developed their brand, not the other way around. So the personal brand was a result of success in their chosen field, not a tactic.

Subsequently, personal branding is something that many people are advocating and you might be wondering if it’s a legitimate tool for you to use or if it’s just another artsy fartsy marketing term used by people wanting to sell you a book or three on the subject. In other words, will using personal branding help you or the person wanting to sell you their book on personal branding?

Well, anyone who puts anything on the Internet under their own name certainly brands themselves, often not for the right reasons. Putting pictures of yourself drunk or in an otherwise embarrassing situation can send the wrong message to people who happen to come across these pictures who might have a hand in your future prospects ie. your current employer, a future employer.

In this case, you may have branded yourself “unemployable” if the pictures get into the wrong hands.

The interesting thing about most of the social networking sites that are so popular these days is that sites themselves – and the profile that you keep – is all about you. These sites basically prove that no one on this planet is as interested in you as much as you are.

On a serious note though, can personal branding help you in your chosen profession and specifically, can it help you get a new job?

To be dead honest, I don’t know the likelihood that personal branding will exist in the future or if it’s just another buzzword that will disappear the same way words like Intranet and Extranet have essentially become moot.

What I do know is that ultimately, companies hire people to fill a need. I’d be more concerned about showing a hiring manager what I can do for them that other potential candidates can’t than getting caught up with anything else. Some things have changed but at the end of the day, companies still hire people for the same reasons as before.