I recently attended the Career Masters Institute Conference in Louisville, KY, and had interesting discussions with several members, all of whom are career coaches, resume writers, or both. It was a great conference in a beautiful city!
Right Hand vs. Left Hand
One conference attendee shared her favorite networking story with me - it was for one of her husband's job searches. He identified a company he wanted to work for (GREAT strategy!), and applied for a job he found on one of the job sites. At the same time, he asked members of his network if anyone had a contact in that same company. Someone did, and he was invited to quickly interview for a job. The result: a couple of weeks later, he received a rejection letter for the first job application - in the same mail - as a job offer letter for a different job with that employer based on the interview set up by his network!
One Funeral = 3 Jobs
My favorite networking story revolves around employment connections made at a funeral. I know it's true, because it happened right in front of me, and I know all the participants. We were all former co-workers attending the funeral of another co-worker. We hadn't been in touch for a few years (time flies!!), so while we waited to enter the funeral home, we spent time catching up with each others' lives and activities. One former co-worker worked at a company with several job openings, several members of the group were looking for new jobs, and the rest is history.
So, networking works, and sometimes it works in the strangest places.
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