When it comes to networking, I’m rather shy and don’t have much experience. In our class, we had the opportunity to act out a scene as a group where we had to play a character and network with other people at an event that talked about the wedding industry in Dubai. In the end, we also reflected on how we felt about the scenario and what we did.
Overcoming Anxious Thoughts
Initially, I was nervous because I know I’m not good at initiating conversations especially with strangers, and that feeling reminded me back in my internship. I was on a team full of different nationalities and it was hard to fit in because they had been working together for a while and I was just an intern. They also hung out together a lot and it was hard for me to fit in and try to converse with them. Going back to the scenario, I was tensed while we were doing the scene because I was panicking if what I might say was not relatable to the conversation or I might have offended someone. The main takeaway for me is that networking is a similar concept to making new friends. According to a video that I saw, being relatable helps establish that relationship (Hussain, 2018). Similarly, when you make friends, you want to have someone to resonate and connect with. Armed with this knowledge, I asked questions in which they shared personal things, such as their hobbies or where they work. For this reason, even after switching to another group of people to talk to, I was the one prompting them to share. The difficulty for most of us was that we weren’t seriously acting out the scenario. Since it wasn’t a real networking event, we mostly read through the guide we had as we talked to each other. Additionally, we kept on laughing and making inappropriate comments, which caused us to kind of forget the agenda of the scene.
Next Step
Having experienced networking myself as an exercise, I remembered what I had read in the article from our assignment. The article mentioned “do what you’re already doing” meaning that subconsciously, there are already people around you who are like-minded people that you can connect with, whether it be at events you’ve attended or even at your university (Lamebert, 2021). The experience changed my perspective on networking because I realized that I am already doing it, I'm just not aware of it because it is not in a professional setting and I don’t have the pressure to initiate a relationship. Most importantly, I realized that networking, in the same sense as friendship, is a two-way relationship. Both parties should benefit from each other, whether tangible or intangible. As a next step, I need to construct my personal elevator pitch and prepare thoughtful questions as it will help me to have something to talk about when I approach someone at a professional networking event. This will be beneficial to me as my future career requires me to connect with different people, from suppliers to sponsors. For me to do this, I will research what needs to be included in an elevator pitch and relevant questions that are specific to the event I am going to. I will prepare different elevator pitches and questions because having only one in hand doesn’t work for everyone, especially if they are from different fields. Additionally, I will ask someone in the same industry about their experiences and what they’ve done at their past networking events. Lastly, to keep track of my plan, I’m going to create a folder where I will prepare a different set of questions and different versions of my elevator pitch that I’ll go over every time I will attend a networking event.
References
Hussain, A., (2018) Networking Made Easy (15 SIMPLE TIPS to Becoming a Networking PRO!). [Online video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVGuVJ1Svrg&t=1035s [Accessed 25 March 2021].
Lamebert, C., 2021. Professional Networking 101: How To Network Like A Pro. [Online] Available at: https://wealthfit.com/articles/professional-networking/ [Accessed 26 March 2021].