Simon's job log: 2
Simon Frost
- September 2008.
The story so far... Simon graduated from the University of Bradford two years ago and now works for a small IT company in North Yorkshire. The joy of networking  Networking? That’s something only middle-aged people wearing pin-stripe suits do isn’t it? Well, yes, but it can also work wonders for your own career, apparently. This is why I decided to go to a networking event for local 'creative' people (the definition of creative being very broad in this sense) last week.
So let me fill you in about me and networking. To put it simply, we don’t get along. I really have to be in the right frame of mind to chat to a bunch of strangers and try to build a relationship. Some people can just talk and talk about anything, or be able to appear really interested in something someone is saying when really they’re cripplingly bored. I’m just not like that. If I haven’t got anything to say, then I won’t say anything at all. When you’re not a great conversationalist like me, you always feel like a sore thumb when you don’t know who to talk to or what to talk about. Networking for me is more like exercise; you know you should because it could benefit you in the long term, but you really don’t want to because of the short term effort. Although more often it just feels more like social torture. So why am I voluntarily putting myself through this? It’s because I know that networking can bring potentially huge benefits to my career. I’m not just repeating something I read in a career self-help book either - I’ve been witnessing it first-hand. Meet the neighbours Working at the business for nearly two years on all the various projects I’ve had to, one thing has struck me over and over - a lot of them are for local businesses or organisations. Even if we didn’t build a website for them, we may be providing their email, supplied their phone system or sold them their financial software. So I can firmly say that my boss has networking down to an art and it’s brought the business a lot of work. Working in a small town like I do, there is a small creative community, which includes web design/development companies. It’s a bit like old-fashioned villages where everybody knows everybody else’s business. Web design companies sub-contract work to other local IT companies, local companies get their websites built by other local web companies and so on. There are groups and organisations, some government funded, which are setup in order to encourage this. Each of these, of course, needs a trendy website.
The organisation I visited last week is one of these. It’s made up of the local great and good of the creative community. If you’re not a part of this group, you’re nobody. There’s this ironic thing about job-hunting. If you’re already in a job, it’s easier to find another job. This is because having a job gives you lots of opportunities, such as training and experience. As I’ve already mentioned, there is also access to plenty of networking opportunities. People don’t network for the fun of it though, there’s always a result or outcome that they’re chasing. My aim is to try and tap into the “hidden” jobs market. This is when vacancies aren’t openly advertised but are filled internally, or when the company finds someone that they already know to fill the position. It makes a lot more sense for companies to recruit this way because the candidate will already be known to them. So I’m hoping to exploit these networking meetings a little more to make use of this hidden area and make finding my next job a little easier.
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