Networking and your career: Creative Approaches to Getting Noticed
Networking goes beyond attending a meeting and passing out business cards. It often requires creative ways to reach decision makers within competitive industries and fields such as pharmaceutical sales, biotechnology, healthcare and others. In this article, MedZilla asks experts to offer their ideas on creative, grassroots ways to network to job success.
Marysville, WA (PRWEB) March 12, 2004 -– If you're looking for a career in a
highly competitive profession like pharmaceutical sales, you need to be creative
to stand out from the crowd of aggressive, sometimes accomplished, professionals
gunning for similar positions.
“We’ve all handed out business cards at a
networking function,” says Frank Heasley, PhD, president and CEO of
MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that
serves biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. “But how many
have visited physicians and clinics to build relationships with pharmaceutical
sales reps? How many people take the time to devise creative, fresh ways of
making introductions to decision-makers? Not as many, I would venture to say, as
there are handing out their cards at business meetings.”
“Creative or
“grassroots” networking can be less expensive and more effective than joining
associations or attending functions,” says Michele Groutage, MedZilla’s director
of marketing. “We hear great stories about how people have used creative
networking. With all the competition today, many people are finding it difficult
to be recognized. But what we’ve found is that where there is a will, there’s a
way.”
Frances E. Altman, a public relations specialist in the school of
business at Virginia Commonwealth University, wanted to network at a
professional meeting. “But registration was expensive,” she says. “So I asked if
I could volunteer to help out at the conference. I helped in registration for a
week ahead of the conference and was given a pass. This enabled me to
network.”
A strategy that worked for Diane K. Danielson, executive
director, Downtown Women's Clubs and author of Table Talk: The Savvy Girl's
Alternative to Networking, was to join organizations that appealed to her target
market. But rather than just join, she signed up for the membership or event
committees. Like Altman, Danielson thinks the registration table is the ideal
place to volunteer. “That way, when one of your targets checks in, you can offer
assistance, introduce yourself and when you try to contact them in the future,
it's a ‘warm call’ as opposed to a ‘cold call.’”
Experts say you should
build relationships every chance you get, wherever you are. First, you need a
memorable, self-promotional message. The short promo about why you’re the person
someone should hire has to be memorable, according to Peggy Klaus, a Berkeley,
Calif.-based Fortune 500 communication consultant and author of BRAG! The Art of
Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It (Warner Books). Klaus suggests that the
message be short and that you deliver it with enthusiasm and in a manner that
encourages interaction.
Once you’ve memorized and practiced your
message, try it out wherever you happen to be. Andrea Nierenberg, networking
expert and author of "Nonstop Networking: How to Improve you Life, Luck and
Career," gives personal examples of while she was waiting in line for the
ladies' room, touring on top of the Tokyo Tower in Japan, in an elevator stuck
between floors, or a visit to her dentist.
Sunny Bates, founder of
executive search firm Sunny Bates Associates and author of How to Earn What
You're Worth, suggests looking up the backgrounds of speakers at upcoming
conferences in your field of interest. Conference websites often have detailed
bios on speakers. Those are the people, she says, who are looking for more of a
public presence and might be more approachable. Contact them by email or phone
and try to engage them in a back-and-forth conversation about their topic or
lecture. Once you establish the connection, you can ask that person to help you
network. “Make sure not to ask them to do something outrageous, like: ‘Find me a
person, who is looking to hire someone like me,’” Bates says.
Beverly
Kaye, EdD, coauthor of Love it Don’t Leave It: 26 ways to get what you want at
work, takes Bates’ suggestion a step further and attends lectures at which
notable people in specific fields of interest are speaking. Do some research on
the topic before attending the lecture; then, attend not necessarily to hear
what the speaker has to say; but rather, to talk with the people sitting next to
you. By having done the research, you can strike up conversations with the
people around you and exchange business cards or phone numbers.
Another
networking idea, according to Kaye, would be to offer to write an article for an
industry publication or website about a topic that would require you to
interview company decision-makers who, coincidentally, could help you network
for jobs at a company.
Sometimes it’s difficult to get through to a
potential contact person in a company. This can be especially true with
pharmaceutical companies, according to Larry St. Pierre, a recruiter and owner
of Customized Career Consulting. St. Pierre suggests that there are creative
ways to reach your target contact person at a company by avoiding the
switchboard and going, rather, to the company’s directory option. In most cases,
Even if you don’t have a specific name, you can put in any letter after the
prompt, followed by the pound sign, and come up with names and extensions of
company employees. Once you reach a live person who is not an operator, ask for
the name of the head of the specific division in which you want to work and ask
to be connected.
If you just want to find out information about a
company or about decision makers for a specific area, try calling customer
service or public relations. Customer service representatives and PR
professionals tend to be more “chatty,” St. Pierre says, and might be more
willing to give you information or point you in the right
direction.
Remember, when networking, that time is an element and to be
sensitive to the other person’s work obligations. “We live in a society where
people are so busy. Time is just running away with us. When someone calls with a
traditional, ‘Can I have an informational interview with you,’ I just want to
throw up,” Kaye says.
About MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994,
MedZilla is the original web site to serve career and hiring needs for
professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science
and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000
resumes from candidates actively seeking new positions and 71,000 archived
resumes.
Medzilla® is a Registered Trademark owned by Medzilla Inc.
Copyright ©2004, MedZilla, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce and
distribute this text in its entirety, and if electronically, with a link to the
URL www.medzilla.com. For permission to quote from or reproduce
any portion of this message, please contact Michele Groutage, Director of
Marketing and Development, MedZilla, Inc. Email: e-mail protected from spam
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Contact: Michele Groutage
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb110559.htm