How do you find career contacts University of Manchester Careers Blog

How do you find career contacts Whenever I talk about contacts, I see people rolling their eyes and saying theyre not the sort of people who have contacts. I want to convince you that you can find those contacts if you look. (And yes, this is yet another post inspired by the PG web resource Ive been writing though probably the last, as hopefully itll go live any day now.) You probably have more contacts than you think When people say they have no contacts for their career, they normally mean either: They dont know someone in a position to give them their ideal job. If you have the sort of contacts who can give you a job, thats very useful. However, this isnt realistic for most people. Its better to aim for finding contacts who can give you information and advice about a career area. They havent told anyone what sort of contacts theyre looking for. Your flatmate might have a cousin working in your ideal job you will never know that if you dont tell them what you are looking for. Not convinced? I often use an exercise with groups of postgrads, where I ask someone to give an example of a job, any job, and see if we can find a contact within the room who can tell them something about the job, or a contact of a contact (or even a contact of a contact of a contact) who should be able to tell them more about the job. So far, Ive been able to generate potential contacts for lion tamer (we came up with a graphic designer who worked for a zoo, and a vet who worked with big cats) and crisp taster for Walkers crisps (someones friend worked in RD for a rival crisp manufacturer). Oddly, the only ones where it doesnt really work is if someone asks for an academic contact in a very specific field in which case, they normally have the means to generate the contacts themselves. Use the right approach People are more likely to share their contacts if they are confident you wont hassle friends or put them under pressure to give you a job. Make it clear you are looking for information only. Tell everyone you know what you are looking for information about an employer, a type of work, a job sector, working in a particular country Who should you tell? Other postgraduates people on your course or in your research group; make friends with postgrads in other Schools if you are aiming for a career related to their discipline Friends sports team colleagues, any social contacts, school friends from back home Lecturers, supervisors and advisors at this university or previous universities, particularly important if you are aiming at an academic career Family weddings and other family get togethers are great for catching up with what your cousins are doing now, or who theyre married to Previous work colleagues particularly important if you have significant work experience; dont lose touch with previous professional contacts, even if you are planning a change of field Manchester Gold our informal and formal mentoring programmes Our Manchester Gold scheme has two programmes for University of Manchester students: Manchester Gold mentoring a competitive programme where you get the chance to be matched, one-to-one, with a career mentor over a six month period. These programmes run in the Autumn and Spring with deadlines for applications. Online Q A ideal for informal, one-off individual questions. Over 800 alumni and careers contacts have registered to answer your careers questions. Search the CareersLink database to find a potential match and contact up to two mentors a month by email. Using social media to find contacts Your current social media contacts may be able to help you. Make sure you post updates to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or whichever channels you use, making it clear what you are looking for. Just keep it professional. Facebook In addition to your own contacts, you may be able to find support and information from joining groups or liking pages The Careers Service has Facebook groups for most disciplines. These are closed groups only for University of Manchester students but you may find other members who can help with advice or contacts. Liking employer pages allows you to keep up with news from your preferred employers, and increasingly, interact directly with them. LinkedIn It is worth seriously considering joining this social network, particularly for non-academic careers. It can act as your online professional CV if a contact of a contact agrees to meet you, theres every chance theyll put your name into a search engine first. You can join groups relevant to your chosen career area. This will allow you to take part in online discussions with career professionals. It is also common for agencies and recruiters to target professional groups on LinkedIn when looking for scarce skills. Other good groups to join include the University of Manchester Alumni Association (over 14,500 members) or Manchester Business School Alumni (Official) (over 9,500 members) if you are in MBS. This doesnt mean you automatically have access to contact details of other group members, but it increases the chances of finding someone in the group who has a mututal contact (which is how you generally approach people through LinkedIn). Top tip: Invest in your network by connecting to your friends, and those on your course or in your research group. In five or ten years time, you will have an impressive network as you all progress in your careers. Looking for contacts outside the UK? The suggestions above are generally just as applicable outside the UK as inside. In addition, here are further resources for those looking for contacts outside the UK, whether youre an international postgraduate planning on going home, or any postgraduate looking for work outside the UK. Going Global An international job and career resource, licensed for use by current University of Manchester students and recent graduates (login required). This gives you access to country profiles for 40 countries across the world, including details of professional and social networks for each country. Work and study overseas Information on regions and countries across the world on the Careers Service website. Includes our China Portal, with advice on the role of networking in securing a job in China. International networks Links to our University of Manchester and Careers Service online networks, including our India Manchester Graduate Network and our China Manchester Graduate Network All Postgrad-highlighted Postgraduate international jobs mentoring networking