Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
- Build networking opportunities using face-to-face and digital methods
Scenario
Bahar Career Coaching
After several years at your current company, you are ready for the next big challenge in your career. Although you have enjoyed your job duties and have a very good relationship with your coworkers and managers, you have decided that it is time to move forward with your career in the field you have dreamed of. Since you were unsure about where to start, a colleague of yours recommended you contact Bahar Career Coaching, a talent acquisition company that offers coaching and job placement to professionals seeking to advance or change their careers.
Directions
Networking Plan
After contacting Bahar Career Coaching, you were paired with Priya Dahir, a career coach who is helping you through your job search. After your last meeting, she sent you this follow-up email with the next actionable steps:
From: Priya Dahir
Date: xx/xx/xxxx 4:32 p.m.
Subject: Networking Plan
Hello,
It is exciting to see all the progress you’ve made building your brand since we first met! Now that you have more clarity around your career goals and your brand as a professional, it is time to start building your network. A solid network will help you develop career opportunities and grow as a professional.
During our meeting this morning, I mentioned that you should create a networking plan to help you strategize this process. I have attached a document with the main elements that you should include in your plan. Send me your plan prior to our next meeting so that I can take a look in advance. We will review it together during the meeting.
As always, let me know if you have questions.
Priya Dahir
Career Coach
In your networking plan, your coach wants you to cover the process of initiating, maintaining, and deepening professional relationships. Specifically, she has asked you to identify digital and face-to-face methods of networking that will help you meet your career goals. In your 1,000- to 1,500-word plan, make sure that you address the following:
- Define your networking goals and explain how they support your career goals. Consider these questions in your answer:
- Why do you want to develop your professional network?
- What will be the ideal outcomes for your networking plan?
- How does networking benefit your career?
- Using the two-tier system, identify key contacts in your industry that you would like to have in your network. Explain how these contacts will help you meet your career goals.
- Who are the people you know best? Who are the people you know casually? Consider friends and family, but also current and past colleagues, managers, vendors, satisfied clients, and so on.
- How are these contacts positioned to help you with your career?
- Explain how you plan to further develop your professional relationship with the contacts you have identified. Include specific examples.
- What is the current state of your professional relationship with them?
- How will you initiate, maintain, and deepen your relationship with your contacts?
- Identify specific face-to-face and digital networking opportunities that you plan to participate in during the next six months. Explain why you want to engage in these opportunities and how they will benefit your career.
- What digital and face-to-face methods will you use in the next six months? Provide a brief description of each.
- How will these opportunities impact your career?
- How will these opportunities help you build your relationships with the contacts you identified?
- Describe how you will develop a system for organizing your networking data. Include specific examples.
- How will you track your contacts’ information and your interactions and commitments with them?
- How will you adjust your schedule in order to engage in networking opportunities?
