What am I doing wrong - networking
I will be attending an MSRE program this fall. Since real estate is a relationship business, I wanted to be proactive and started reaching out to alumni of the program and the school who work in the field. My goal is to establish relationships early on and hopefully find an internship opportunity for next summer (it's a two-year program). As a non-business major in undergrad, this is a new field for me.
Conversations typically last 30-45 minutes, and I focus on listening and asking insightful, well-prepared questions. My aim is to learn from their experiences. I conclude by asking if we can stay in touch and if they have any recommendations for other alumni or industry professionals I could connect with. I always send a thank-you note after the call.
I usually ask them about their career journey, what their experience was with the program, how did they land their internships and what they recommend I do when I start the program (classes, clubs, etc.)
Whenever I ask to be connected with another person I get ghosted on and I am not sure as to why this is happening. Would anyone have any advice about what I am doing wrong ?
Hard for anyone to answer this as we don't know what you're saying during the interaction. I probably would learn as much as possible as quickly as possible so you can ask better questions. On paper, sounds like you're doing the right things. Remember, its a brutal market right now. Keep trucking.
Alright here's the dirty secret and I don't know about others but I'll speak for myself at least. Most of ya'll are a bunch of mutant nerds who are a little too eager to get down to brass tacks whereas I'd rather talk about my hobbies and how my deals are going. Most of us have been out of school for a while and probably don't care that much about classes and probably remember the bars we drank at more than the professors that taught us.
Don't get me wrong, there's still some level of talking shop but try to be less of a power nerd and more well rounded. Read the room and take the temperature of the person you're talking to, and see where they came from and how they'd react to certain conversation topics. Most people in real estate (at least on the dev and acquisitions side) are probably like B+ students and don't get deals done because our brains look like Ruffles, a lot of it is just being able to read motivations and structure something that works for a bunch of parties in a more efficient manner. I'd rather talk to someone that's done some homework on what my office has done and what I'm working on and be able to tie in what I'm working on to what they want to do rather than what font you should use on your resume.
Very helpful tip thank you! to be honest I ask one question in the starting and the person usually ends up talking for 30 mins based on that question and before I can get any other question in, time runs out. I can't talk shop because I don't even know what that would include (engineer with very basic finance knowledge, reason why I am going back to school). I mostly ask them to tell me about their career journeys, what they are working on (I look up the firm to get an idea and see anything interesting they are doing), their entrepreneurial activities (most of the older alums own their own shops) etc.
I go in with the simple goal of making a genuine connection and develop it over the coming years. Is this approach not what it is supposed to be like?/ what should I do different ?
First, this happens to everyone. Even the most intellectual and experienced people. Assume you will get ghosted nine out of ten times you contact someone.
Second, I would focus on matching their intimacy and adding more when you feel comfortable. Don't feel afraid to put yourself in vulnerable positions in front of others because that will gain you some trust from them.
Asking about career journey is a nice question to ask. However, everyone gets bored by it because it’s always asked of them. Get them to tell you stories. If they are a bad story teller, doesn’t matter. Seem interested no matter what and keep asking questions to get them to dive deep into the details of those stories (this is where all the juicy parts are and the most valuable lessons live).
A couple questions I usually ask are (that are work related):
What’s something impressive one of your colleagues has recently done?
Do you have any stories about your work that you took a lot of away from? Something that made you see that you shouldn’t do this anymore, but instead need to do this.
In general, get them to talk about themselves.
When younger people ask me questions like that it makes me want to leave the meeting early. I honestly can't stand when I'm interviewing someone or taking a meeting with someone younger and they start asking me questions that it sounds like they wrote out the night before or that they got off google or from their school counselor's guide to interviewing.
Maybe it's just me so take it with a grain of salt, but to me my desire to move someone to next steps or introduce to someone is based on me feeling like they were pleasant to talk to and could hold a convo without sounding stiff or pre-planned, them seeming smart, and them seeming to know enough about what we're doing to not feel like they're going to sound clueless talking to someone else.
Authenticity is important and I get that. I come of as someone who is trying to figure out how did you become what you are today.
I feel like I don’t come off as a broken tape recorder and ask relevant questions. The conversations usually end with the person offering to be a point of contact and agreeing to pass my name onto other people to chat with. However they forget to do so and the reminder email I send gets ghosted on. Any thoughts on that?
What questions specifically seem off-putting to you?
Tough to diagnose without actually hearing how these conversations go. Could just be that people do not want to expend professional capital on someone they just met. Introducing you to someone is essentially putting their stamp of approval on you- if the person they introduce you to does not like you, it reflects poorly on them and burns a professional "favor" they might have earned. People guard these favors closely.
When I chat with someone or think about someone I would want to bring on, the biggest consideration is if they seem too nervous or scripted. Are they going to be stiff if I brought them around my executives? Are they going to ask weird, canned questions, making me look bad? I want someone I'd be happy to go on a work trip with. Assuming basic competency, the technical side can be taught.
Few things (coming from my POV who's done ~200 of these in university)
1. Don't talk to them for 30-45 minutes, people are busy and I found the sweet spot to be around 20-25 minutes. Best case you save a few questions and call them a 2nd time a few months down the road to help build your connection with them. Imagine you call someone today and then 6-9 months down the road you apply and ask them for a resume push, they might not even remember who you are.
2. As others have said, try to be more personal. I always asked people what they liked to do for fun on the weekends, favorite thing they did in college, tried talking about sports when I could, etc. Just try to be more personal! Once someone said they had spent 6 months in my hometown and I immediately started talking to them about my favorite restaurants in the city.
I am by no means an expert in networking but I found these to help me.
What do you talk about on call 2?
I typically would reach out a 2nd time after having a meaningful update to share. These guys are busy, you don't want to call them a 2nd time to just mess around. For example, if you move cities/get an internship or job/get an interview/etc. Sometimes if it's been a long time between calls I've heard people will send an article and ask them their thoughts on an industry/deal/etc.
From my experience, just think of it as a normal conversation you're having with someone who just so happens to work in the field you're interested in. I used to go into calls with lists of questions but at the end of the day there's no way to naturally get through them without sounding like a bot throughout the conversation. Be an active listener and ask follow-up questions to what they're actually talking about, rather than pivoting to a whole different topic because it's next on the list of questions you wanted to rattle off. All else equal, its definitely something you need to learn from experience and repetition. As it feels more and more natural you'll be able to establish a more genuine connection with people rather than have them just be LinkedIn connections.
If you are networking and asking questions about their "career journey" or "something interesting or special their colleague did", you come across as someone with low EQ, because any adult with some brains can see right through what you are trying to do. Networking needs to be authentic as someone said above. There are two ways to go about this:
1. Do you have a specific question that is related to your situation? For example, a specific alumni from your school, a very specific problem that only they may know the answer or can give you advice on? Don't ask stupid questions about their career journey etc., no professional has the time to do this for you unless they already know you.
2. You don't need to become best friends with them, but they do need to like you. Try to connect with them, shoot the shit, ask about their lives but don't pry, again, you are trying to create a brand new genuine connection with another human being, not trying to interview them and then think you are being super subtle concealing the fact that actually you are asking for a job.
If at the end you do plan on making an ask for intros to other colleagues, then make a direct ask. If you have done the above right, they will absolutely agree to help. If not, you have struck out - move on and improve for next time.
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