How big is your network?  How many are quality contacts and how many are just on the fringe? 

If you’ve incorporated our networking advice (found here on this blog and in the Networking portion of The Lion’s Pride on our main site, WildJobSafari.com), you probably have a large, solid network of quality contacts.

Have you organized it?  It’s not a bad idea.  Organizing your network can make your job search more efficient, therefore potentially shortening it.

Before you begin, you may want to determine your goal(s) and methodology.  Once you figure those out, organizing will be a snap.  Determining your goal(s) first will help drive your methodology.

Goal(s).  Beyond “finding a job,” what else do you hope to gain?  Do you want to weed people out of your network? To find strengths and weaknesses?  There are many reasons to organize your contacts.  For instance, I like to have contacts in every imaginable field in order to help me professionally (finding contacts for job seekers) and personally (things break, additional info before starting a project, etc.).

Methodology, Part I: What Media? Will you organize your contacts on paper (hey – there are still people out there who prefer this method – and you know who you are) or on computer?  Will you use a spreadsheet, word processor or database?  I have found a simple spreadsheet works well (because it’s easy to sort), but you might prefer another method.  If it works for you, then it works. 

Methodology, Part II: Categories.  You know your goal(s) and the medium.  Now comes the hard part: breaking your contacts into categories.  Some find two (“personal” and “professional”) are enough.  Others (like me) require several partitions.  On my spreadsheet, for instance, there are categories based on fields of expertise (e.g. business consultants, mechanically inclined, history, engineers, musicians, broadcast and print, etc.).  Contact information is just a start.  You’ll likely want to include employer, schools attended, organization memberships and more.  Fight the temptation to be overly detailed.  Since I use a spreadsheet, I’m able to filter my network to the exact person or group of people I’m looking for.  If you use a database, you can simply run a query.  Using paper or a word processing program?  Color coding your categories will help.  The trick, here, is to keep it simple.

(Helpful advice: Once your network is organized, you’ll likely see where your skills can be put to use.  Remember to give as you receive.)

IN THE CARAVAN: Your goals and methodology will drive how you organize your network.  Organizing it will make your networking more efficient and potentially shorten your search.

NEXT TUESDAY: Avoiding Over-Utilization

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Check out last Tuesday’s post.

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