Spotlight: Your network of relationships

Thanks to our good friends at Technorati, I found a really nice set of articles on personal networking on CollegeRecruiter.com today. The ideas are geared towards the college student, but a lot of the principles apply to anybody you form relationships with throughout the course of your career.

The three articles are broken down like this:

• College Relationships That Should Last - Introduces the argument as to why this is important to your career. I couldn't agree more. The best jobs to get are the ones you don't have to interview for because the people already know you. The flip side of that, when you have an opening for somebody, who better to fill it with than somebody you already know or get a tip on from a trusted source? That's not to say that you have to send Chirstmas cards to everybody you ever meet, but the article makes a good point about why maintaining relationships can lead to a more fruitful career.
• Who should I maintain relationships with? - Makes a good justification for who you might want to maintain at least cordial relationships with and keep track of because you never know who might benefit you in the future.
• How to manage long-term relationships - This part of it I always struggle with, even 13 years after leaving school. I've tried simple Word documents, Outlook contact lists, and a few other things that haven't panned out for me. I end up using the old standby: my memory. That isn't as productive for me as other techniques could be, though, and I plan on giving a few of these suggestions a try.

While you don't have to be a full-blown Malcolm Gladwell-style connector, the point is that without a healthy web of associates to rely on from time to time, you might be limiting your career options.

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