Heather Fortenberry: Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Career Prep Series on Networking. My name is Heather Fortenberry, and I am the Career Exploration Coach with our central Cornell Career Services, and I'm thrilled to be here today to talk a little bit more about networking and using some of these networking resources that we have available for you. Heather Fortenberry: So just to go over the agenda, we'll talk a little bit about just networking in general an overview. We'll talk about some of those resources. CUeLinks and LinkedIn specifically, as well as some of the additional resources that are available to you. I always like to leave students with next steps, so that you have some good action items. And obviously, then we'll leave some time for questions as well. Heather Fortenberry: So as we always start our workshops out with our lovely Career Development Cycle. Just to really give you a sense of how we are building our workshops, how we work with students individually during our appointments. But also recognizing that this is a continuous development cycle, so we literally will always want to at least make sure that you have that Understanding Yourself, Your Interest Values, Your Strengths and your goals as you go into that exploring options. Heather Fortenberry: And then going into that, Take Action. But again, it is continuous. So recognizing that you may be in one of these areas now, as you continue to move forward, the networking side of things kind of goes in between a little bit that understand yourself and exploring options, because you will need some of those components, and that, understanding yourself as you are exploring as you're connecting with people, as you're asking questions. Heather Fortenberry: So you have so many resources but want to recognize that our Career Development Toolkit is a really great place to start. If you have not already logged in to explore a little bit there is a whole section on networking and you know, really helpful to recognize like, why, why should you develop those networking skills? Why is it important? And also some of those tips and tools as you start exploring. Heather Fortenberry: I know we and I am using those words, this word networking but recognizing that it's really about relationship building and finding those connections. It is a 2 way process. And that's really important to recognize. Even if you are going into these conversations feeling like, maybe you don't have any expertise. I'm always gonna kind of focus on our alumni connections because Heather Fortenberry: they're really excited to talk to students about their student experience. Even if you don't know very much about the career that they're in. It's a great way to explore, gives you not only information about career paths and positions, and what people are doing in those positions, but could also give you sense of what those goals look like as you continue in that career path. Heather Fortenberry: I really like to think of this word networking as an opportunity for knowledge, sharing. Again that 2 way process like we talked about before. And as you do this more and more and as you feel a little bit prepared, this activity. Heather Fortenberry: this experience, will definitely feel much more comfortable as you move forward through your career. Your academic career as well as your professional career. And it does, you know, it's something that Heather Fortenberry: you likely have been doing, even if you're not completely aware of it. Maybe you're on the bus going to class. Maybe you're waiting in line at a dining hall. Having a conversation with a classmate Heather Fortenberry: That's networking. That's building those relationships. That's asking questions and being curious. So recognizing also that when you're in your internships or jobs after you graduate that networking should not be something that you're doing just as you are exploring jobs. Or that next step. It really should be something that you incorporate. You know, in any of your Heather Fortenberry: kind of the job searching, academic searching interactions. So don't just wait for when you are looking for a job. Think about ways that you can incorporate this into your day to day. Heather Fortenberry: As I mentioned, you already have a network, literally, as you are coming onto campus. You're starting to interact with roommates with, you know, people in your classes, faculty members, staff Heather Fortenberry: clubs and organizations maybe as you continue to build your, you know, kind of Co curricular activities. But you also have, you know, friends from maybe high school or previous years at Cornell. Relatives. You've got internships or volunteer experiences, maybe, that you've participated in. Heather Fortenberry: You know other contacts such as social media. Yes, you know, maybe you're not physically meeting with those people. But you're still building these relationships. So keeping in mind that you're coming into, you're coming into campus with this already established network. Heather Fortenberry: Now to think about how you will continue to build your network, it can be helpful sometimes to just sit down and start brainstorming. You know who is in your network. Who are those people that you interact with again as a first year student or a new student? At Cornell maybe you're even thinking about prior institution professors, teachers, advisors, your high school connections that you might have had. Heather Fortenberry: you know, thinking about people that you've already met, family, friends, friends, family members. You have these people that you likely could reach out to and ask, you know, start a conversation, ask some questions. Certainly finding opportunities to meet people, whether that's again somebody that you're sitting next to in class. And you know, taking that moment to just introduce yourself. Heather Fortenberry: There's lots of different activities that happen on campus whether it's an employer session or alumni are coming to talk or just having, you know, some interactions with the club or organization. These are really great ways to start building that network for yourself. Heather Fortenberry: It is helpful for you to come up with a strategy, and sometimes that strategy is as simple as Heather Fortenberry: you know. How many people do you wanna interact with? You know, taking that time to really form connections with one person, maybe ,versus trying to reach out to 20 people on Linkedin. That's a lot of your time. It may not be effective and efficient. You might not have that time available. If all those people reach back out to really kind of coming up with that strategy. Heather Fortenberry: I'm going to this club and organization today, I'm going to try to meet one person and follow up with that individual. Heather Fortenberry: Great! That's like a perfect way to start off with some of those goals and that strategy Heather Fortenberry: and maybe it's I'm going to a networking event. I'd like to interact with 3 people. And you know, maybe get their contact information so I can follow up with them and connect with them on LinkedIn. Heather Fortenberry: So thinking of that strategy, but also really reflecting on that quality of those interactions versus just trying to kind of connect with a bunch of people. That might not have you knowa s it might not be as as good of a use of your time. Heather Fortenberry: even following companies or organizations, influencers, again, from a social media standpoint, or LinkedIn. It's a great way to again find these communities of people that have similar interest as you. Heather Fortenberry: makes it more interesting for you as well to kind of have these interactions with people that are, you know, again, that have those similar interests or that are inspiring you to think differently or to learn more about an organization that you're interested in potentially interacting with at some point. Heather Fortenberry: and then requesting introductions. This is a great way you know, again, to expand your network after interacting with somebody that you've already built those connections with one of my favorite phrases to kind of incorporate in these networking conversations is something as simple as Heather Fortenberry: you know. Thank you so much for the time that you took connecting with me. You know, based on my interest and what I've shared with you are there other people, or even other resources that you think would be helpful for me to connect with, and, you know, kind of expanding it to, not just the person, but also, what are those other resources that would be useful for me Heather Fortenberry: is a great way to learn more about an industry, or learn about different listserves or opportunities to learn more about something. So it's a great way to kind of incorporate that. Heather Fortenberry: Now, as you're preparing to network, you know, we talked a little bit about some of this, but setting some of those goals. Who do you want to interact with, how you know what's kind of what's your what are you hoping that outcome will look like? Doing a little bit of research if you can. Sometimes you can't. You don't know who you're interacting with. But sometimes you do know, and alum is coming to speak at a class. Heather Fortenberry: You can take that time to learn a little bit more, or you're going to maybe a conference, and you have a sense of who might be attending that conference as well. Think about what questions you might want to ask as you're having these conversations. What are you curious about? I'm always going to go to that place of curiosity makes it so much more genuine and more interesting for you to think about. What questions do I have for this individual, this industry, etc. Heather Fortenberry: The introduction, introducing yourself is going to be something that absolutely will happen. Likely the whomever you're interacting with is going to ask you, tell me a little bit about yourself feels like a big question to answer. Heather Fortenberry: sometimes even just starting off with, these are things that I'm interested in. Here are some goals, maybe from this conversation, even here's some skills that I want to highlight or experiences that I want to highlight. Heather Fortenberry: Basically, this comes into that personal or elevator pitch that introduction. Again, in the toolkit, Career Development toolkit, we have a lovely module and topic within that module that really helps you build what this conversation, or what this introduction could look like. Usually you are going to answer, who are you? My name is, what are your experiences? I'm a sophomore in this college, in this, major, your interest. Heather Fortenberry: Maybe when you're graduating or when you're available to work, or you know, what you're when you're hoping to do some sort of experience or internship. Where do you want to be, how? And those skills contribute so sometimes, just even answering some of these basic, kind of that who? what? why? When? Where? How ?questions can help you start really building this introduction for yourself. Heather Fortenberry: and absolutely, just even starting off with like, Hi, my name is and here are some skills or experiences that you really want to highlight to showcase Heather Fortenberry: your interests and or the, the activities or experiences you're hoping to build on. Heather Fortenberry: and then following up and maintaining connections. This is absolutely kind of the goal, especially for certain individuals that you really feel have shared some good information with. You might also have a follow up like, Oh, you should really read this article or connect with this person. So having that follow up with those individuals is gonna be important. Heather Fortenberry: Absolutely after you are having these conversations sending a thank you note, either physical, a physical note or an email or even like a LinkedIn message again, sometimes it depends on those interactions that you're having. Heather Fortenberry: Organizing your contacts. Taking some notes about the conversation is, gonna be really useful, just as a reminder for yourself. So that as you're following up, you know oh, I just wanted to follow up. I'm finishing up my senior year. It was great talking to you about... maybe a sentence or 2, and just helps that person remember you as well. Heather Fortenberry: Really thinking about that communication plan for yourself. You are not going to be emailing these people once a week. No, but you know, maybe once a semester, or you know, after a follow up, after that action plan that maybe you've established with that individual. It does help make that second impression really builds the connection and absolutely networking can lead to that active job search. Heather Fortenberry: So yes, you know, that might be the goal eventually. But again, that initial interactions, it's really for you to learn more. Learn more about that person industry, skills, etc. Heather Fortenberry: We talk about this informational interview. So it's networking. It's an informational interview. It's not an actual interview. It's really an opportunity to connect with an individual, typically in person. But it could be also via zoom or phone to really have that conversation. Heather Fortenberry: Usually it's coming from, you know, you are starting that process of interacting, asking that person to schedule time to meet because you want to learn more about the company that they're working for let's just say, you know, Heather Fortenberry: Usually it's gonna be about 30 minutes is a is a good kind of length of time for maybe you to introduce yourself them to introduce themselves, and maybe to ask like 4 questions. But it could be shorter, and it could be longer. So you know, sometimes thinking about the goal and or what questions you have, and that person's time as well. Heather Fortenberry: but definitely a good good opportunity for you to really make that impression again, to learn, to connect. You know, those in those in person, and or zoom, or even phone calls really helps you establish that connection. Heather Fortenberry: And I love showing this. The Cornell Outcomes dashboard. If you have not yet gone in here this is a great tool to really play around with. Pulling information from our postgraduate report so highlighting where our graduates are going. But as part of this, you can see Heather Fortenberry: how people are finding their opportunities and again, going back to the it could lead to a full time job. You see that right at the top there, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Yeah, that's networking personal contact. Yes, that is also networking. Heather Fortenberry: Even that previous summer volunteer opportunity. Absolutely right. That's you know, you're with people who have very similar interests. And here's a great opportunity for you to, you know, connect with them. They know you in a certain way. Heather Fortenberry: I always like to show just some like quick little tips, especially because many of the times, as you are current student, you're not going to be able to physically be in some of the places to interact with someone in person. So you know, just some quick little tips. As you are preparing for networking, make sure you're updating platform settings. Make sure you're checking your background and lighting, and that you're in a quiet space. Heather Fortenberry: Turn off those notifications and browsers, and do your best right. Do your best to do some of that eye contact, even via Zoom can be challenging. Put a little post to note up by your camera as a reminder, if you need to. Heather Fortenberry: So if you want to go into our platforms that help you connect with people. And specifically, alumni .CUeLinks is absolutely going to be such a great resource. This is a Cornell platform that helps you connect with Cornell alumni, who have volunteered to be a resource. This is an opt in platform. So people are volunteering to be in here to be a resource. Heather Fortenberry: You can do some really interesting things in this platform, exploring career paths, etc, but you can also send messages and request meetings through the system as well. Heather Fortenberry: So there's a QR code. CUeLinks we always love those acronyms. So stands for Cornell University. The E is for the electronic part, and Link stands for Learning, Informing, Networking equals Knowledge Sharing. So again, there's that lovely Knowledge Sharing component. Heather Fortenberry: I'm just gonna walk you through this platform really quickly to highlight how you can connect with Cornell alumni. So you see here, this is basically a, a screenshot of our dashboard which helps you connect to a lot of different areas. That's that home tab. The connect tab is really where we're going to be focusing mostly today. But again, you can explore career paths, you can access resources. And you can always update your profile. Heather Fortenberry: Do your best to build out your profile as much as you want. You can actually use your LinkedIn profile. If you have one already. You can pull that in to answer some of the questions that just makes things a little bit easier. But you can also use your net Id, or another email address. Just remember that whatever email address you're using, that is typically where messages will go to so make sure that you're checking, though that email address on a regular Heather Fortenberry: a regular timing. Heather Fortenberry: So again, looking at the career tab, ways to explore career paths. We're gonna spend most of our time, though, in this Connect. So in this Connect tab, you have the community, you have groups, you have programs. And if you click on, if you click on the resources, you can see some other resources that you have access to. Heather Fortenberry: We're gonna focus again, mostly on this connect tab the community button. So if you click on that, that's gonna actually take you to the part of the platform where you can really access any Heather Fortenberry: you can access any of the people that are already in the platform. So as a student, you have access to not only faculty, staff, alumni, your peers, and also friends of Cornell. So as a student you have access to everyone. As an alum you have access to only alumni and basically our alums are creating a profile, and then they are waiting for students to connect with them. So Heather Fortenberry: you're gonna definitely want to use these filters because you don't want to sort through, you know. Heather Fortenberry: 15,000 even plus alumni and certainly not all of the people in the community. So using these filters, you can go ahead and use the search tab and just like type in whatever you can see those active users as well. Industries is gonna help you sort by industries that you're interested in. The topics. These are great topics, conversation topics alumni are indicating. Yes, I would like to learn, you know, I'd like to talk to students about this topic. So this is a great way to filter things down a little bit more as well. Heather Fortenberry: And then the more filter. So as you are in the system, and you're trying to filter things out a little bit more. Maybe you just want to search by alumni. You go to the more filters, tab, and then you'll click on the alumni as a user type, and that will pull alumni only into the filter so that you can explore a little bit more. Heather Fortenberry: So Heather Fortenberry: once you get a great kind of filter that you're like, wow, this is pulling in maybe you know 50, 60, maybe a little bit more users. You may want to set a search alert, which will basically allow you to call it whatever you want to. You can indicate if you want to be notified daily, weekly, or monthly. If new users that match those filters are joining the system, and there's new people joining literally every day. Heather Fortenberry: You should set those filters. But, Heather Fortenberry: again, I want to show you how you would connect with an alum. So pulled up Michael Cook, our amazing alum, who has allowed us to use his profiles as we're talking to students and alumni about good profiles. You see in the upper right hand corner. This is called bookmarking. And actually, in your filter screen you can see. Heather Fortenberry: You can sort by people who you've bookmarked, and this is going to be a great way to kind of tag people. Alumni are not notified that they're being tagged or bookmarked. They're also not being notified that you're looking at their profile, so you can be a little bit anonymous until you're ready to reach out. Heather Fortenberry: Once you click on that person's profile, you'll be able to see whatever they've included in their profile, which is a really nice way to browse and really explore careers even before you reach out to anybody. But if you wanted to reach out to Michael, you would just click on message, Michael. That's gonna take you to this nice little email template where you can start writing whatever template you want to. There's some good resources again in the networking module. Heather Fortenberry: You can see that there are some templates that you can also select from to get you started. And so if we click on the networking advice Heather Fortenberry: template you can see it pre-populates your template there. You can see that there's some feedback bubbles that you can pay attention to, and would encourage you to. But yes, do take some time to customize this, this template, just so that it speaks a little bit to what your interests are, etc. Heather Fortenberry: You can send that message now or schedule it, but you can also go in and request a meeting. When you click request meeting that's gonna take you to this calendar and you'll be able to pick a day. Heather Fortenberry: You'll be able to kind of everything it ends up being default to the phone video chat. But you can change that to in person. It defaults to 30 min, but you can change that to 15 or 45 or an hour, and then you can pick a meeting time. It defaults, because usually those defaults are typical to what people are having those informational interviews. Heather Fortenberry: Once you click on request meeting that meeting will then go into the email template so that when you click send that Alum will get all of that information and they can see that you're also looking for a, that you're looking for that meeting. Heather Fortenberry: Other things and groups again, back to the kind of navigation toolbar, groups is a great way to interact with your community. Some join the discussion group or explore careers and ask questions. You'll see alumni responding to those questions. Heather Fortenberry: And of course, LinkedIn is an amazing resource, too. So in addition to CUeLinks, LinkedIn, so many different uses, jobs, career, exploration as well, but certainly connecting with Cornell alumni. And usually I tell students to go into this LinkedIn in the search bar typing in Cornell University so that you can get to the Cornell University page. Once you click on the alumni tab on the Cornell University page. Heather Fortenberry: This is also gonna give you an opportunity to explore our alumni in a slightly different way. Heather Fortenberry: So you can see there's lots of alumni. CUeLinks we have 15,000 and more growing every time. But there's a lot of alumni also on LinkedIn. You can go in and just start searching by any key phrase that you want to. You can see where the alumni work. You can kind of keep on toggling to your right, but you can see where they live, what they do, what they studied. Heather Fortenberry: what skills they use again, a great way to kind of filter in LinkedIn to find those Cornell alumni who, really speaking to the opportunities that you're interested in. Heather Fortenberry: And then some additional resources, as we kind of wrap this up here today. Obviously, the Career Development Toolkit, which we've talked about before many times. Amazing resources do go in and explore this a bit more. It's not intended to be a, you know, replacement for meeting with us, but it definitely will help you generate some good questions, and it's available to you 24/7 and even as an alum you can use this. Heather Fortenberry: LinkedIn Learning as a current student, you have access to LinkedIn Learning. Cornell pays for you to have access to this, and it's a really great way to access thousands of different courses, Excel, How to build a LinkedIn profile, How to job search, maybe some other platforms that you're interested in learning a little bit about. But through Cornell you can absolutely pull this into your LinkedIn profile, and you can access it here as well. Heather Fortenberry: If you are on campus we have this amazing picture profile Kiosk. So if you're trying to build your linkedIn and or CUeLink profile, and you don't have a picture this is a great way to make sure that you get a great picture. Monday through Friday when classes are in session. It's open 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, first come, first served, so you might have to wait in line for a little bit, but it goes pretty fast Heather Fortenberry: and in most cases there isn't anybody in the picture profile kiosk, and you can just jump in and take that photo Heather Fortenberry: Some next steps, as I mentioned, you know. Do take some time to think about networking and what goals and what you want to get out of this process. Identify some of those people that you're curious about, use CUeLinks and LinkedIn to explore, to connect with alumni practice. Heather Fortenberry: Find those other opportunities to network. And do you know, schedule appointment with an advisor, we can really help you set some of those goals and answer some questions. Practice with you if you'd like some practice as well. And you know, kind of walk you through the platforms again if you need some of that. Heather Fortenberry: Clearly, we are here. We're here all summer long. We're here basically all year long, except for some of those key holiday breaks that we, Cornell might be closed. But otherwise do schedule an appointment with our office, again, I work for the central office. You can see in the lower right hand corner. You can also connect with your college career office. Heather Fortenberry: As well. If you're a graduate student. There are some additional resources, too. But if you're not sure, schedule an appointment with our office, and we'll make sure to connect you with the other resources that you have available to you. Heather Fortenberry: and at this time, I'll you know, definitely open to taking some questions, but feel free to reach out if you have any questions, and I really appreciate you joining me today. And Heather Fortenberry: yeah, have, have a great semester and feel free to reach out if you have questions. Heather Fortenberry: Thank you.