How do college students network when social distancing? Here are a few ideas to expand your network during the pandemic:
1) Reach out to alumni from your university. Perhaps you are studying what they studied. Perhaps they are in a career you are interested in pursuing. Perhaps they work for a company that is where you ultimately want to work. LinkedIn is a great source to search for alumni at your university (by year, by title, by company, etc.).
2) Search out professional groups to join on Facebook or LinkedIn. For example, if you are interested in marketing and enter “marketing group” in LinkedIn’s search bar, over 1500 professional groups will appear. Join a group, engage in conversation through posting and commenting, and make yourself visible. Recognize, however, that not all people welcome networking in this way – so there will be hits and misses.
3) Gather intelligence on organizations of interest. If you know a few organizations that you might want to work for after you graduate, do some targeted research on them. Who is in leadership positions? What can you learn about them online? Who is in a role that is of interest to you? Reach out to them and conduct an informational interview. Get on their radar.
It’s important to understand your goal in networking. What’s the network that can help you solve a problem? How will you communicate in a way that is going to be genuine and engaging? Take the time to think strategically and remember that networking is all about building and maintaining relationships. You can do this at home with a phone or computer.
