Have you ever been to a networking event and thought, "Is my personality killing my chances?"RELATED: 7 Tips For Nailing Networking If you feel your enthusiasm and focus on being the best you can be, either in an interview or on the job, may be working against you, you may want to rein in your enthusiasm and moderate your intensity to some degree. Nevertheless, and more often than not, it is a matter of developing good communication sense. "Communication skills" and "communication sense" are not the same. Good communication skills are the foundation and underpinnings for developing communication sense, just like knowing the functions of the pieces on the chess board is ultimately necessary for executing strategy. Pieces don’t win the match, how you manage them does; and perhaps that's all you need - a better strategy for managing your communications or sound communication sense. Here are some tips to help: Truism: You create a more meaningful connection by becoming interested in others before trying to interest others in you.
- Set up "informational interviews" with knowledgeable and/or influential people with the specific intention of gaining job information. Informational interviews are also great low-risk practice grounds for developing your communication sense.
- Don’t oversell yourself. Talking too much is perceived as over-selling. Focus and listen and show the interviewer that h/she matters.
- “Two ears, one mouth, blah, blah, blah…”
- Seek out “referrals” which results in less stressful interviews for all parties. When you are referred you enter the interview “pre-sold” to some degree and thus less burdened.
- Don’t bury your listener with incidentals and unnecessary details of a situation. When showcasing your value, if it’s not relevant to a result, drop it!
- Use simple language when talking with others. Don’t make your listeners plow through too much jargon, since “too much” can be a turn-off.
- Use brief anecdotes to communicate your value and strengths; keep each under 30-50 seconds and invite interviewer questions. (People will remember your anecdotal stories more than a litany of duties and responsibilities).
- Don’t rush. Stop and wait to see if there are any follow-up questions after responding to a question.
- Finally, target "spot opportunities," Spot opportunities are typically unadvertised, unpublicized opportunities that are triggered by some activity or event in the business community: plant openings; new business developments, diversification or product introductions; mergers, acquisitions, divestitures; IPO’s, LBO’s, etc.
- Use your informational interviews, referrals and spot opportunities gain other networking opportunities; leads to jobs or actual openings you can get to before the crowd.
