network, network, network!

Over the weekend, I was chatting to a friend who travelled for some time in Korea after he had finished his varsity degree. He has been back for about a year now and has been in a job for seven months. During his job search process, he found that things only really started to get moving once he’d made the effort to talk to everyone he had some form of contact with in his desired industry. He reminded me that it was extremely easy to ignore a CV that has been sent to your email address. Now, even as a relatively junior member of staff, he gets CVs in his inbox regularly. Luckily, the world of work programme is giving us ample opportunity to begin to develop a network from which to draw. It’s so much easier to make an impression on people with face to face contact than on a piece of paper (with the exception of blogs that begin to bridge that divide). Chris Gardner- the main character in “The Pursuit of Happyness”- ensured that while he dropped off his application, he personally handed it to his potential employer. He stood out from the crowd from the start. The movie is based on a true story. Today, Chris is the owner of a successful stock-broking firm and an inspiration to all potential job-seekers such as ourselves!