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| March 2009 |  |
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o matter where you work—a large or small company, a government
agency or a nonprofit organization—networking has never been
more important, say Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon, authors of Make
Your Contacts Count.With traditional corporate hierarchies and career paths rapidly becoming obsolete, people must increasingly rely on their own ability to build and mobilize informal  networks.
Whether you’re a brand new college graduate, a former military officer looking for a second career or someone who just wants to make the next move, you’ll need to use networking skills to hang on to your current job, find another one or move from one career field to another. Make Your Contacts Count, now in its second edition, is packed with tools, techniques and strategies for maximizing the size and quality of your professional network. It includes a “Strategic Networking Activities” self-assessment test, a guide for creating a workplace contact map, the top 20 networking turn-offs—and how to avoid them—as well as loads of quizzes, checklists and sample conversations. There are chapters on connecting at conventions, developing your listening skills and learning to remember names (see On the Job). The authors ask, for example: “What really happens when you meet someone? Do you muddle through those oh-so-important first few minutes?” They tell you what to do next to enlist the people you meet in your network, find ways to reconnect, stay in touch and follow up. They also address our technological proliferation, which now makes communication instantaneous, portable, worldwide and “24/7/365.” They describe these changes as being both good and bad for networking and provide tips on the protocols of “E-Netiquette” and different ways of benefiting from these instant technologies. Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-How for Cash, Clients, and Career Success (Amacom, paperback $14.95) is available in bookstores and online.  |
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