Is your virtual networking, not-working? How to network online to advance your career

Now that working from home is the new norm, we’ve lost the opportunity to build our careers through face-to-face networking, so how can you continue to build your network when working remotely in order to stand out amongst your peers?  

In this article, I'll share our 5 top tips to help you build your network online and advance your career when working from home.

First things first, let’s talk about remaining visible within your organisation…

1. Make sure you get enough face time with senior colleagues and overcommunicate about what you’re working on

Your chance to shine in a meeting or mingle with senior peers at after work drinks has now disappeared, so it’s up to you to find ways of getting extra ‘face time’ where you can showcase your work and ideas.  Make sure you always turn your camera on for virtual meetings to build trust, and set up a weekly 1:1 with your manager keep a close relationship and stay abreast of your department’s wider strategy so you don’t miss out on any new opportunities.

When we’re working from home, we need to overcommunicate about what we’re working on or we become invisible.  You’ll already know that it’s not enough to just do the work – you actually have to be seen doing it to get the credit, so how can you find a non-annoying way to show the full scope of your workload?  Perhaps you can send a brief weekly email to your boss with your wins/challenges on a Friday afternoon (no reply required) or send a 5-minute video presentation update of the project you are working on for senior colleagues to watch in their own time.

You can learn more about this topic on our training programme Women's Career Booster.

2. Build your network within your organisation by creating a networking plan

In Patty Azzarello’s book “Rise”, Patty outlines how to design a plan for building relationships with potential sponsors and mentors within your organisation; the key message here being that you need people who are at more senior than you to vouch for you in meetings where promotions are being discussed.  Firstly, identify who you need to build a relationship with and then ask – what do they care about, and what can you offer them?  If you can open the relationship with an exchange of favours then that is a great way to start. If not, then ask them for a virtual coffee.  You could simply say; “I have noticed you are good at X and wondered whether you use a specific approach. Could you spare 20 mins for a virtual coffee so I can ask you a couple of questions..?”

3. Next, create your networking plan for people you want to meet outside of your organisation, and use LinkedIn to reach them

To read the rest of Carrie’s article, please visit the site where this blog was originally published: https://www.cityparents.co.uk/Top-tips-how-to-network-online-to-advance-your-career.htm