“A good interview is a conversation, where both sides are engaged. The purpose is to discover if the position is a match. If the candidate asks no questions, it’s a red flag. It appears that either they aren’t interested, or believe they already know everything to know about the position.”
“Even the losers get lucky sometimes.” — Tom Petty
You know the guy who chats up strangers in the elevator and blankets a cocktail party with his business cards?
That’s not me.
I have zero interest in what most people think of as networking.
So I was caught off guard recently when a colleague said to me, “You’re so good at networking — how do you do it?”
I thought she was nuts.
But then, I realized I have built a substantial network of valuable relationships with a wide variety of people — I just didn’t do it in a traditional way.
Here’s how I did it and how you can do the same — even if you hate “networking.”
The only thing more eclectic than the For The Interested readership may be the newsletters those readers produce.
Below is a collection of newsletters written by FTI subscribers you may want to check out.
“Volunteer to be the note taker in every meeting. The note taker has a tremendous amount of power inside a company. Your notes become the record of what happened in a meeting. You literally have the power to shape projects and ideas.”
“A simple task of locating 12 items to throw away, 12 items to donate, and 12 items to be returned to their proper home can be a really fun and exciting way to quickly organize 36 things in your house.”
“There are benefits of writing, and some of these benefits — perhaps the most valuable benefits — exist even if you can’t find one single reader.”
“Always choose harder stuff. When given the option to choose between something challenging and rewarding and something less challenging and less rewarding, always choose the more challenging thing.”
“Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”
“If you describe someone else as genuine and kind, people will also associate you with those qualities. The reverse is also true: If you are constantly trashing people behind their backs, your friends will start to associate the negative qualities with you as well.”