Mona! I contacted one of my networks who works for my dream company and as i have already
applied and the company tracking system shows my profiles being reviewed my network hasn't replied
should i follow up with him okay contacted one of my networks who works at my dream company
you did apply i i'm not uh straightforward here if your network hasn't replied should you follow up
yes um one one thing i i wanna i wanna take this into a little bit of a broader perspective
here's a huge huge mistake a lot and moana i'm not saying you made this i'm saying a lot of
people make this mistake y'all ain't getting the mileage you need to out of the referrals
for two big reasons okay two big reasons two huge networking mistakes you're making and i'm talking
specifically about referrals i'm not talking about i'm trying to network and i'm emailing andy who
i do not know and i'm asking him if we could go and have a cup of coffee i'm talking about
i'm emailing andy who's emailing tony because i want to get a job with tony or something like that
so let me tell you what a lot of you do you send me an email and you say annie can you
introduce me to tony there's a position over at such and such or i would like to work with him
because he's so and so or he um he he runs the unit that i would be perfect for or whatever
okay then you say andy would you send this on to him and i say mona i'm happy to do that send me
what you want me to send him and then i forward it and i say hey tony check out mona that's
what a lot of people do then what happens you don't hear from me and you don't hear from tony
and you're wondering should i follow up okay here's the mistakes you and i need to have a
dialogue i don't care if it's an email dialogue or i don't care if it's a text i don't care if it's
voicemails i don't care if it's live i don't care if it's zoom cocktail hour or whatever
we have got to agree i'm going to ask you andy for a referral here is what i need you to say
okay you need to tell tony that i'm the bomb i'm the best i'm interested in this
and you need to make sure that you know what tony's going to do with my stuff when he gets it
meaning the communication has to be stamped i need to send it to him and know specifically what his
in my interaction should be now it might be hey i don't know him that well i'll send it on and maybe
we'll take a shot that's fine but more likely than not if you and i know each other well enough
and i'm gonna make this intro it would be better if i even if i didn't know him that well to put
in a a descriptor of what the context is how i feel and can you let me know one way or another
whether you would contact her and if she's not a fit can you let me know that alright all that
dialogue has to occur before i send anything to him all right so let me give you a great example
i have this cousin her name is mary she's great and she has a new boyfriend andrew
who i have not met yet and andrew is a lawyer okay and i don't so she texts me
andy uh i have a new boyfriend his name is andrew great name um do you know
any uh lawyers that you could he's looking for a job uh that you can refer him to
i get back to her mary i'm gonna put this on the email i'm gonna send you an email send her an
email i say what kind of law does he do what kind of company is he interested in and so on go you go
find out and then you you send me his resume and then you give me context gives me the context oh
criminal defense but he wants to be you know in like the state's office or whatever okay well
now that's different than my ip attorney my my family attorney my other attorneys and all the
18 other attorneys that i know and all the friends that i have that okay so i only know one person
who is in criminal defense he does tort stuff and so on so hold on now i gotta make an introduction
to the only person that i know who i haven't talked to in three years and don't even know
that well but i have his email we played golf a couple times kind of thing i go back to my cousin
and i get connected with the with andrew i said you need to go check out this guy's
company and you need to tell me if you're interested in working for that company or
what the situation is and what your best outcome would be from a referral he gets back to me says
um actually the firm's kind of small looks like they do mostly tort this and that it would be
really helpful to have a dialogue with him to see if he knows anybody in blah blah blah blah blah
now i got it all together now i send a message to frank it says hey frank hope you're doing well
say hi to the golf gang for me um i have a cousin she has a boyfriend he's a lawyer
he's interested in this blah blah blah you're the only guy knowing this
trouble he's the only guy you're the only guy i know in the space i know you're really busy
and you might not have time for this but if you do can you let me know if you can either have a
disc call to action can you let me know if you can have a disc you got to respond back to me
can you let me know if you're going to have uh if you'd be open to talking with him
or helping him out or whatever i gave him the options off it goes 26 minutes later it came
back to me andy have him call my office and set up an appointment i'll be happy to talk to him
forwarded it to the guy that's it referral and everything is executed and done that's a referral
even though it was i don't wait i did not know the person i was referring to a person i barely knew
okay do you see the level of interaction that we had to make that connection successful now
he's not going to work there but he's going to go on and get referred by that guy who i know is
well connected to somebody who's going to get him closer it's going to get warmer to where he wants
to go why thoughtful planning we knew what the call to action was we we knew we were going to get
a response within either way right and he thinks longer term the longer term you think the more
steps you're willing to go through and to take the time do you know how long it took me to go
back and forth with them five weeks because i've been super busy i could even get back to my cousin
within that amount of time and knowing that i was going to have to have that interaction
i i knew i only wanted to make one intro and i wanted to make sure that it was correct and
i needed to have enough time on my calendar to have the dialogue or email back and forth
that's what you need to do and if you're not getting referrals to that level of strength and
by the way a person i do not know is getting referred to a person i barely know and i bet
something happens there that's what you got to do that's how you got to think about it
it's a huge mistake that a lot of you are making is you're like i need a job right now
what do you mean you can't give me one well hang on a second how come he's not getting back to you
how was the referral teed up was there a call to action by the way let's take this one step further
when you email employers while you're in the interviewing process are you giving them a call to
action would you get back to me with like are you actually being specific so when you say andy well
how when should i follow up with them well first off did you even give them a call to action to get
back to you maybe and then did you ask the right questions and all that other good stuff anyway
think about that it is a big big deal that you're teeing up your networking referrals that way okay
so lots lots of luck with that i hope i hope that helps you mona and everybody else you