Chapter 12

Building Your Network and Brand

In This Chapter

Networking in the real world

Establishing your online brand

Prospecting for success

Prepare your résumé, apply online, and the jobs will roll in, right? Well maybe … but probably not. Finding a job today has many dimensions beyond the résumé and online job application. They include proper education, skills, experience, and something that is increasingly important in today’s job market: a personal brand. Understanding how to build an online brand is key to standing out among all the other voices clamoring to be heard.

Before you run out and hire a public relations consultant, you can do a few simple things to make your brand more visible and make yourself more attractive to potential recruiters and employers. Beyond combing the job boards and career pages of the organizations you want to target, there are two main channels to explore: online social brand management and real-life, look-’em-in-the-eye human connections. In this chapter, I connect the two with a guide to build your online brand and grab the attention of the employers you want to work for.

Real-World Networking to Win a Job

Do you have a friend who always seems to do a good job of keeping in touch or seems to know someone everywhere he goes? People like that appear to be naturals at networking. Like anything in life, for some networking comes naturally — but it’s a skill that can also be cultivated.

Human connections — whether face to face or over the phone — are still the foundation for landing a great job. The connections you cultivate now will often pay dividends in years to come in ways that you can’t predict. You reap what you sow. Take the time to plant seeds today, and you’ll harvest valuable connections in the future.

Your short-term goal is to get connected to real people who can either hire you or get you a step or two closer to someone who can. Your long-term goal is to create a solid base of connections that you can both support and leverage for years to come as your career develops. Networking is a two-way street — you can’t just ask people for support and assistance without being willing to do the same in return.

Many networking connections are one-way — “Connect with me because I need something from you.” This kind of request usually falls on deaf ears. A good way to make a new connection with someone is to ask for feedback. One question you can ask to get started is, “Can I get a moment of your time to get your opinion about how you see big data fitting in your industry?” People like be asked to give their opinion. If you ask for help and be specific, you’re more likely to get a response than if you just ask for a meeting without a clear agenda.

Knowing where to look

So, how can you find the right people to network with? Networking is hard enough without wasting time in places that aren’t conducive to interaction with other business people. The best way to get started is to find groups that are composed of people who work in your industry.

Industry interest groups

An industry interest group is a group of likeminded people who meet in person to discuss ideas, promote new thinking, and make connections. Groups like this exist in many forms, ranging from formal conferences to information meet-ups that are initially organized online.

Many cities or regions have nonprofit organizations that are meant to promote technology development, research, and business in the region. These groups are sponsored by businesses and government programs and offer membership, conferences, and great opportunities to get plugged in to the technology culture in the community. To find these kinds of groups in your area start by firing up Google and searching for “groups <industry> <your local area>“ (for example, “groups big data New Jersey”). Try that and see all the groups you instantly find in your area.

Other great places to connect include the following:

Conferences: There are national and local conferences on Hadoop, Apache, Spark, and other technologies in big data. Conferences offer opportunities to connect with other people in the industry; plus, you can hear major influencers talk about important topics in big data and supporting technology. Check out Appendix A for some conferences I recommend.
Trade shows: The main purpose of trade shows is to market products and services. Many emerging vendors have key leaders in the booths or leading talks and sessions. Attend these trade shows. Listen, learn, and connect. Check out Appendix A for some trade shows I recommend.
Vendor summits: Most vendors sponsor global, national, and regional conferences solely focused on their technologies. A summit is similar to a conference, but a summit is much more focused on a particular suite of products or solutions.
Meet-ups: Open an account at Meetup (www.meetup.com), and search for a big data group to connect with. If there isn’t one in your area, start it! You can prepare an agenda, get feedback from interested parties, and then hold a meeting that promises to provide lots of good networking opportunities. You may want to invite a speaker to your first event so that she can help bring in new members among her following.

Alumni networks

As the old saying goes, “It’s easier to farm than to hunt.” In other words, you likely already have rich networks in place today from your alma mater. Universities offer several great ways to leverage the alumni network:

Alumni database: Virtually every school’s career services or alumni group has a database accessible to alums. This database is a rich source of potential contacts for prospecting for that next job.
Career services: Even if you’ve already graduated, many career services departments are more than willing to help you in your search and make connections for you. After all, if you get a great job, your university looks better! Contact your university’s career services office, and ask what kinds of resources they have available.
Alumni associations: Alumni associations aren’t just about giving money and getting sweet seats at next year’s football games. Many universities have chapters all around the country and are quite active. Local alumni chapters are great places to make important connections that can last a lifetime. Check out your local alumni chapter for meet-ups and networking events.
University lifelong learning: Universities often sponsor lecture series for prominent alumni to come and speak. Some also offer alumni field trips. For example, the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia sponsored a trip for alumni to visit Capital One’s Innovation Lab in the Washington, D.C., area. There, alumni got the chance to hear about innovations Capital One was making in big data, analytics, and technology. Alumni from all professional levels attended, making the event a great opportunity for networking!

If you’ve been in the workforce for more than a few years, you have a great built-in network of former colleagues. You can most likely find them on LinkedIn. If you get laid off, your human resources department may provide services or coaches for getting connected to the next job opportunity.

Being ready to make that connection

When you’re on the hunt for a new job, you need to always be ready to ask for the opportunity if it presents itself. Now, I’m not saying you should have your résumé folded up in your coat pocket at all times, but you should be prepared to engage when the opportunity arises — and you never know when that’ll happen.

There are some tips to keep in mind so that you can take advantage of the moment when it presents itself:

Have a story and be ready to tell it. This is a big one. Personal narratives are important. Spend some time thinking about your personal narrative. Whole books have been written on this topic. As Stephen Covey wrote in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, think about your story in terms of what you want to be, not what you want to do.
To build your story, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is your current circumstance a part of your plan, or were you forced to make a change?
- If you didn’t plan on this defining moment in your life, how are you reacting to it?
- What do you want your story to be in five years?
Think about where you’ve come from and where you’re going. Write your story well and with purpose. Employers are interested in people who have a plan and a purpose, people who are introspective.
Be real. When you’re talking to someone about your skills or what you’ve done, don’t falsely inflate your background. You won’t fool anyone — you’ll only turn them off. It’s okay to talk about your accomplishments, but strive to be humble.
Be discerning. Not everyone you meet lives by the “be real” principle. Learn to discern when people are inflating their own importance. If this is happening, you know that this contact is likely not worth your time for two reasons:
- He’s probably not someone you want to work with.
- He’s likely overstating his ability to get you a job.
Get to the point. Don’t overengage with details or information. You’re very interesting to you, but chances are that others may not share the same level of enthusiasm. Again, be humble.
Ask for a meeting. If you’ve found someone who has influence over hiring, ask for a meeting. Even informational interviews can open up opportunities.

A lesson in job hunting

After my first year of college, the job market was tough, but I knew having experience working with a technology company would really help me in my education, boost my résumé, and validate that I wanted to work in that field for the long term. Internships aren’t easy to get when you’re early in your college career, but I was able to land one. There are some valuable lessons I learned in landing that internship. First, don’t assume anything — just because you don’t have all the qualifications for a job, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Second, listen to wise counsel; in my case, it was my dad. Finally, follow up — that’s what got me my job!

I was finishing up my freshman year of college. In January, my dad encouraged me to start thinking about a summer internship. I thought an internship might be impossible because most internships went to seniors, and some juniors, but certainly not freshmen. I went down to career services to look through the summer job postings and my concerns were confirmed. I didn’t have a lot of schooling under my belt, but I knew I was analytical, hardworking, and had high aptitude to learn on the job. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of jobs asking for just those things. I decided that I wasn’t going to assume the only way to get a job was through the traditional channel. My dad encouraged me to go directly to the places I wanted to work and plead my case, even if they didn’t have jobs posted. Don’t assume they aren’t hiring. That turned out to be a great idea!

I was living in Richmond, Virginia, so I targeted all the companies in Richmond that fit my field. This was before the Internet was pervasive, so I had to pull out the phone books, talk to friends, and network with people face to face (crazy, I know). I made a list of the firms I wanted to work for in the region. I prepared my résumé and sent them unsolicited, with a cover letter explaining why I would be a great summer hire. As time went on, I got rejection letters back or heard “No, we aren’t hiring” when I called. My dad encouraged me to keep pushing and take another angle. So I did.

I decided that I would continue to send my résumés and cover letters, but I needed to do something more to stand out. After I mailed my package, I decided to go to the office and ask for a meeting with the most senior person. That turned out to be a great strategy. Early in the spring, I saw a firm that I thought would be a great place to work and gain experience. They didn’t actively recruit at my school and they weren’t advertising for summer interns. That was okay with me, I wanted a job. So, I did the usual mailing, but this time I followed up with an office visit. I found a senior partner there who was available to give me an informational interview and talk about the firm. I told him that I wanted to work there for the summer and asked if he’d consider bringing me on. He did! The best part of the story happened when I returned home. There was a letter waiting for me in the kitchen from this firm. I opened it up and found a rejection notice, saying that they weren’t hiring. Had I not gone in person, I would’ve taken that rejection like all the others and had no job. I learned to think about my career pursuits with creativity and perseverance, and to focus on follow up.

—Susan Williamson

Building Your Brand While Networking

Sharpening your personal brand through real-world and online connections is difficult. If any of this seems a bit overwhelming, don’t worry. This section will break down some brand-building strategies to get you rolling. This five-step process will help you tackle the process.

Step 1: Define your goals

I’m a strong advocate of setting goals and metrics to measure success. Ultimately, your goal is to land a job, of course. But let’s take it a bit further. Maybe your goal is to be better connected to the local startup or small business community. Perhaps you want to be known as the go-to person for a particular technology, method, or aspect of big data.

Write down your goal, and figure out some metric to decide if you’ve achieved it. For example, maybe you want to be viewed as an expert in Spark as well as sentiment analysis. You can define some metrics to track this goal by the kind of hits you’re getting on LinkedIn or job sites. Does 50 hits a day mean people think you’re an expert? No, but it is one dimension.

A defined, written goal gives you something tangible to look at and work toward. And it keeps you motivated!

Step 2: List your current networks

Make a list of your current active and relevant networks. Those could include university, fraternity/sorority, military, or community networks, as well as any social media networks you’re part of. List those networks that are the most valuable — the ones where you have the most connections.

Many people overlook the people who surround them every day. Make sure you’re well connected to people in your own team, in your department, and in other departments in your organization.

Networks are more valuable with more nodes. According to Metcalfe’s Law, illustrated in Figure 12-1, the more nodes a network has, the more potential value there is.

In Figure 12-1, you can see that two telephones make one connection. Five telephones makes ten connections. And 12 phones makes 66 connections!

9781118903407-fg1201.tif — Figure 12-1: Metcalfe’s Law illustrated with telephones.

If your best networks have nothing to do with big data or the target industry, those networks may not be all that valuable. As you consider your current network size, also consider the relevance of those connections to your goals.

Step 3: Identify new groups to engage

Expand your current circle of influence. Spend some time looking in your local resources for groups to engage. I recommend finding groups and organizations on the national, state, or local level. List why you think these groups are important so you can rank your networks from Step 2 based on your priorities and how connected they are to your specific industry.

Step 4: Enhance your online profile

Online profiles require a bit of care and feeding — they should be updated or at least checked every month or so. In addition you want to monitor your profiles every day to determine if there are new people with whom you can connect. You can also enhance your profile by finding interesting articles and industry news and sharing it with your followers.

Check LinkedIn and your various other profiles every day for intelligence about who is looking at you or where you’re coming up in searches.

Step 5: Prospect

Conduct online job searches, engage your network, and prospect not only for jobs but for key people associated with hiring for those jobs. For example, look at the groups available on LinkedIn and join some of them. Then you can reach out to specific members of the group because you share a group in common.

Seeing the future

Many years ago, in the early 2000s, I was sitting in a bar with friends and we were debating if all the shopping malls, big box stores (like Walmart and Target), and grocery stores were going to go out of business. Half of us thought that this thing called the World Wide Web would change everything; the other half thought it was a fad. I was in the camp that believed that the Internet would change everything. Granted, I was a bit extreme in my thinking. In fact, I believed that within three years, we would all be locked in our homes, no one would ever go to an office again, and all our food, books, and movies would be delivered by robots. A year later, everything had crashed, and a year after that, people started talking about Google, Amazon, and eBay. I came full circle after the market crash, and I told people that those companies were in their death throes and would be gone in six months. In short, I took little action to benefit from the huge wave of opportunity that stood before us. I missed out.

Two years ago, a friend of mine told me about his new job with a leading Hadoop platform company, which was in startup mode. In many ways, I thought that this was just the same trend with different technology. I didn’t want to take interest. At first, my friend said that this world of Hadoop and big data was the greatest thing since the inception of the search engine. Six months later, he told me he might have to find a new job. He said, “Everyone wants to talk about this, but no one wants to buy it.” Well, the wave of big data continued to gain momentum and just a few months ago, he told me that he had closed a staggering number of deals and that he would make more money he had ever dreamed possible. This doesn’t even include the stock options he had garnered as an early employee, which is very common in software companies.

The question I had was, “Will I sit idly by, or will I take action now?” For me the choice is clear, and I’m feverishly focused on cracking my way into this space. I didn’t get in as early as I would have liked to, but I believe that there this still a great window ahead of us where fortunes will be made and businesses will be transformed. I’ll will damned I if I let this type of opportunity slip by a second time.

The next question I asked myself was, “How am I going to crack into this space?” I looked at my assets and one of the most valuable thing I have is my network. I’m now actively engaged with a number of leaders in the space. I leveraged research on LinkedIn and other networking sites to see what connections I could make. For example, with just a few phone calls and an email, based on relationships I see on LinkedIn, I’ve been able to gain contacts with some of the leading big data and cloud companies.

Using my social and business networks has been absolutely key for me in two areas. First, it’s given me the chance to identify what companies I really want to work for. They publish articles, research, and information about what they’re doing. Second, I can determine what my relationship is to people I want to talk to within the companies I want to work for. I then use those connections to gain access to those leaders.

Maybe we won’t be locked in our houses waiting for robots to do everything for us (wait, did I just see a drone fly by?), but I’ve certainly come to realize that big data and social networking aren’t fads — they’re a part of how we do business.

—Richard Savage