You’ve been successfully networking with individuals in your industry for some time now. Good work! All the people you’ve met with are now “Referral Allies” – that is, individuals who can refer you to an open job position as soon as they know of one. But here’s the rub: After some time, your allies will begin to forget about you. How do you ensure that you remain top of mind?
With regular follow-up, that’s how.
Of course, you should always send a thank you email by the next day after meeting with someone – but I’m not referring to that. I’m discussing following up with each ally on a regular basis after you’ve met them.
Every five to seven weeks after you’ve met an ally, you should send a follow-up email. In the follow-up email, you are not to ask if the ally knows of any open positions. Instead, the goal here is to simply get yourself to remain in the top of their mind.
In each follow-up email, you should send them either:
- An update from your end.
- Something of value that your ally would find interesting.
Let’s dig into each.
If you’ve followed my micronetworking cheat sheet, you’ll have asked the ally for advice regarding getting a job in your desired industry. If possible, you should try to follow that advice – if only because it makes for a great update! Say, for example, that your ally recommended creating a web-based portfolio to showcase your work. If you’ve done just that, your update to your ally could be sending the link to your portfolio and asking for feedback. People like to give advice, and love to see that the advice had actually been followed. If you can update your ally that you’d followed their advice, it makes for a great way to stick in their minds.
An alternative to an update would be to send something of value to the ally. Perhaps in your meeting discussion, your ally mentioned that they find a particular topic very interesting. If you can send a recent interesting article that pertains to that topic, your ally will appreciate that!
I highly recommend creating a simple calendar that can help you keep track of when it’s time to send an ally another follow-up email. Again, I recommend anywhere between five to seven weeks as the next time for a regular follow-up.
It’s important to emphasize that this regular follow-up isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the only way to ensure that your micronetworking delivers any value! When you meet with an ally for the first time, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to refer you to a position right then and there. This regular follow up, therefore, is crucial to maintaining your relationships with your allies and allowing them to refer you to an open role once they are made aware of one.