Tip #11: How to keep in touch when you don’t have any news
Transform your job search with 20 Job Search Tips in 20 Days
This email is part of a series “20 Job Search Tips in 20 Days”. Every day in December, you’ll receive a job search tip for career changers.
Job Search Tip #11: How to keep in touch when you don’t have any news
Keeping in touch, what does that even mean? and more practically, does it even matter?
In networking, ‘keeping in touch’ simply means checking in with people at multiple points in time, without asking anything of them. Just ‘checking in’. Similar to how you ‘keep in touch’ with friends by having weekly or monthly calls, you can use similar strategies to touch base with people you meet in your networking.
Keeping in touch is the way you create relationships, so yes, you want to keep in touch with people that you like and who helped you.
You likely will not keep in touch with everyone, but with some people, you want to maintain touch points during the year. Keeping your network engaged and remembering who you are, is the main purpose of keeping in touch.
Keeping in touch matters because maintaining a connection helps people help you! It also helps you learn about anything that’s going on in that person’s world. Whether it be a recruiter, hiring manager or peer, touching base once a month is better than not saying anything for months and then reaching out for help.
Here is what Matt Hearnden has to say on this topic:
In this situation, Matt is talking about reaching back out to recruiters who may be able to help you find roles even after the original job didn’t result in a job offer.
Sometimes there are major life events that are fun to share, but other times, you may not have anything ‘news’ worthy to share. Turns out it doesn’t matter because touching base with someone is really about sharing or asking something relevant to their situation or interest.
How to keep in touch when you have no major news:
For recruiters, cut to the chase and ask about open roles, maybe even refer someone to them, help them and they will remember you
For hiring managers, peers or any other people: check-in about how work is, an interest they mentioned or mention something about the posts they make on Linkedin if they post; you can also share a link to an interesting article or a funny meme
Keep the communication upbeat, short, and share a small bit about yourself.
Here are a few examples:
Hey Maria, How are you? Do you know if that role I mentioned was filled?
Hi Tom, Happy Holidays! This time of year tends to be pretty busy, hope you’re finding some time to rest as well. Would be great to catch up soon. LMK when you’re available.
Hi Emily, How’s it going? I noticed we haven’t connected in a bit, thought to say hi! Came across this post and it reminded me of the topic we talked about [link to post]
How to keep in touch with people in your network:
Keep a list of your network that is easy to review once a month
Take one day a month to go through that list and reach out to anyone you haven’t talked with in the past month
Start your message either with a question about themselves or share a link to relevant content they might enjoy
Post once a week on Linkedin so your network can follow along your journey
To everyone job searching during the holidays… you got this, keep going 🌟
If you missed them, here are 3 previous tips: