Networking Assignment: Professional Development and Career Goals

This assignment delves into the multifaceted world of networking, exploring its fundamental rules and essential characteristics. It examines how networking aids in achieving personal and professional goals, particularly within the context of a university environment in Berlin. The assignment covers th...Read More

NETWORKING

1. What are the main rules of networking?
Networking can be described as the process of associating with one another in order to
exchange information and strengthen the relationship either professional or social (Brandes,
Freeman and Wagner, 2013). On the other hand, networking can be described as the process
of linking computers to exchange information with each other. There are various rules that
make networking possible either among individuals or computers. In this section, we are
going to discuss the main rules of networking among people. They include the following:
 Knowing the reason why you are contacting people – Once the list of people to be
contacted has been identified and sorted out, one should identify the reason why he
wants to contact them. One should also identify what he or she can gain from them.
One may contact and employer with the reason being to know more about the
company and if there are any job opportunities so that he can apply for the positions.
Unemployed people should contact employed people and ask if there is a job
opportunity so that they can apply for the positions (Cavoulacos and Minshew, 2010).
 Making powerful impressions. Before making communication, it is important to
think about what you are going to say which is the main reason why you want them to
contact you. Casual communication is preferred since it makes friends understand you
easily and also makes communication more convincing (Yu, Rexford, Freedman, and
Wang, 2010).
 Making sure that something is learned from every communication- The people
whom you communicate with should have a lot of knowledge for you to gain from
them. If you have the same career many questions should be asked in order to gain
more knowledge from them. This means each network interaction that someone has
should help him gain more knowledge and opportunities that can fit his goals.
 Contacting every new referral that you receive. One’s characteristics cannot be
known until you interact with them also one can only receive help after seeking for it
(Cabaj & Mazurczyk, 2016). Thus, every new contact that one receives should be
contacted in order to determine if he can ask help from the new contact.
 Showing gratitude to everyone that has to be conducted by writing thank you
letters.

 Storing and keeping up follow up activities- as the process of networking continues,
many people will be contacted thus it is important to store all the information about
the people contacted, the information gathered from them, the date the conversation
took place and what was discussed (Yeganeh, Tootoonchian and Ganjali, 2013)
2. Which characteristics are important for the topic of networking?
The following are the characteristics of the topic networking.
 Approachability- Effective networking starts with being approachable ((Luo and Zhong,
2015). Since it is all about building connectivity and mutual relationship for business
purposes. Being a good networker means that you should make people feel good when
they are around you.
 Trustworthy-if somebody cannot be trusted then nobody will be interested to work with
them. This means that no one will refer people to someone who is not trustful.
 Follow up-Since in networking fortunes lies on following up, if someone offers
opportunities to people who actually do not follow up, they will eventually get tired and
stop offering opportunities to those people since it portrays lack of interest (Park, Song
and Ko, 2011).
 Sincerity: Faking sincerity in any relationship is not sustainable. People who have
sincerity can easily be trusted by anyone thus creating a network, unlike people who are
insincere since it is hard for them to create a communication network among individuals.
 Being helpfully and collaborative- Many people are not interested in what someone
does, they are most interested in how much you care (Gibson, Hardy and Buckley, 2014).
Helping people shows how much you care for them. Research shows that most people
want to interact with people who have a caring collaborative attitude.
 Positive attitudes. Attitudes make people around you either like or dislike you. People
with a positive attitude are liked by many people (Vandenberg, S.G. ed., 2013). Negative
attitudes make people dislike you.
 Good listener - communication depends on how people understand each other
(Albareda-Tiana, Vidal-Raméntol and Fernández-Morilla, 2018). People with good
listening skills can easily understand each other thus establishing a valuable relationship.

Research shows that a good networker has two ears and one mouth he listens to people's
problems and finds an opportunity to help them.
3. Describe four of your goals during your time at the university in Berlin and how
networking will help you to achieve them
My goals during my time at berlin included the following;
 To expand my professional knowledge and to apply the same to the working
environment. Though interacting with fellow students and lecturers and exchanging
contacts I will be able to acquire professional knowledge.
 To achieve higher grades for all the units that I will be taking in my course, networking
will be very important in this, since it will help me interact with fellow students, we will
able to help each other in classwork thus attaining higher grades in the subjects.
 To improve my skills in communication either through writing, talking or storytelling.
Through networking, I will be able to interact with different kinds of people who speak a
different kind of language and from different backgrounds thus I will know how to
communicate with people from different backgrounds. This will also enhance my skills in
socialization thus I will easily expand my network.
 Joining an extracurricular organization, through networking, I will be able to join an
organization that will connect me with other students all over the world. I will be able to
interact with different kinds of people thus building skills and knowledge on my career.
4. What did u learn during our time? Did you change your behavior?
During this time, I have learnt the following;
 Giving feedbacks- I learnt how to give feedback in networking because it influences
mindset behavior and motivation. It describes the accomplishments of a certain job that
you were given or referred to. It is important to give positive feedback to encourage
individuals. The feedback that is given to different kinds of people influences them either
negatively or positively. Positive feedback tells someone that he/she is on the right path
while negative feedbacks tells someone that he/she needs to change something and
improve on what he is working on.
 I have also learned about supporting goals habits. When you need to change the
people that are around you, you should think about supporting them mainly in the things

that they do. This makes them trust you. Through this, we change the nature in which
they are thinking and encourage them to do good things and leave the bad habits.
 Development of the support networks- having friends and families who will always be
at our support is very important (Hawkins and Wang, 2012). They will always be there
for us when we are in problems. These people should have networking values and be
highly trusted for anybody to fully depend on them. These are the people who will help
us look for jobs when we have cleared with the school. More so, they will help us expand
our network. Lastly, I also learnt that I should take advantage when people are lazy so
that I will be able to gain more advantages in the working environment and complete
extra work in time.
Through what I learned, I was able to change my behavior so that I become a good
networker. Being a good network means that I will be able to interact with different kinds
of people and gain something at the end of the day. This means I will be able to give
opportunities to people or people will be able to give me opportunities so that I can work
with them.
5. Let’s do research: Find out how the investor Lars Windhorst got in touch with
the new coach of Hertha BSC?
Lars Windhorst got in touch with Jürgen Klinsmann the coach of Hertha berlin though
the following way. The coach is an ex-striker and formerly he was a coach at Bayern
Munich. Since Hertha berlin is also in the Bundesliga, Lars Windhorst might have seen
how the coach was initially performing in the team thus asked for his contacts from the
colleagues. Also, the two were seen watching a match of Hertha Berlin against RB
Leipzig. Klinsmann in football career has won many cups this made him more famous
thus Lars was interested in him so that he could apply the same skills in his team. In
1990, Klinsmann as a striker won the world cup while playing for the German national
team. This gave Klinsmann a chance to head the German national team. From the above,
it is seen that though his football career Klinsmann had made a lot of connections through
his achievements thus he had a lot of contacts and many people were interested to work
with him that's why it was not difficult for Lars, the Hertha Belin manager to contact him
and hire him as the team’s heads couch. This means that through the achievements that
we make in our career fields we can create a large network that will make us have a lot of

job opportunities in the future.
6. What’s special and what can you learn from this case?
From the above case, I have learnt that when we are given a chance to do something, we
should do it to our best so that we can create more opportunities for ourselves. Whatever
we do in that field will affect our relationship and the network with people in the future.
Also, it can give us different opportunities in the job market. If our performance in the
career field is positive, then it opens many opportunities for us in the future. Just as
Klinsmann was the best striker during his time when he was playing football, after
retiring from the football career, he was given a chance to head the German national team
as the coach. Since then he has been getting so many opportunities. Currently, Klinsmann
was given a chance to head the Hertha Berlin club in Bundesliga. The vice versa might
also happen when we don’t show the best in our career field.
7. All of you have to do an internship during your time in Berlin: How can
networking help you to find a company, which will offer you an internship?
Since the best way to get any internships is to network efficiently and effectively, I will
do the following.
I will start communicating and networking with the school career center in which they
might not partake contacts to a company. But through them, I may get some contacts of a
company in which I can tap into for my internship. If they will be of no use to me, I will
find alumni from the school or LinkedIn who is working for a particular company. I will
connect to them using their contacts and explain to them what I want from them and seek
some help or advice. Also, I will go out on twitter and other platforms like Facebook and
write my resume there with a small note requesting for internship from a particular
company.
Also, I will find some pages of some companies on social platforms and ask them if they
can offer me an internship position and if they do not offer me internships on my career I
will ask them to contact a company that offers internship on my career. I will continue
with the same criteria of exchanging contacts among different companies until I get an
internship.

References
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