How to Network Remotely

Networking is a crucially important part of your career journey. The ability to form beneficial professional connections, outside of your immediate circle, will really positively impact the later stages of your career. If you’re in an early career stage and aren’t actively networking – you definitely should be.

But how are you supposed to network in the remote working era? We wanted to find out, so we invited Toby Hornett, legal career coach and solicitor, to speak on this topic at March’s instalment of our Virtual Lunch events! Toby gave a fantastic talk, inspired largely by information provided by Noah Askin of INSEAD, and imparted loads of practical advice on remote networking.

Here are the main takeaways from the session:

Appreciate the wider context of remote networking

Your peripheral network are the people you interact with outside of your immediate professional circle. In a real-life office setting, you’re constantly exposed to new people on the peripheries in the day-to-day flow of working life. Toby reminded us that meeting these new people, and increasing your ‘social capital’, is ultimately key to your later career progression. It’s these connections that might land you a job in the future, or be an inside connection for a company you eventually apply for, or even just offer you good career advice. Toby gave us the helpful diagram you can see above to explain this.

When working remotely, you obviously won’t get exposed to this peripheral network as easily as you normally would. In the last year, professional networks have gotten smaller as people now only really interact with the people they immediately work with. Smaller, tighter networks have become the new norm. If you want to maintain the career benefits of expanding your peripheral network, then you’re going to have to be proactive, and make remote networking a habit.

Start small

Toby encouraged everyone to think of someone you want to keep in touch with. This could be old employer, colleague, lecturer, or anyone else who has helped you in the past. Start with that person, and reach out to them. Send them an email or LinkedIn message letting them know how you’re doing or how they helped you on your journey. The aim here is solely to reach out and establish a dialogue, nothing more.

The key to successful networking, Toby noted, was to ‘pay it forward’. In other words – make contact when you don’t need anything. Establish a good relationship with someone that has helped you in the past, and could potentially help you again. You should of course be realistic about whether you can keep semi-regular contact with this person, but if you can reasonably do so then you are investing in this relationship for the future. You’re paying it forward, meaning that when you do need something, they’re more likely to pass opportunities your way.

Make it a habit

Networking is just like exercise – little and often is the best way to go. Good habits form over time, and require small but consistent effort to make long-term gains. Networking is the same. Make a point to send a message to one or two people a week, and hold yourself to account for doing it. Networking doesn’t have to be anything beyond short, sweet, informative, and friendly updates. Even just casual thanks, or links to interesting people or articles, are more than enough.

The more you network, the easier it will get. Set your sights higher. Identify people on your periphery who are ambitious potential connections, and do your homework. LinkedIn is a really easy way to do this. Look them up, learn more about them, and try to think of a good way to get a conversation going. Remember, you shouldn’t expect something from them immediately, and not everyone is going to respond. However, if you reach out to ten ambitious peripheral connections and you make one good connection that could help you in the future, that’s still great progress. Keep this up over time, make a habit of it, and you can build yourself a solid and healthy peripheral network without even needing to leave your home.

Final thoughts

•        Pay it forward. Reach out when you don’t need something.

•        Networking is just conversation, forming a connection over time.

•        Make a habit of reaching out and networking regularly.

Additional Resources:

• Virtual Lunch Eventbrite - everything covered in this post came from March’s instalment of our Virtual Lunch events. The events happen on the first Wednesday of each month, and are entirely free to attend. Sign up now for more great events!
• Lawyer of the Future video - this video from our talented friends over at Crafty Counsel has some great tips on building your network, that directly compliments the content of this post.
• How to maximise your personal brand in the workplace - this PSL link from LexisNexis is accessible via a free trial, and offers useful tips on your ‘personal brand’ to consider whilst networking.
• How to keep productive - this blog post comes from January’s Virtual Lunch, and offers some great practical and scientific advice on keeping your brain productive and mentally active.