Here are my top 5 steps to beginning and maintaining professional relationships:

• An important first step is to think about the network of connections that you already have and may have made in the past. You will be surprised as to how many people that you know are valuable connections and can provide you with a wealth of knowledge and experience. This can be parents, relatives, friends, old colleagues and schoolmates, and even old teachers. Try to reach out to any connections that you have made who may work in a company that you are interested in and rekindle that relationship. Start by sending out a friendly email asking them about how they are doing or mentioning any memory that you have together. You can also talk about important milestones in your work life so that they can remember you on a personal level and you can start a professional conversation.
• As a next step, you can expand your network by using Life Connections to reach out to Scripps alumni. (Life Connections is a volunteer database that offers Scripps College students the opportunity to network with over 1,600 alumnae and friends all over the world. These volunteers have agreed to provide invaluable information about their careers, graduate studies, fellowship experiences, relocation, and job search tips within their areas of expertise.
  • These are the steps to get to life connections:
    • Log into your Scripps Portal
    • Click on the Student tab
    • On the left side of the page, there is a column where you can click on Life Connection
    • You can navigate the database by finding alumni by career, major, employer, or other fields
    • Once you get their contact information from Life Connections, send them emails asking about their jobs or about their Scripps experience. You can also use them to conduct informational interviews (mentioned in a later step)

• If you want to network with people in a more personal setting with more face time, then it is important to attend networking events in your area. Go to networking events such as Women in Tech or Undergraduate Summits or conferences that you can find out about through Career Planning and Resources emails. You can also Google different websites to find networking events in your area and your field of study.

• Once you start meeting people and creating a network, be sure to add them on LinkedIn to keep these connections for the future. Make sure to send a customized message to every single person you add so they remember you distinctly and can associate you with that message in the future when you reach out to them. You can also interact with articles they share on LinkedIn to show your interest and keep yourself on their radar. If you haven’t already seen it, be sure to check out the Find Alumni search under the “My Network” menu where you can search for Scripps Alumnae by location, company, what they studied and more.

• Finally, be sure to conduct informational interviews with anyone that you find interesting in your network. Informational interviews are meetings in which a potential job seeker seeks advice on their career, the industry, and the culture of a potential future workplace, while an employed professional learns about the job seeker. These are helpful in finding out more about industries that you may be interested in while also showing your interest to the employer. These interviews do not need to be stressful and can purely be used to find out more information, but make sure to be prepared with questions and a little background knowledge of the company so that you can make a good first impression.

Overall it is important to:

1. Reach out to your old network of connections
2. Make new contacts through Life Connections and the LinkedIn Find Alumni tool.
3. Go to networking events for face to face time
4. Add people on LinkedIn
5. Conduct informational interviews with people whose work interests you