Networking for Introverts

So for those of you who do not know me well enough, I am an introvert. For most people this translates as meaning, “she hates people, she’s quiet, and she does not like to go out.” Well luckily for all the other misunderstood introverts out there, I am dedicating this week’s blog post to deconstructing this introvert myth and providing concrete strategies for how to best network as an introvert.

introverts

Contrary to popular belief, introverts do not hate people. I actually really love hanging out and getting to know people. Nevertheless, what is most misunderstood about introverts is that large numbers of people can be overwhelming to our sense of balance. So in order to regain that balance, we need alone time. One of the defining characteristics of an introvert is that they derive a lot of their energy from being alone. They really need quality time by themselves every once in a while to recharge their batteries. Then once recharged, they can be a total social butterfly.

anime introvert

So when it comes to networking, it is not so much the act of going to a networking event that is an introvert’s worst nightmare; it is more what the act of networking can feel like that bothers most introverts. I always find it funny that introverts’ silence is taken as a lack of something to say. For me, at least, it is not that I am quiet or do not like to speak, but rather that most introverts prefer listening to talking. Talking for long periods of time, especially about the same thing over and over again, can drain us very quickly. Unfortunately, talking comprises a lot of what networking is. But if all you introverts can hang on until the end, I promise I will equip you with some start off networking questions that will keep your networking partner talking all night long, and help you regain some energy.

introverts_4

One of the last points I will make about introverts’ fear of networking is the sense of fakeness that networking can have to it. With a well-charged introvert, there is a lot of energy surging through their veins. However, introverts are also aware at how quickly this energy can dissipate in a large room of people, so they like to choose wisely where they will invest all this energy. If you were to ask an introvert to choose between having a really in-depth conversation with one or two people, or to meet over 50 people in one night, you better believe that any true introvert would choose the former over the latter.  Unfortunately with networking events, you might have to sift through a lot of “fake” conversations in order to make it to that one really useful one, and by then you could be energy depleted.

So how do we as introverts conquer our networking fears? Well here’s what you all have been waiting for! This is some my personal list of strategies to becoming an introverted networking queen (or king).

tumblr_mffwgbs3JD1rjc9g4o1_400

  1. Ready, Set… Charge!

You would not go to a networking event with a cell phone battery that was less than 50%. So why would you ever go with less than 100% of the best version of you? Make sure that prior to a networking event you take all the time that you need to really get in the zone to talk to a bunch of random people all night. This will require you being more on top of your schedule and knowing when events are occurring. But even if you end up going to an event on the fly, and you know your slightly drained, remember that it never hurts to take breaks and go outside or, my personal favorite, go on Pinterest to give yourself a quick zap of energy.

  1. Work Smarter, Not Harder

Sure, you’re supposed to meet a lot of people at networking events. But why sift through tons of people who might not help to advance your career when you do not have to? While networking events can be somewhat unpredictable because you never really know if the person/organization who says they are coming will actually show up, it can work in your advantage to find out the guest list ahead of time and do a little background research on the guests. By doing this you will already know the names/organizations that will be the best match to your skill sets, and you will not have to waste time and energy sifting through people who would not be helpful to you. Knowing who your talking to can also help add a layer of genuineness to the conversation, while also helping you feel more comfortable with whom your talking to. Not to mention that most people do not take time to do this, so you will definitely be the most memorable of the bunch.

  1. Ask, Listen, Pause, Repeat

Pauses in a conversation can be the most terrifying thought to some people. For me, however, I love pauses because it gives me a chance to formulate a new question to ask that leads off of the other person’s following statement, keeping the conversation fresh and authentic. While it is important to have a repository of reliable networking questions to ask, you should never just completely just rely on these questions alone because it can come off as mechanical and kind of cold. Instead, I would recommend starting with one of your formulated questions, really listening to the other person’s response, taking a breath to comprehend what was just said to you, and then see if there is a follow up question you can ask about what they just said.

Here are some questions that I like to keep in the back of my mind:

  • Can you describe to me what your career path was from after you graduated college to now?
  • Did you always know that you wanted to be in X industry or what sparked that change in your life and why did you decide to act on it?
  • Are you in your dream position now or where would you like to be in the next 5 years/at the end of your career?

I hope I helped some of you introverts out there get some courage about networking. Did this post make you re-evaluate whether or not you’re an introvert or an extrovert? Well you should stop by CP&R to take the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment! It is really beneficial to know as much about your personality as you can so that you can strategizes ways to cater certain things like networking to your favor.

MIGHT-NOT-SAY-MUCH

Female Mentorship: Who Runs the World?

Like most 20-somethings—Oh, who am I kidding? Like most anyone on this planet, whenever I feel that I need some words of wisdom in my life, there is only one reasonable person to turn to…

Who runs the world?

Beyoncé.

And while we all know that Beyoncé truly does run the world, it is the fabulous female dominated PR/brands communications agency, ID, that is running some of the entertainment industry’s top talent. This semester, I was given the honor of interning in their Digital Strategy department and currently I have been there for two months. Being in this highly successful, predominantly female run environment has inspired me for this week to talk about female mentorship.

It’s rude. I know. It can come off as weird. I know that, too. I know all of that, but… I just could not stop staring at her.  She hadn’t even said anything, and yet she already had me mesmerized. It wasn’t just her radiant inner strength or her powerful eloquent tone of voice once she had finally spoken at The Fullbridge Program Employer Panel. This was bolder than that. This was fierceness personified. This was Natalie, and this was my future new boss and spirit model. For me, a role model is someone whose job/role you aspire to have/fulfill. But Natalie is someone whose demeanor, whose fierceness I hope to embody in my future.

It was 9 am on my first day, but Natalie still hadn’t arrived in the office yet. Her assistant, however, warmly greeted me and proceeded to give me a tour around the office. It was in this tour that I started to realize how truly lucky I was to have obtained this internship, but not for the reasons you’d think. Sure being on Hollywood Boulevard witnessing exciting festivities such as The Oscars and having a bird’s eye view of the Hollywood sign everyday were great perks. But what really made ID so magical for me during that tour was seeing and meeting women who were sitting in the corner offices and at the highest ranks of the company.

When the tour concluded, I assumed that I would be relegated to the intern corner where I met a couple of interns a few minutes earlier. To my surprise and extreme fortune, however, she actually led me into Natalie’s office and told me that this would be my workspace. Someone could have easily tripped over my jaw in that moment because I just could not understand how I managed to receive such a privilege. Her assistant told me that I was really fortunate to have an internship with Natalie because she is the only executive who allows interns to sit in her office with her. She told me that Natalie wants her interns close by to ask her questions and to listen in on her calls so as to get a real sense of what her job and the industry is like.

Being able to closely watch Natalie in action for these past few weeks has really started to make me reflect on the powerful female mentors I’ve had in my life, and how integral they have been to shaping the woman I am today. It is not who or what they are talking about in conference meetings and phone calls that has been so beneficial for me, but rather how they are speaking and presenting themselves in those situations. At Fullbridge, we learned that women sometimes tend to do something called “uptalking,” which involves raising the pitch of the last syllable of the last word in a sentence that subtly makes your statement sound like question or seem uncertain. Getting the opportunity to listen in on important business calls with Natalie and other important female mentors in my life, however, has given me clear examples to emulate on how to present oneself as a female in male-dominated business run spaces. From what to wear, how to sound, and next steps after graduation, these women have given me a briefcase full of important work place/life advice and tips that I will carry with me through time.

So if the opportunity presents itself, I would highly suggest seeking out a female mentor/spirit model. I know gender equality is important, but if you are someone who self-identifies as a female, then having that female spirit model will definitely teach you subtle, but important aspects on how to survive in the work place that a man will never be able understand/provide.

So where can you find these fantastical spirit models? To be honest, everywhere! Scripps is a women’s college after all, which means we have an excellent selection of women all around to choose from. Faculty, staff, current and past supervisors, and even your fellow peers are doing such amazing things out in the world that just hanging out with them a few times could help put you on track to being the best version of yourself. So get out there and network! And if you don’t know how to do that, stay tuned for a future blog post!

To the powerful female mentors I’ve had in my life, there is no word to describe how incredibly grateful I am to have had you in my life. Thank you for letting me watch you, letting me pester you with questions, and letting me emulate you. I hope that when I write stories of my success and achievements, that you feel not only proud of me, but proud of yourselves because there is a piece of you in me that contributed to that.

Rejection and Opportunity: The Senior Struggle is Real

For most of you it is February going on March. For anyone who is a senior, I’m sure you’ll agree when I say that it feels more like it’s February going on May. Every day feels like it’s the end, and yet you can’t help but revel in memories of when you encountered this day at Scripps for the first time four short years ago. It’s a beautiful schizophrenia we live in as seniors. I’m coming to learn, however, that spring of senior year in college feels a lot more bittersweet than it did in high school. Around this time in high school, we all knew that we had gotten into Scripps and choose to attend. We had planned next steps, and we could truly relax and enjoy our final moments in high school.

In college, however, I’m coming to find that senior spring can be one of the most stressful semesters of your college career. Yes, I am really excited about graduating and moving on to that next chapter in my life, but for some, including myself, just finding the title to this next chapter, let alone what its contents will be can be sickening. And let somebody ask me one more time about what I’m doing after graduation… I can’t even finish the thought.

We’re all either applying for jobs and fellowships, and hearing back, or in some cases, not hearing back. And it is this latter part that can really start to eat away at one’s self-confidence…especially if our peers are fairing far better in landing post grad opportunities.

Unfortunately, rejection is a part of life that we’re not trained how to handle well. So for this week’s blog post, I wanted to help students think about alternative ways to view and handle this daunting new chapter ahead. This is dedicated to all my seniors in the struggle.

It was January 28th around 3pm that I got the email. I could have opened it the minute I saw it, but my finger just lingered over my phone screen, paralyzed with fear.  If this email did not have what I wanted to see, what I had planned so hard to see, then the perfect two year plan that I had devised for myself was about to become the next four months of chaos.

Dear Daysha,

We regret to inform you…

Ah. The infamous “We-regret-to-inform-you” speech, the equivalent of the other wildly unpopular “we-need-to-talk” speech in dating (but for professional opportunities), was staring me back in the face like that dreaded text message from your soon-to-be ex.

It was a hard blow to take to my ego but, interestingly enough, I was not angry that I did not receive a Fulbright. It actually felt weird knowing how ok I was. That’s not to say that I did not want it, but as Michelle Bauman, a CMC alumna who was also the keynote speaker for the Women and Leadership Alliance conference last Friday, would say, maybe this rejection was delivered to me as a gift.

In her speech, Bauman, executive turned motivational coach, dared us to rethink the purpose behind the rejections we receive in life. “If the challenge were here for you, not against you,” she asked, “a gift brought here only for the purpose of serving you, what is the opportunity? What is the gift to grow?”

Applying Bauman’s question to my own life, I think that I was not meant to get the Fulbright because I think I am actually meant to take the next year off to devote to my writing. It was an idea that I had been toying around with prior to hearing back from Fulbright, but I was terrified of actually doing it. As Scripps students, I think that it can feel daunting to go a non-traditional route after graduation when we’re constantly bombarded with pressure from our families and society to get a “real” job.

However, as Bauman so eloquently stated in her speech, “we have to look for the opportunities where we fold up like a pretzel… and use it as an opportunity for growth; an opportunity for transformation.” For me that came in the form of a playwriting competition, which I can proudly say I won, and has only reinforced my decision to do a self-designed writing fellowship (self-designing…such a Scrippsie, right?) So I would say if there’s something that you’ve been pondering about doing post-graduation, but it scares you. It forces you to step outside yourself and take a risk, then do it. If you’re wildly successful at it, you’ll be forever grateful that you took the risk. But if it doesn’t go as planned, remember that there is a gift there for you begging to be opened and put to use.

If It’s Not Broken, Don’t Break It

We’ve all heard the common adage, “If it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.” But what if I proposed to you that this way of thinking was actually inhibiting your growth potential? What if I said that in certain situations, it’s more sustainable to continually fix something, even when there is no danger present? Would you believe me? Well, if you still need convincing, please read on…

There are times in life where things are just going to be amazingly good. We’ll have the best significant other, have just landed the coolest job ever — complete with an amazing salary. For some people, just being able to finally shave their legs or do their laundry is enough to constitute a really amazing day, week, or even year.

With all that awesomeness surging through your veins, however, it can be pretty easy to get comfortable and complacent, and that is where the danger lurks. I had a friend once tell me that the only constant thing about the future is that it’s always changing. Getting too comfortable with how something is working in the present might create adversities for adapting to changes in the future. For me, personally, I found that the best way to stay flexible to these changes is to be, well…paranoid.

If you glanced at my resume, the first question you would probably ask is, “why has she done so many professional development programs?” INROADS, Deloitte, Fullbridge, Scripps’ Emerging Professionals Program; you name it, and I’ve probably done it once, if not twice. And I can see the “why” formulating at your lips. Wouldn’t I be just as good with just one of those programs? Doesn’t it start to get redundant after a while? And the truth is, sometimes. But my paranoia has led me to develop FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) Syndrome.

Yeah, doing one program is fine, and I’m sure there are components that will be similar in the second program, but…what if there’s something more? What if I miss some crucial piece to this World of Work Puzzle?  For instance, what if there’s an alternative way to shake your interviewers hand that the first program didn’t teach, but the second one does?! I’m being facetious now, but this past winter break my paranoia did, in fact, bring me a huge payoff.

I remember making inquiries in the fall about the Fullbridge Program, a start-up program that is dedicated to providing liberal arts students with the transitional education they need to go from the classroom to the workplace. I remember being told that with my extensive background in professional development, I already had enough experience. But, of course my FOMO tendencies still drove me to sign up for the program anyway. Sure, there were many parts of the program that I knew like the back of my hand as a result of my participation in other programs. However, just as predicted, there was that one thing that I was paranoid about missing out on; the opportunity to network with a group of employers at the end of the program. It is through that event that I was hired the next week to work as an Intern in the Digital Strategy Department at ID, one of the premier entertainment industry PR/brand communications firms in the country.

Me on my first day at ID.

So, I would say that even if life is going super well for you right now, it will never hurt to keep fixing yourself and taking advantage of new opportunities for growth.  As the saying should go, “If its not broken, don’t break it.”

“What Fear Fears Most”

“Get up, Laura!” my suitemates and I screamed as she cowered over in the middle of the path.

“They can smell your fear,” I told her as another deranged clown bypassed me to terrorize Laura once again.

After getting a good laugh out of Laura’s inability to function in a scary situation, my eyes bounced around the theme park as I absorbed the pure dread of everyone around me.  In the spirit of Halloween, my suitemates and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood for their Halloween Horror Nights theme. As horrifying monsters with chainsaws and bloody butchers roamed the streets of Universal seeking out their next victims, I watched with pure excitement. Their make-up, the costumes, but most importantly their commitment to instilling fear into every person that crossed their path re-sparked my love of theater and the entertainment industry.

While my acting days have been on hiatus since arriving to Scripps, I spent a lot of time up on the stage in high school. I love to perform and give people a show and so for a long time I thought that acting was the only component of the entertainment industry that I would be interested in pursuing. Interestingly enough, during my senior fall semester of high school, my college counselor noticed that my schedule looked a little too light for a senior and suggested that I take the screenwriting course being offered. Screenwriting? Ehh, I thought as I flipped though the course catalogue, but most of the good classes had been filled and it said that we would watch movies for a least one of the class meetings per week. So, “Why not” I finally decided and I enrolled in the course.

In retrospect, I find it interesting how many of the classes that I have decided to take on a whim have helped me to discover some of my life passions. I think that I loved screenwriting so much because it allowed me to combine all of my interests into one; it allowed me to write as well as thinking up ways to entertain people. I am also a psychology major because I love working with and watching the ways in which people interact with one another, which is also a huge complement to screenwriting because it will help you create more in-depth characters.

Taking that class opened up a whole new side to theater and the entertainment industry that I never even considered. I don’t know if I would ever be able to handle acting in the entertainment industry and I have always considered it a dream. But working behind the scenes, whether it is screenwriting or promoting a film or some other aspect of the industry, feels like it could become a future goal. Fittingly enough, the catch phase of Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights is “What fear fears most” and I often fear that I would not be able to make a career or a stable living off of working behind the scenes somewhere like at Universal or the entertainment industry in general. Art is so subjective and the hardest part of a screenwriter’s job isn’t in fact writing the screenplay but actually pitching it to a film corporation. We had to practice in that class I took in high school and I could feel my knuckles go ashen as I gripped my seat listening to my teacher’s superficial and stupid desires from the entertainment industry. “Vampires and werewolves are the craze right now so unless it’s got any of that you can just leave” he told my partner and I. While he did not believe that and was only trying to simulate what the experience would be like, I felt this knot of disgust sitting in my stomach. Despite my fears of being successful in the entertainment industry and its sometimes superficiality, another wise woman reminded me that fears are just “False Expectations Appearing Real.”