When it comes to recruitment consultants, few of us are introverted but I still remember the days when I was too scared to pick up a phone, mind you I still have days like that now 😉
In many ways my shyness has always helped when it came to getting information out of clients and candidates, as they never felt threatened. What is important to know is you can overcome this as Rod points out in The Business Pundit where he has covered 8 points, which helped him deal with his poor networking skills due to being introverted.
- Networking is an investment, not a nuisance.
- At first, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.
- Don’t spend too much time on it.
- Do cool things.
- Invite people to lunch.
- Go regularly to things you like.
- Analyse your results.
- Find the key nodes in the network.
- Don’t network just for the sake of networking.
All the above points are excellent but I wanted to mention two things that had a fundamental effect on me, because when I started out I was also very shy and introverted, yes I know it is hard to believe!
Firstly I recommend you read a book called “how to make friends and influence people†by Dale Carnegie. Out of all the self-help books I have read this has had the most influence, and is the only one I can still remember 20 years on.
Secondly be passionate in everything you do, you do not have to be an expert but show a genuine interest. I learnt early on in my career that not being able to converse in football put me at a fundamental disadvantage, when it came to conversing with my peers, I also found it was a great opening conversation with strangers, Athletics never had the same effect.
Networking is never easy no matter if you are introverted or not, but these tips from Rod should make it a less painful experience.
To read more on Rods post follow this link
Powered by Qumana
