How to Maintain your Network during a Career Transition
Maintaining your professional network is a critical part of managing your career. Indeed, you could argue that without your network, your chances of identifying and being considered for new opportunities are diminished. When your career is going through a transition and you move from one role to another, or more importantly from one organization to another, it can be harder to keep in touch with your contacts. Here's the rub. You need to do it, so start thinking about thebest waysto go about it.
Maintain continuity of contact details
Don't use a corporate email account or telephone number as your contact details for your professional network. Use a personal email address and your own mobile number, because you will take these with you when you go. If you use corporate accounts, you'll have to remember to give everyone the new details and even then, if messages come in after you have gone, you will never see them. Indeed, many businesses insist that corporate accounts should not be for personal use. This is a good reason why.
Keep LinkedIn up-to-date
LinkedIn is one place where your career details and employment history should always be bang up-to-date. Make sure that the current role shown is, indeed, your current role. Encourage your contacts to keep up with you via LinkedIn, partly by connecting with them through the site and partly by posting status and content updates. LinkedIn is about you as an individual, rather than you as a corporate entity. It's a great way to maintain continuity of contact.
Proactively update people
You should be staying in touch with your professional network anyway, but a change in role or a change in employer should probably trigger some form of proactive contact. For one group of people, a simple email may suffice. For others, you should probably pick up the phone. For your most valued network members, try and get the opportunity to speak to them face-to-face. Show them that although your career is transitioning, you value their contact as much as ever.
Don't go quiet in a new job
When you start a new job, there's an obvious tendency to get bedded down into the detail and to concern yourself with that and nothing else. You could argue that when you've just secured a new job, you don't need the support of your contact as much as you might do other times. You're wrong! This is a great time to continue to engage your network. They can help you address new challenges, settle into the role and find solutions to problems, just as they would at any time.
