A community can create opportunities to develop new meaningful professional relationships. One interaction by happenstance at a conference or virtual coffee could shift your career trajectory in a direction more aligned and meaningful to you. Connecting with others invites them to share their stories: you could learn something about yourself; gain new insights about career paths; or be introduced to other perspectives about the world. 

If you haven’t already read the unit introduction, consider taking approximately 3 minutes to read it, as it emphasizes the ‘why’ you need to build community/network. 

For your information, the Exploring My Community module covers how to prepare and effectively reach out to others. We strongly recommend completing that module before proceeding into this one.

It can feel overwhelming to know where to begin if your community is small-scale at the moment. Or perhaps, your network is established and has plateaued. Your community/network changes as you change. If your community/network has become stagnant, this is an opportunity to expand into other industries or areas of interests, which can expand your perspectives to perceive new opportunities and goals.

We may wish that our resumes alone would land us our dream job. The reality is—your resume is a marketing piece and only one of the tools to develop your career. If you build your community, the probabilities of obtaining a new position are so much greater than relying solely on your resume. 

A community can open doors and expand your career possibilities through referrals, references and leads, which may eventually lead you straight to the job you seek. If you take action on what we share in all of the modules in the Discovering Connections unit, the results can be career changing. 

We know it takes courage to put yourself out there, which is why most people don’t take the risk. This is the reason why we encourage starting with your closest connections first, like your current cohort, professors, and/or alumni—practice with those you know first. This will develop your confidence.

Keep in mind, it is very normal to feel insecure, afraid, or fearful of rejection. 

If we take a moment to look at the career search process, people can send numerous online applications and face rejection. There is minimal difference between receiving a “no” from submitting an online application and an email inviting someone for an information meeting or virtual coffee request. Yet! The outcome of an information meeting can yield far-reaching effects.

Rejection is not personal. This is a very difficult concept to swallow when it feels very personal. How might you change your narrative? As an illustration, you could reframe your thinking to, “this isn’t about me” or “this is not their time to connect.”

The purpose of this module is to nudge you to be an active agent in your career management, and help you identify who is currently in your community and whose community you’d like to be a part of, as well as ways to take action and reach out. 

This module can help you increase positive outcomes to achieve your vision and goals. Once you have completed this module and connected with your existing and new communities, we invite you to explore how to maintain high quality connections (HQCs) (Seibert et al., 2016) in the next module, Nurturing My Community.

"What I have discovered, ....is this: You can't do it alone. As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life" (Poehler, 2011).

– Excerpts from Amy Poehler's Harvard University Commencement Address. 


Last modified: Thursday, 14 October 2021, 9:25 AM