Tag: Career Advice

This article on Self-Sabotage In The Job Search is part of the Coaching Collective series, featuring tips and expertise from Flatiron School Career Coaches. Every Flatiron School graduate is eligible to receive up to 180 days of 1:1 career coaching with one of our professional coaches. This series is a glimpse of the expertise you can access during career coaching at Flatiron School. 

As we job search it’s often easy to identify all the external reasons why we’re not finding success. Especially when we feel we’re doing everything possible to find our next career opportunity. However, it’s important to regularly do a self-check to make sure we haven’t fallen into the trap of self-sabotage. 

Identifying Self-Sabotage Habits

Self-sabotage, undermining efforts unconsciously, impacts job search with negative thoughts and behaviors. Persistent self-sabotage erodes self-esteem, hinders confident self-presentation to employers, decreases chances of success and increases missed opportunities. Overcoming these thinking and behaviors enhances job prospects and career advancement.

Self-Sabotage Thinking

Thinking patterns, driven by self-doubt and a skewed perception of your abilities can stop you from embracing opportunities. Fear of failure or success, impostor syndrome, negative self-talk and perfectionism are all self-sabotage thinking patterns that can hold you back from personal and professional growth and realizing your full potential.

Fear of Failure or Success: The fear of either not being good enough or of achieving success and not being able to sustain it can paralyze you. This fear can hinder you from even trying or pursuing opportunities that are well within your capabilities.

Impostor Syndrome: This mindset involves feeling like a fraud despite having the necessary skills and qualifications. People with impostor syndrome tend to downplay their accomplishments and hesitate to apply for positions they’re qualified for.

Negative Self-Talk/Self-Doubt: Constantly undermining yourself with negative thoughts and doubts can lead to a lack of motivation and persistence. This can impact the quality of job applications and networking efforts.

Perfectionism: Striving for perfection can lead to a cycle of never feeling satisfied with your efforts. This often results in delaying applications or not pursuing opportunities until you feel they are “perfect.”

Self-Sabotage Actions

As you job hunt, certain self-sabotage actions can act as roadblocks, preventing progress and chipping away at your confidence. From procrastination and underestimating qualifications to missed networking opportunities and the aftermath of rejection, recognizing, and addressing these behaviors is important for a productive job search.

Procrastination/Lack of Focus: Putting off tasks or constantly switching between them without making substantial progress can delay the job search process and cause unnecessary stress.

Underestimating/Overestimating Qualifications: Failing to accurately assess your skills and qualifications can lead to applying for positions that are too junior (or too senior),  and missing out on opportunities that are well-suited for your expertise.

Not Taking Advantage of Networking Opportunities: Networking is a crucial aspect of job searching, but self-sabotaging behavior might lead you to shy away from such opportunities due to anxiety or lack of confidence.

Not Tailoring Application Materials: Sending generic application materials instead of tailoring them to the specific job and company can significantly reduce the chances of being noticed by employers.

Letting Rejection Slow Down Your Progress: Rejection is a natural part of the job search process, but allowing it to discourage your progress can lead to prolonged unemployment and decreased self-esteem.

Strategies to Reduce Self-Sabotage

If you’re feeling uncomfortable because you can identify with one (or more) of the above thinking or behaviors, don’t panic, there are actions you can take to ensure a successful job search.

Embrace Challenges as Opportunities for Growth: Reframe challenges as chances to develop new skills and learn from experiences.

Set Realistic Goals: Establish achievable goals to measure progress and avoid becoming overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations.

Practice Positive Self-Talk: Replace negative self-talk with encouraging and motivating affirmations that reinforce self-confidence.

Visualize Success: Visualization techniques can help you imagine yourself succeeding in interviews and landing your desired job.

Establish a Support System: Surround yourself with individuals who provide encouragement, constructive feedback, and a sense of accountability.

Seek Feedback for Improvement: Constructive criticism can help you refine job applications and improve interview skills, leading to better outcomes.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone: Push yourself to attend networking events, reach out to potential employers, and try new strategies that can expand your opportunities.

Tailor Application Materials: Customize your resume and cover letter to match the requirements of each job you apply for.

Research and Target Companies: Research prospective employers thoroughly to demonstrate your genuine interest and alignment with their values.

Handle Rejections Positively: Instead of internalizing rejection, use it as a learning opportunity to enhance your applications and interview skills.

Search with Resilience: Maintain persistence and adaptability in the face of setbacks, trusting that the right opportunity is out there.

Conclusion

Overcoming self-sabotage during a job search requires a proactive approach, combined with self-awareness, and determination. By recognizing and addressing self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors, you can empower yourself to navigate the job market successfully. 

Remember, your job search journey is not just about finding employment, it’s also about personal growth and the realization of your potential. By taking positive steps and adopting a resilient mindset, you can turn self-sabotage into self-empowerment, which will result in a fulfilling and successful career.

About Aimee Thompson

Aimee Thompson is an ICF Certified Coach with Flatiron School. Her background is in coaching, human resources, learning and development, customer success and recruiting.. Her passion is partnering with her clients to help them thrive outside of their comfort zone and create a life they love.

This article on how to find a job you love without having done it before is part of the Coaching Collective series, featuring tips and expertise from Flatiron School Career Coaches. Every Flatiron School graduate is eligible to receive up to 180 days of 1:1 career coaching with one of our professional coaches. This series is a glimpse of the expertise you can access during career coaching at Flatiron School. 

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? It’s interesting how children often select a career they’ve observed someone special in their life doing. Common responses often include teacher, firefighter, doctor, or nurse. Whether it’s the cool uniform, the love of learning, or wielding a stethoscope, there is something we observe as being fun or valuable that yields our answer. 

As we grow up, our exposure to new information and hobbies may expand our career interests, whether that’s through school, sports, or the good ol’ internet. Exposure to the great wide world and all the interesting careers that exist may be enough to select the type of job you target, but in order to acquire the job, employers require proof that you know what you’re doing – and often for good reason! I don’t know about you, but I prefer my doctors to have the credentials necessary before receiving treatment. Yet medical, academic, or even legal credentials come with a high price tag. What if you get to the end of your credential-collecting journey and realize the career isn’t what you hoped for? The cost of being wrong can be quite expensive. 

An Alternative Route To Career Happiness

When considering new career paths, it can be alluring to become a skill collector. With free resources and online tools available at every turn, it’s an incredible time to learn all kinds of things. But without having done the actual job itself, how can you really know if a career is right for you and that you’ll enjoy it? Spoiler alert: you can’t. However, you can gather critical information to help you make the most informed decision before investing one dollar more. 

Investigate

While changing careers tends to involve investment in skill-building, before paying for tuition, look to your network as a way to research any number of jobs, careers, and industries that pique your interest. Become an investigative reporter, preparing your questions and documenting your findings from the conversations you hold. Below are some questions to get you started.

• What was your first job ever? (A great icebreaker!)
• Tell me about your journey to become a <job title>. 
• Were there other careers you were considering while you were studying <insert field from school/college/university/training program>? Why did you decide to go the route you did? 
• If money was no issue, what career would you choose for yourself? 
• What do you enjoy the most about your current role? What do you like least or wish you could change? 
• What do you want to do next in your career? Or are there other careers you still want to pursue? 
• How much time did you dedicate to learning the skills required to land your first role in this field? 
• Would you recommend someone like me to pursue this career?

Reflect

Apply this approach to a handful of careers that interest you and compare notes. If the answers energize you, then that’s a great clue to keep researching individuals in the same field. If the answers frighten or drain you, it could be a sign to pivot or pull back. Either way, exploring how you feel and reflecting on the conversations will help you hold up a mirror to yourself. Does this sound like me? Use their responses to inform your next steps.

Follow Up

The magic of the investigative reporter approach is in the follow-up. Imagine you’ve spoken to 10 individuals in the field of interest, and you’ve now enrolled in a program to acquire the skills you need. Reach back to each individual and send them an update. 

“I wanted to send an update from our conversation X months ago. After we spoke, I decided to enroll in a Cybersecurity program and am now in my first week. We’re already learning about xyz – and while it’s been intense learning at a fast pace, I’m having a blast. Thanks again – our chat really helped solidify for me how much I would enjoy the work. I’d love to stay in touch!”

Multiply these short updates across the folks you met and send them at the beginning and end of your program. These updates will illustrate your follow-through (a skill unto itself!) as well as provide the incredibly important “proof” employers all seek. When you graduate, you can send your updated resume along – that is, unless they request it from you first! 

By starting the networking process early as a way to research and verify your interest and aptitude, you’re setting yourself up for early job searching success and career happiness, not to mention some great peers in your new chosen field that could benefit you your whole career long. 

About Lindsey Williams

Lindsey Williams is the Senior Manager of Coaching at Flatiron School. She has more than 15 years of experience in the EdTech spaces and has held a variety of roles from Recruiter and HR to Campus Director and Training Director

This article on Overcoming The Sophomore Slump is part of the Coaching Collective series, featuring tips and expertise from Flatiron School Career Coaches. Every Flatiron School graduate is eligible to receive up to 180 days of 1:1 career coaching with one of our professional coaches. This series is a glimpse of the expertise you can access during career coaching at Flatiron School. 

Traditionally, the “sophomore slump” is a (completely natural) phenomenon in the learning timeline where you experience some initial success followed by reduced effort for a period of time. This reduced effort shows as a slight regression towards your goal or against the mean. There are a number of factors that contribute to the sophomore slump, and just as many ways to overcome the internal battle for motivation. 

What Causes The Sophomore Slump?

In its totality, the sophomore slump often looks like burnout from a program or a process. Being overwhelmed can often lead to apathy in your work, making it more difficult to complete or even feel invested in tasks. A 2017 study by The University of New Mexico showed that, after an initial effort, it’s natural to want ease and comfort in your next steps. But when this is applied to a learning process, it can often snowball into habits that do not serve the greater purpose of why you started in the first place. 

Signs You May Be Experiencing Sophomore Slump

Of course, in a bootcamp “sophomore” does not always refer to your second phase. It can be after a few weeks, or months depending on the levels of burnout you’re experiencing, or even after the initial push and excitement has worn off. Learning isn’t linear, and motivation certainly isn’t either. It can be hard to tell if you’re fatigued from all the Zoom-ing, or if there’s something a bit more patterned happening. 

Here are some habits and behaviors that may indicate this pattern: 

• skipping or being late to classes
• zoning out or not paying attention
• waiting until the last minute to start or finish assignments 
• feeling overwhelmed by your work 
• procrastinating or deprioritizing your program
• “giving up” on assignments or concepts
• feeling disconnected from your cohort or instructor

If you happen to notice one or two of these behaviors in your own life, there’s no need to panic. As stated earlier, this is completely understandable and I’d caution to say a “normal” part of the learning process. Learning has more than one “curve”, so the most helpful steps you can take to alleviate falling behind in this manner is to first, acknowledge that you’re dealing with one of these dips in the curve. 

At this “sophomore” point, midway through your program, things may seem most difficult or disconnected from each other. This is also the point that usually comes right before the big “aha” or “putting it all together” phase of programmatic learning. The most important thing you can do is to see it through. There are ways of getting out of thinking it is too difficult to succeed, or that you’ve fallen too far behind, or that you’re not motivated enough to finish.

How To Overcome The Sophomore Slump

Thankfully, there are methods for becoming motivated and catching up.

Seek Support

The first step is to always reach out to your instructor, advisor and peers. It can take others checking in, or accountability meetings to get back on track. There is no shame or stigma in experiencing some setbacks in your journey. Sustaining motivation for prolonged periods of time in a goal-setting environment is never easy. Meeting with your instructor and advisor can give you the small, achievable, and measurable goals that you can attain to get the ball rolling again. These accountability meetings or check-ins can help you regain some self-efficacy and remind yourself that you are capable of completing difficult tasks.

Look Ahead

Another way to become re-engaged with your program is to look into career paths that flow from your program. Career Services has a myriad of resources available that can re-energize your efforts. Scroll through LinkedIn to see what projects are going on in your field that you can get excited about. Or, start looking at companies that share your passion and imagine what’s possible once you graduate. 

Community Involvement

Try getting involved with your community! We have some amazing people working hard to make sure you have a community of learners to help you out and engage with when you’re feeling a little behind. 

Discord can connect you with other students who are going through the same academic challenges you are. Try setting up a time to run through some code together, study, or pair up on a lab! This can be an incredibly validating experience. You’ll also review or learn new information in a different capacity, which can make it easier to remember. 

If you are on campus, there are many opportunities to engage with others who share interests. Reach out to your campus coordinator or check out the Community Calendar to see what’s going on near you! There are even Career Services AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions that can be helpful and motivating. 

Take A Bird’s Eye View

Think in the big picture. Why are you here? What motivated you to come to Flatiron in the first place? How will your life change once you have this graduation under your belt? Everyone comes to the table with a different perspective and set of learning skills and strengths. Make sure you hold onto yours and rediscover it if you need to. There will be times when you lose motivation, that is unavoidable. But, by taking small achievable steps, you can gain back the intrinsic drive you had to finish what you started. 

Battling exhaustion and apathy comes with so many major learning moments in life. Remember that you can do difficult things to unlock better opportunities for the rest of your life. 

About Sara McCown

Sara McCown is a Team Lead for Student Advising with Flatiron School. She has been on the Advising Team since its recent creation and has previous experience in public education and administration. In addition, she has over 12 years of experience in coaching students for success. She’s also an avid reader and always open to suggestions and discussions!

Sources:

• The Sophomore Slump
• Harris, Vanessa. “The Effect of the Sophomore Slump on Students’ Persistence.” (2017). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_ifce_etds/65

This article on Professionalism vs. Authenticity is part of the Coaching Collective series, featuring tips and expertise from Flatiron School Career Coaches. Every Flatiron School graduate is eligible to receive up to 180 days of 1:1 career coaching with one of our professional coaches. This series is a glimpse of the expertise you can access during career coaching at Flatiron School. 

Most of us are familiar with the Shakespearean quote, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”  When it comes to professionalism vs. authenticity some may ask ‘Should I choose to be professional or authentic?’ Many people feel it’s an either-or situation. But it’s possible to maintain being professional in your job search and work while embracing your true self, which will ultimately lead to more significant job opportunities, job satisfaction, and success.

Professionalism vs. Authenticity: Why Is It Important?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines being professional as “exhibiting a courteous, conscientious and generally business-like manner in your workplace.” Or to put it another way, being a professional means carrying yourself with courtesy, care, and business savvy. It’s about being considerate to others, showing diligence in your actions, and handling things with a touch of class.

Being professional builds credibility and trust among colleagues and clients, positioning you as a reliable person. By showcasing courteous and business-like behavior, you develop strong and meaningful relationships, which opens the way for successful networking, job opportunities, collaborations, and career growth. Moreover, maintaining a positive personal brand through professionalism sets you apart from the crowd, opening doors to opportunities and leaving a lasting impression on others.

At this point you may be thinking, I get it, it’s essential to be professional so I’ll “fake it” during the interview and carry that into my daily work. “Faking it” is tiring, being yourself is exhilarating. Own who you are in the interview process and carry that freedom to be yourself over into your work life (within reason, of course).

How To Blend Authenticity With Professionalism

It starts with knowing your values, strength, abilities, and personal brand.

Blending your true self with professionalism involves aligning your values, strengths, and abilities with the standards of your workplace, and finding a balance that reflects your authentic character. Embrace your unique personal brand as an asset, and show it confidently while adapting it to complement the professional environment, which will lead to your creating a powerful and genuine impression on others.

Adapt Your Communication Style

This involves tailoring your approach to resonate with different audiences, keeping in mind their preferences and needs. At the same time, add your unique personality, values, and perspectives into your interactions, creating an authentic and memorable impression that fosters real connections.

Dress With Style

Dressing to reflect your style involves selecting attire that fits your job search and workplace norms and expectations while adding subtle touches that showcase who you are. By blending professional clothing with elements that resonate with your unique taste, you show your confidence and authenticity, making a powerful statement that sets you apart stylishly and professionally.

Customize Branding Documents

Add your style to your personal branding documents by incorporating design elements, colors, or fonts that resonate with your identity. By doing so, you create a cohesive and authentic representation of yourself, leaving a lasting impression that catches your audience’s attention and sets your work apart with a touch of individuality.

Highlight Your Passions and Interests

Seek opportunities that align with your values and hobbies. Embracing your passions not only increases your motivation and enthusiasm but also allows you to bring unique perspectives and creativity to your professional opportunities, making your career journey fulfilling and rewarding.

Express Opinions Respectfully

Actively listen to others, consider their viewpoints, and communicate with empathy and open-mindedness. If you choose your words thoughtfully and focus on having a collaborative atmosphere, you create space for conversations that encourage understanding and healthy relationships.  

Professionalism + Self-Expression = Success

Finding the right balance between professionalism vs. authenticity is the key to unlocking a world of possibilities in your job search and workplace. Embracing your true self while upholding professional standards allows you to build credibility, trust, and meaningful relationships, leading to greater job opportunities, job satisfaction, and overall success. By being true to yourself and showcasing your unique qualities, you not only stand out from the crowd but also create a fulfilling and rewarding career journey that aligns with your passions and interests. So, let your authenticity shine as you navigate the professional landscape, and watch as your genuine approach moves you toward achievement and personal growth.

About Aimee Thompson

Aimee Thompson is an ICF Certified Coach with Flatiron School. Her background is in coaching, human resources, customer success, recruiting, and training and development. Her passion is partnering with her clients to help them thrive outside of their comfort zone and create a life they love.

This article is part of the Coaching Collective series, featuring tips and expertise from Flatiron School Career Coaches. Every Flatiron School graduate is eligible to receive up to 180 days of 1:1 career coaching with one of our professional coaches. This series is a glimpse of the expertise you can access during career coaching at Flatiron School. 

It’s time to question the tried and true method of “hitting the books”. Finding out your learning style, and switching modalities up when you need to is a crucial piece of finding success as an adult learner. I know that when we were all in traditional school settings cramming until 2 AM, reading the same passages over and over, and making ornate flashcards were common paths to take for success. However, in a fast-paced setting like a bootcamp, those old study habits may no longer cut it.  If you’re struggling to get new material to really “stick”, then it’s time to try out a different style. 

What Are Learning Styles

There are a lot of different “types” or “styles” of learning. At the basis of learning is how you are absorbing information. So, try this. Think about a specific happy memory you have from childhood. How are you remembering that point in time? What is standing out? Is it the dialogue, can you see it like a movie, is it something that was written down, was it who you were with or what you were physically doing? What stands out most to you is a good indicator of how you’re absorbing information, and therefore how you learn. 

Consider the list below, and know that you are probably a mixture of several types, with a few more dominant than others. This is also a short list of some options, you can find more nuanced types if you dig a little deeper. The VARK questionnaire can help you delineate these nuances. 

Visual

Visual learners absorb what they see over what they hear or read. Most people are visual learners or have a strong affinity for visual learning. These folks can find schematics, sketches and diagrams, or watch videos or create visualizations to study broader concepts.

Auditory

Auditory learners most effectively learn through listening. This is a language-based style, like verbal, but auditory learners best process information by listening, not just reading. Incorporating this into your studies could look like, listening to lectures multiple times, asking questions and engaging in dialogue with peers and instructors, making songs or rhymes for memorization, or finding videos of differing explanations of a concept. 

Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic or tactile learners are individuals who need to move or use tangible objects to absorb information. If you’ve ever found yourself tapping a pencil to focus, or chewing gum during a lecture, you might have a bit of this learning style. Incorporating kinesthetic learning into your day could look like hands-on practicing of concepts to make them malleable, walking while you listen to a lecture or video, or having something in your hands while you listen or read (I recall a professor passing out Play-Doh at one point to help out these students).

Verbal

Verbal learners are, like auditory learners, language-based. However, these students gravitate toward reading and speaking. Students who learn primarily verbally perform best when reading and annotating, taking notes, repeating information back, or finding other ways to summarize. Often, these students find the Canvas coursework to be helpful and will revisit during code challenges or project times to re-read and review.

Social

Social learners can be any and all of the above styles as well, but social learners simply learn better with others or in groups. These learners choose classroom learning and in-person so they can ask questions and create a dialogue for deeper meaning. 

Solitary

On the other hand, solitary learners often absorb information and content best when they are by themselves. These are folks who also tend to need a more quiet and focused space to work, often retreating to libraries or quieter corners. 

Sub-Types

Within these types, there are many different subcategories that are worth diving into if you find that you aren’t retaining information as well as you’d like in your current program. Between the Canvas work, lectures, paired programming, labs, and even Discord, the amount of resources can be overwhelming. This is why it’s important to experiment with your learning. If you find that what you’re doing isn’t working, look for a better way.

How To Implement Your Learning Styles

Try a few things! Here are some low stakes ways to experiment with the type of learner you may be now. 

• Switch up your reading/lecture order to see how one informs the other in your live or campus classes. 
• Find a podcast or a Youtube channel that can solidify some information that you’re just not picking up on in other settings. 
• Reach out on Discord to partner with someone in an additional practice lab in Canvas. 
• Explain a process to one of your peers, or have them explain it back to you to have that knowledge solidify. 
• Switch up the times of day that you independently study. 
• Find instructions for a visualization or build a model. 
• Switch your readings to audio recordings. 
• Reaching out to your advisor is also a great way to get some ideas about how to switch up your schedule to accommodate for these risks.

At Flatiron School, we want to expand your soft skills as well as teach you those content driven skills in your program. It’s crucial that you’re flexible enough in your learning and problem solving so you can adapt to any project or role you may be in once you land that job. Get creative in your projects while you’re working with your peers, and try something new. This might mean that you speak up more during your presentations, or take charge of a different section of the project you’re traditionally uncomfortable with. 

Example Of A Student Using Learning Styles

An advisee recently told me that they were experiencing a mental block with how to approach a new topic for their software engineering program. They found that they were stressing out more finding “the most efficient way to approach it”, which in turn made it really…inefficient. So, they took a learning styles quiz which turned up multi-modal, giving very little reprieve on the efficiency front. After chatting about some next steps, we switched the approach to try a new study approach each day, and see what sticks. I know it sounds trivial, and really panic inducing when there’s only so much time in the program. But, once you find that new hack for your brain, you’ll be amazed at what starts to click. 

Good news on that friend of ours, they did incredibly well in Phase 3 of their program. And they’re still switching up their approach when they need to. 

In Conclusion

Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone when working with new content. Often, students will switch up their approaches in different phases as well. If you need ideas, talking to your peers, instructors, and advisors can be helpful if you find yourself reading the same passage over and over to no avail. We’ve all been there. Don’t forget: it’s not that you can’t do it, it’s that you just need to find the way in. 

Sources

• LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES1 Richard M. Felder Hoechst Celanese Professor of Chemical Engineering North Carolina State Unive
• Do Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learners Need Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Instruction?
• VARK Learning Style Questionnaire: How do you learn best?

About Sara McCown

Sara McCown is a Team Lead for Student Advising with Flatiron School. She has been on the Advising Team since its recent creation and has previous experience in public education and administration. In addition, she has over 12 years of experience in coaching students for success. She’s also an avid reader and always open to suggestions and discussions!

This article on weak ties is part of the Coaching Collective series, featuring tips and expertise from Flatiron School Career Coaches. Every Flatiron School graduate is eligible to receive up to 180 days of 1:1 career coaching with one of our professional coaches. This series is a glimpse of the expertise you can access during career coaching at Flatiron School. 

Of the last 100+ graduates who shared details of their new tech jobs with Flatiron School, close to 50% reported first connecting with their employer through networking. This tried-and-true method is still one of the most effective ways to land a job. As the saying goes, “It’s not what you know, but who you know that matters.” Surprisingly, how well you know people matters even more, and not in the direction you might think. Turns out that the connections that are more beneficial to employment opportunities come from relationships known as weak ties. 

What Are Weak Ties?

The weak ties theory, one of the most influential social theories of the last 100 years, says that infrequent, distant relationships (not closer, stronger relationships) are beneficial to employment opportunities. Recent research from Harvard, MIT, and Stanford included a five-year set of experiments on LinkedIn with 20 million people around the world and set out to test the weak ties theory. MIT’s Sloan School of Management reported that “weak ties allow distant clusters of people to access novel information that can lead to new opportunities, innovation, and increased productivity.” 

This news should encourage job seekers to go a layer deeper into their networks and expand their circles to include new relationships. Furthermore, job seekers interested in tech positions may stand to benefit the most. From study co-leader Erik Brynjolfsson, “We found that weak ties create significantly more labor market mobility in digital and high-tech sectors. This may reflect the fact that there is more rapid change and need for novel information and connections in those industries.”

How To Find Your Weak Ties

Start with your Strong Ties

A common objection to networking is “I don’t know who to contact” or “I don’t have a network.” The reality is that we know more people who can help us than we think we do. 

Whether or not you’re an expert networker or just getting started: begin with your immediate circle. Draft an announcement to post on LinkedIn, Twitter, or your preferred social media app. Draft an email and send it out to your existing relationships, attaching your resume to help them easily forward it on if they can. Whether a social media post or an email, start with close family and friends and work your way up to former colleagues, teachers, classmates, or teammates.

In your outreach – and this is key – ask your existing relationships to forward your news or resume to their own network! Again, from Brynjolfsson, “A practical implication of the research is that it’s helpful to reach out to people beyond your immediate friends and colleagues when looking for a new job.” Remember, it’s not the existing relationship that is as likely to increase employment opportunities as it is the more distant, i.e., second or third-degree relationship. The friend of a friend or family member is who you want to reach! 

Cast A Wide Net

Next, tell everyone you know that you’re looking for work, especially people you just met. Find out where the people working in the role you want tend to hang out, IRL or digitally. Your Career Coach can help you identify how to go about finding these individuals and also what to write or say to get a conversation started. 

Take confidence knowing that helping others activates the release of feel-good hormones in our brain, both for those giving and receiving. People generally like helping people, which is why including some way to help the person you’re reaching out to could improve your chances of hearing back. Some ideas: $5 coffee gift card or contribution to a cause they care about; interviewing them on a topic they have expertise in and posting it on social media. You may even help your new connection earn a nice referral bonus since many employers offer these to their employees for referring candidates into open positions.

Rinse and Repeat

It can be daunting to contact complete strangers or ask your existing network for help, and it takes work to begin and nurture relationships. If ever there was a time to use data to build your confidence or stamina, networking would be it. If the data shows that a) networking is the most productive way to land a role, b) more roles are unposted or “hidden” (i.e., there are more opportunities available to you than what you see posted on job boards), and c) that weaker ties create more opportunities for job movement, then it’s time to do the work. 

Final Thoughts

Remember those 100+ Flatiron grads who reported networking success? Only 4% responded saying they were first connected after simply applying. The time is going to pass anyway. How will you spend your precious time and energy?

I hope you’re inspired by the following handful of self-reported networking accounts, detailing how grads first connected with the employer that eventually hired them: 

• “Speaking with a pool client” 
• “Talked to the principal during the school tour”
• “Referral through a librarian”
• “Met the current director of the data science team at a yoga class.”
• “I met the owner of the company playing hockey in a local league.”

Share your search with everyone – you never know who might be the key to unlocking your next job opportunity. 

About Lindsey Williams

Lindsey Williams is the Senior Manager of Coaching at Flatiron School. She has more than 15 years of experience in the EdTech spaces and has held a variety of roles from Recruiter and HR to Campus Director and Training Director.