Managing Contact Information

Summary:
Managing the information you gain through networking involves not only recording the information you gained and comparing it to what you wanted to obtain but also evaluating your contact's response to your campaign.

Overview

Why Managing Contact Information Is Important

What Information to Record

How to Evaluate Feedback

Related Links

Related Content

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Overview

In this article, I'll show what information you need to manage during your career marketing campaign and how to evaluate the feedback you're receiving from your contacts.


Why Managing Contact Information Is Important

One important milestone in your networking efforts is the day you find yourself saying to the person you're currently interviewing: "Al Smith (a previous contact) mentioned that he thought you would be an excellent person to talk to about what job level within public relations (or your chosen field) I should initially target to ultimately reach (your career goal)."

Why? Because you're now actively using the referrals you've collected to reach out to specialists in your chosen field who can give you specific information about the steps you need to take in charting your career path. It's information you cannot obtain at the library or on the Internet. It's information bringing closer to the job and company that's best for you. That's the power of networking.

In "Networking in the Real World: Turning Your Contacts Into Careers," Loyola University Chicago claims:

• "Every person knows at least 250 other people.
  
  
• "Each of your contacts knows at least 250 people. So that's 62,500 at your second level.
  
  
• "Each of your second-level contacts knows 250 people -- and that's over 15 million people."
  
  

The Loyola presentation also adds that first-level contacts don't usually hire you. Your hiring contact may be two, three or four levels deep (in other words, an acquaintance more than a family member).

That's why networking is real work. And that's why effectively managing your contact information is so important.


What Information to Record

The method you use to organize your contact information is a personal one. It all depends on what works best for you. You can organize your information by contact person, by company, by industry etc. Whatever system you use, you should be able to record and retrieve information about each contact person easily and quickly. Such a system needs to include slots for these details:

Contact information:

• Contact name
  
• Contact title
  
• Contact company
  
• Mailing address
  
• E-mail address
  
• Telephone number
  
• Name of secretary/assistant
  
• Where you first received the contact's name
  
  

Meeting information:

• Date of meeting
  
• Length of meeting
  
• Record of telephone calls and e-mail messages
  
  

Specific objectives of meeting:

• Contact's area of expertise
  
• Questions asked
  
  

Contact's response to you:

• Motivated?
  
• Involved?
  
• Interested?
  
• Sympathetic?
  
• Confused?
  
  

Specific information you obtained:

• Details about your targeted job
  
• Feedback and advice about your career marketing campaign
  
  

Information for each referral you obtained as a result of the meeting:

• First and last name
  
• Title
  
• Company
  
• Address
  
• Telephone
  
• E-mail address
  
• Area of expertise
  
• Name of person who gave you this referral
  
  

Follow-through actions:

• Telephone call needed to obtain referral information?
  
• Thank you letter sent? When?
  
• Scheduled date for next letter, telephone call or e-mail message?

How to Evaluate Feedback

An important section in your record for each contact involves your personal evaluation of how well you conducted your interview. But how do you carry out such evaluation? What really counts is the reaction you received -- demonstratively and intuitively -- from your contact person.

Here is what I mean by the five descriptions in the "Contact's Response" section I mention above:

• Motivated? She clearly understands where you are headed and how you plan to get there. She's enthusiastic about you and your plans. She refers you to appropriate people and is motivated to go a little out of her way to help you.
  
  
• Involved? She knows where you want to go with your career and refers you to people and resources.
  
  
• Interested? She will keep you in mind and will refer you to people and resources if they're readily at hand (convenient for her).
  
  
• Sympathetic? She understands what you're saying, but she doesn't feel you are really involved in your career marketing campaign or appropriate for what you are saying. For her, something in your campaign is missing, and that holds her back from referring you to others. If she does refer you, it's because she feels sorry for you.
  
  
• Confused? She just doesn't understand what your career marketing campaign is all about. She doesn't understand what you want to do.
  
  

Since there are always two people involved in these interviews (you and your contact person), whether you connect with each other fully, half way or not at all can be a reflection on your presentation, your contact's perception or both. At any rate, evaluating your interview will give you some incite about what is working and what is not and what you need to do differently during your next interview.

You need to keep each person within your contact network informed and enrolled in your effort to create a job for yourself, but, like any effective marketer, you also need to organize your contact information so you can easily identify which contacts are "motivated" and "involved." Those are the people who can have the most impact on your job search. Use their suggestions. Follow up on their referrals -- and use their name: "Al Smith mentioned that he thought you would be an excellent person to talk to about..."

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