A Networking Analysis Worksheet helps you keep track of who you met where and what you said to each other. Describe the important "connection" information. It will help you write a follow-up letter to that specific firm and that specific situation. The "status" tell you what you have told yourself to do regarding a connection. Some people do nothing with their connection. They neglect to write or call. Connections do not mean anything unless you include them in your synergistic search. Will you write to them? Will you call them? Are you waiting for them to do something? Did they tell you to write them in a month? Did they tell you to call them after the holidays? Whatever it is, give yourself something to do so that the connection will have value!
The Job Lead Sheet
The Job Lead Sheet is an example of the kind of organization you might want to bring to the advertised leads to which you respond. Give yourself a place to paste in an ad, and then set up a series of objectives.
The Interview Fact Sheet
With an Interview Fact Sheet you will be able to focus on the vital facts of the interview so you can keep control of your precious opportunity. Some people miss getting hired just because they forgot to focus on a specific issue in a certain interviewing setting. People lose job opportunities when they arrive late to an interview because they overlooked an important detail (for example - which parking was more complicated than they thought it would be). It would be tragic to lose a potential career position just because you forgot you had an interview at all.
The Synergistic Networking Creed of the "Hire" Order
Read over the creed that follows. It focuses on the idea that you must be constantly mindful that your relationships and your connections are also the stuff of which your career will be made. It is not simply what you have done and where you did it; it is who you knew while you were doing it and how you conducted yourself in the various places you worked. Once you understand this, then you understand how opportunities emerge from people as well as from events, from relationships as much as from skills, from personal references as much as from titles and jobs.
THE CREED
I realize that all contacts in my life can have some effect on me, and that many people still utilize contacts they made in their first job search. I realize that contacts, from whatever period in my life, might affect the next move I make or some future move I might make, and could benefit or harm me at a time in the future. I believe that I participate in this process for other people, consciously or unconsciously, to their detriment or benefit. I realize that this process works whether I am aware of it or not; but that my conscious and enlightened use of this networking creed will benefit myself and others in career fulfillment.
Many will tell you not to take your work home, but most violate the former principle first. The first thing that happens to paralegals that get "comfortable" in their workplace is to get overly familiar. Ease erodes for maturity, and thus manners and can degenerate into kidding and light behavior, breeding over familiarity. It would be better if we respected one another and treated each other with dignity, but unfortunately, many people settle into an overt kind of "over-the-fence" gossipy quality that they feel makes them "like kin." Gossip, back-biting, political factions, personality conflicts, and other such negative circumstances emerge from a busy group of people when they allow this undignified familiarity to take over the tone of their professional relationships. Sharing your domestic grief, complaining about your home life, and moaning about your children's behavior are all ways in which we can quickly lose perceived value.
It is a kind of self-undoing, but people justify it by saying, "This is the way the world works!" But true professional paralegals distance themselves from pettiness and back-biting and overly honest personal revelations. One of the essential paralegal qualities is the talent for diplomacy, that is, the ability to work on a team and be cooperative. When you allow interoffice communication and the tenor of your interoffice relationships to degenerate to the "familiar" and the base, then you are tarnishing your "professionalism." Ultimately, it is against self-interest not to be professional, but ironically, many fall prey to this human tendency.
Take the High Road
This recommendation is multifaceted. It simply means that a paralegal succeeds with professionalism as his or her banner. Titles are not sufficiently weighty for the majority of paralegals to give them status, so always take the high road in your dealings with people and in meetings with associates, in lunches and in after-work encounters. Waiting until tomorrow to go on the record is often commendable. If you are required to defend yourself, do not be pleading and defensive. Take the high road.
Do not get involved in "personalities." Say tomorrow what you could have said today, if it is possible. If you give way to anger, you will probably regret it, and you will be remembered for it. A written response to a serious situation is often recommended. When a verbal response is requested to a dramatic and difficult situation, blame and finger pointing make you look weak and unprofessional. The shortest and most honest response is highly preferable to a ranting and accusatory defense. Take the high road in your socializing and in your use of humor and in "friendly kidding." Keep in mind that many things that seem to benefit you in the short term will hurt you in the long term.
Do Not Bum Bridges
Unfortunately, many people conduct fairly professional lives and then "bite the hand that feeds them" when they are about to part company with a firm or friend or associate. When a very natural human tendency to release pent-up negative feelings takes over, they burn a bridge. They get their feelings off their chest, but have also ruined a relationship forever. It is very discouraging to look back at a firm and see scorched earth. If you have managed to get through an entire period of your career with certain unexpressed negative emotions, count yourself lucky and close off the relationship with a positive professional ending. Often a less than sterling relationship can be restored simply through the conscious use of a warm goodbye. Small social amenities are very powerful if used correctly. References, written and oral are the lifeblood of the legal world. Prize them like precious mementos. Do not violate these basic rules of pleasantries and the formalities of good manners by letting go and venting. Remember, in the end, you are protecting your paycheck. Maybe the paycheck you are protecting is a paycheck you will receive five years from now. You never know!
The Synergistic Paralegal Job Search is truly the beginning of an interconnected web. You are just begriming and will always continue to weave and document this web of contacts, as long as you are making a livelihood as a professional paralegal. Your conduct and your skills and your awareness all blend together to make you a part of the Hire Order. The wonderful thing about paralegal career development is that after a few years your network is so well-developed that your second, third, and fourth jobs are arranged by you, for you, and with you and your network. Ask a paralegal with a well-developed network what they would do if they suddenly lost their job.
