Most networking experts acknowledge that 99% of Networking is a waste of time. At School of Inspired Leadership, we teach our students how to increase that effective 1% networking to 99%. Effective networking is a combination of the right opportunity and the right approach.
SOIL students have ample industry interaction opportunities throughout the year. These include
- Mentoring – Every SOIL student has a mentor from the industry. The mentor is a senior corporate leader who personally guides the student while working on his career path. Many of the SOIL alumni remain in touch with their mentors long after passing out of SOIL.
- Leadership series – SOIL, due to its partner network of Consortium companies, NGOs, academicians and government officials, has access to a huge pool of leaders from diverse walks of life. Leadership series is a medium to facilitate student exposure to some of the brightest minds in the country. Most of these sessions have an informal tone to facilitate networking.
- Inspired Leadership Conference – this is one of the largest industry events at SOIL. This event has high industry involvement and is completely student run, so that students can showcase their skills and abilities to industry leaders.
Having the right opportunity in only half the journey. The other half of the journey is getting the right approach to networking. The SOIL values provide an excellent framework for impactful networking
- Awareness – from awareness comes the ability to listen fully and intently. A good listener is hard to miss even in a huge crowd. Listening is the first step to driving any conversation with any person. It helps understand the person’s liking, preferences and areas of interest.
- Balance – balance gives one the ability to walk the thin line between being friendly and intrusive. The quality of balance helps stimulate the conversation in a manner that it remains interesting and engaging for all parties involved.
- Compassion – display of compassion shows the presence of a high EQ. Most industry leaders, spend considerable amount of time at networking events, thus they don’t enjoy networking conversations. Compassion is the ability to understand and drive conversations that are of meaning to the industry leader.
- Diversity – taking que from “Nobody likes a networking conversation” we come to everybody enjoys a good story. At SOIL, students are encouraged to be themselves and celebrate their uniqueness. This makes them stand out in the eyes of the industry leaders, they network with.
- Ethics – “Give more and take less” is one of the key ethics practiced at SOIL. How can students add more value to the industry leader’s limited time is central to the networking approach at SOIL.
These five values make all student – industry interaction, truly memorable. Many students have found lifelong mentors and strong professional networks using the SOIL networking framework.
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