🧠 Know
People working in fields, organizations, and roles that interest you are the single most powerful tool in your search toolkit. Our colleague, Steve Dalton, at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has observed a one-directional flow of information: that seeking advice from professionals leads to job information, but seeking jobs leads to neither.
In addition to both growing and sustaining professional relationships, ensure your search feedback strategy includes growing your abilities to have natural conversations about the fields, organizations, and roles that you target alongside input about your search techniques. An impeccably executed search can’t be successful without their ability to imagine you thriving in the role they want to fill. Being able to “talk shop” is an important influence in the search and you improve this with repeated practice.
📈 Prepare
Attend Events
✅ Understand the fundamentals of attending professional events. This page has an entire section on the topic.
Master the Informational Interview
✅ Understand the fundamentals of informational interviewing. This page has an entire section on the topic.
✅ Use The Two Hour Job Search strategy to outline a precise set of actions to identify “boosters” for your search, and learn how to methodically make contact and grow a network of professional connections. The article “Refresh Your Target List” will help you to revisit something you’ve already created.
🖐 Practice
Grow Your Conversational Skills
✅ In addition to the steps below, challenge yourself to speak to more people in different settings. When you introduce yourself, share stories, and ask questions, notice what feels good and gets a nice response from others. Perhaps you take the 10% challenge – stepping slightly outside of your comfort zone to learn by taking small risks.
Attend Events
✅ Participate in university events that connect you with Duke alumni and industry professionals. Many of these can be found on the Handshake platform.
✅ Attend professional association events to meet people in areas of interest to you at a time that they’re often interested in meeting others. We’ve created a small directory to get you started.
Master the Informational Interview
✅ Conduct informational interviews after finding people on LinkedIn or the Duke Alumni Association.
✅ Use this article to get back in touch with people you’ve already met and would like to reconnect with.
✅ Additional Tasks
- Read blogs and articles from your areas of career interest, and reach out to the authors of the pieces that most interest you.
- Use the Duke Alumni Association’s Ask a Blue Devil to ask questions for Duke alumni responses.
