Did you know that the average person has more than 250 contacts?
If you think about all the people you know, and all the people they know, it is easy to believe how this can be so. Nursing is a huge family, and as such offers many opportunities for networking. By broadening your networks you can increase your exposure to job opportunities and increase your profile. Networking also helps you to undertake such career-enhancing activities as being mentored, secondments and job-sharing.
Try the following activity to identify your own networks.
This activity helps you to identify the wide range of personal contacts you have.
- Type a list of friends.
- Type a list of colleagues.
- Type a list of relatives.
- List all the tutors you know.
- Make a list of people with whom you’ve studied.
- Type your Christmas card list
Your Network Database
To set up your database of networks, get some index cards (or a computer database) and record:
- the name of your contact;
- where he/she works;
- where she/he used to work;
- professional or social organizations he/she belongs to; and
- who the contact knows and where her/his contacts work.
A database might look like this: