Posts by Paula D. Wishart

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Posts by Paula D. Wishart

Career Consultant, The Career Center

Building Professional Relationships: The Power of Community, Step 5 of 5

January 25, 2012, Posted in PLANPosted in ArticlesPosted in Resources

This week, I’m going to introduce the fifth step to building your professional community. If you missed the first steps, visit my posts: Step 1: Determine What You Want to Know; Step 2: Identify Contacts; Step 3: Prepare What You Want To Say; and Step 4: Make Contact – Again and Again! Step 5: Maintain the Relationship The basic way to maintain a relationship (and you know this) is to be kind and regular about your contacts. This is often where people drop the ball on effective community building because it takes some thinking on how to maintain a relationship with…

Paula D. Wishart

Career Consultant, The Career Center

Building Professional Relationships: The Power of Community, Step 4 of 5

January 17, 2012, Posted in PLANPosted in ArticlesPosted in Resources

This week, I’m going to introduce the fourth step to building your professional community. If you missed the first steps, visit my posts: Step 1: Determine What You Want to Know and Step 2: Identify Contacts. And Step 3: Prepare What You Want To Say Step 4: Make Contact – Again and Again! So, you find names, you prepare questions, you plan what you want to say—so make contact – and keep making contacts! Here are some things to help with that: Start with easy hits that aren’t your “Dream job” contacts. With less on the line, you can cut…

Paula D. Wishart

Career Consultant, The Career Center

Building Professional Relationships: The Power of Community, Step 3 of 5

January 12, 2012, Posted in PLANPosted in Resources

This week, I’m going to introduce the third step to building your professional community. If you missed the first steps, visit my posts: Step 1: Determine What You Want to Know and Step 2: Identify Contacts. Step 3: Prepare What You Want To Say Once you have decided to make contact, you should identify who you are, how you found his/her name and why you are contacting him/her. Again, you may ultimately want a job, but the first contact is about building a relationship, so start with what you are seeking from the contact in the first communication. Something like the…

Paula D. Wishart

Career Consultant, The Career Center

Building Professional Relationships: The Power of Community, Step 2 of 5

January 5, 2012, Posted in PLANPosted in Resources

Welcome back and Happy 2012! This week, I’m going to introduce the second step to building your professional community. If you missed the first step, visit my post: Step 1: Determining What You Want to Know. Step 2: Identify Contacts Who do you know? "I don’t know anyone" is not necessarily a helpful phrase to tell yourself—nor is it true. Instead, let’s look at who you do know: your family, friends, advisors, graduate school cohort, and the U-M community at large. These are all people and places that can connect you to other people. So start with who you do know…

Paula D. Wishart

Career Consultant, The Career Center

Building Professional Relationships: The Power of Community, Step 1 of 5

December 21, 2011, Posted in PLANPosted in ArticlesPosted in Resources

Take a moment to think about the words “power” and “community.” I often find graduate students meeting with me saying both of those elements are lacking from their life, and wondering why – often feeling like they can’t get traction in their professional goals. You will gain traction if you put the locus of control back where it should be – in yourself. Instead of saying my advisor doesn’t know anyone in my field of interest, ask who do I know? Building your own professional community gives you the agency and power in this process. You have the ability to…

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