Networking

I’ve been meeting over the past few weeks with old long time friends and colleagues whom I’ve not seen in years. I’d like to say thanks to all of you who’ve renewed your ties with me and it’s been great catching up and finding out how people are doing. My friends are predominantly the types you see holding Blackberrys, home office with the laptop and who are never really off work. Let me tell you about some of my findings:

• People are willing to take a lower paying job if they get to turn work off a few nights a week and the odd weekend.  A few are tired of getting out sourced and are looking at changing into a career where this is less likely to happen.
• Having a long list of acronyms (alphabet soup) after your name are merely table stakes these days. They don’t guarantee anything but you better have a Bachelor degree, some certifications (PMP, ITIL etc...), hopefully and MBA, Six Sigma etc. or you are likely to be immediately disqualified.   A friend who just had her first child was astonished “I’m not certified to be a parent!” (She was joking, sort of...).
• Social networking IS important but you had really better follow it up with face to face contact.
• Leads and tips happen almost any where providing you get out and meet with people.