Amy Feind Reeves Of HireAHiringManager On The Importance Of Professional Business Networks
An Interview with Vanessa Ogle
Don’t make a connection for the sake of making a connection. Staying in touch because you have enjoyed speaking with someone is nice. But unless you have a clear idea percolating about how you may be able to help each other at that point in time, don’t schedule an immediate follow up. It’s a waste of time for both of you if you know from the start that it will not lead to anything. Make sure you understand how a jumping off point may happen in the future and put that specific potential on the backburner. You’ll both be happier for it. You may want to create a standard test or question you ask yourself for when and when not to immediately follow up with a new contact.
In today’s fast-paced business world, professional networks are more than just a pathway to opportunities; they are crucial for growth, learning, and innovation. Whether it’s finding mentors, navigating career changes, or driving business success, the right network can be a game changer. How significant are these networks, and how can professionals best leverage them? I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Feind Reeves.
Amy enjoyed a successful career for close to three decades in finance, management consulting, as an entrepreneur, and as a senior executive before focusing on her passion for helping others in their careers in 2012. She graduated cum laude from Wellesley College, received an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College, a Certificate in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and is the author of “College to Career Explained: Tools, Skills and Confidence for Your Job Search.” She lives in Boston, where she is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy of Massachusetts.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Everything led me to this career path! I just didn’t know it for a long, long time. But through the course of almost three decades, I found the passion as well as the experience and empathy I needed to really serve my clients well.
First, I had a terrible experience coming out of college. I had a great GPA from a great school and a great skirt suit. I did all the stuff I was supposed to do. Yet I faced rejection after rejection after rejection. Finally, I got a job through the New York Times classifieds (ask your parents) because I could type 90 words a minute. I spent a year learning all I could about the job I really wanted from my friends who had gotten that job. The next year, I was able to get that job on the first try. I was good at it and liked it. Why had I failed miserably the year before? Turned out there was just a lot of stuff that nobody ever told me. As I continued in my career and became a hiring manager, I saw evidence that this was true for almost everyone, and at all levels. That’s the experience that led me to the passion for what I do.
The second is the experience I got working in a lot of different industries as banker and a consultant learning about how companies in different markets operated and were structured. I learned what kind of people they hired and why. Most importantly, I learned what kind of jobs there are in different industries. This is the most important piece that is missing piece for professionals who are seeking to start or change careers at all levels. It is the experience that really supported me in what has turned out to be a calling to support other professionals.
Lastly, I developed significant empathy through the personal aspects of my career. I have been in situations where I was the “golden girl” who could not be promoted quickly enough. I have been in a small company where I did not get along with the CEO and was fired. As I like to say now:” we had a difference of opinion — I thought I was really smart, and they didn’t.” However, it was quite miserable at the time.
I’ve felt “stuck.” I’ve felt ill-used. Conversely, I have managed people in all these the same situations. I’ve help them make the most of the good and bad relationships with their peers, subordinates, and managers. I have worked with them in their line roles on their skills and helped them build skills to do the roles they are in better. This is the third piece that I draw on in my career and it differentiates me as a service provider.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I’m lucky to have a lot. Some of my early career was as a banker to the mining industry, where I got to visit actual gold mines in a private jet. This was when the price of gold was high and the industry had rich expense budgets. A few years later after business school, I was a consultant to the integrated steel industry in its final days. I was the first professional woman many of the workers had ever seen much less worked with. At worksites for both industries, there was a tote board outside saying how many days since the last death and how many days since the last serious injury. That really stuck with me.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Ha, calling on a southern California energy company where the CFO’s name was Y.T. Du. My boss and I checked in with the receptionist at headquarters. I said we were there to see Y.T. Du, and the receptionist repeated the name back to me. I thought she had said “What’s he do?” My response? “Well, everything that has to do with money.” Right out of an old comedy routine. Was there a lesson there? I guess be a more careful listener. Certainly, receptionists are the gateway to your client everywhere, always.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
At one point early in my career, my mother set up a lunch for me with a friend’s son-in-law who had recently retired from a CEO role on a private equity buy-out. I think we hoped at the time that he would help me find a new job. What he did was give me advice I have dined out on ever since.
The first half of the lunch was me running through my career after college (great opportunity at a poorly run bank) and after business school (cool work at a consulting empire in decline). The second half of the lunch was him picking apart everything I said, in a lengthy and fairly humiliating manner.
The basic premise of every scenario: “You seem to think that you know more than senior management at these firms. You don’t. Let me explain all the things you likely did not know in that story you told me.” I took what he said to heart, and never again let myself get caught in the trap of “well, things would be great if it were not for senior management.”
This guy nailed it — it is easy to put the blame upwards when you are not privy to the information that is used for decision-making. Also, hard once you BECOME senior management to recognize that hard truth.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Well, I strongly suggest that all my clients read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s pretty dated, even for me and I’m old, but its message still rings true: you can be the most fascinating person in a room simply by asking others to talk about themselves. I love any book with a message that is (1) common sense and (2) makes the point that you have got to spend less time worrying about how you are being perceived and more time being interested in other people.
I also love Adam Grant’s work — Think Again, Originals and Option B were all important to me. I love that he applies data and science to how we work, make decisions, succeed and fail. Again, these books develop frameworks that are both common sense and help us to focus less on our own perceived faults and insecurities.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I like to think, and almost always get the feedback, that every time I help a client move on in their career I am using what I learned over a very long time in a very long career to help another person take a short-cut through something that may otherwise have been (more?) painful and (more?) difficult. That makes me feel great about what I do!
At the same time, I love volunteering my services and work with a number of non-profits including the Anaya Foundation here in the Boston area. The Foundation supports first generation and low-income students with grants, mentoring and career services to help improve the national less than 20% graduation rate of students in this category who have already won full academic scholarships. My own mentee will graduate from Dartmouth next spring!
What strategies do you recommend for building and maintaining strong professional business networks?
Reach out when you don’t need something- that way people will pick up the phone when you do need something. Maybe you saw an interesting industry statistic or noticed that your contact’s company won an award. Send along a note. Try to know something that interests your contacts outside of work- are they golfers? Where are they from (generally)? Are they interested in reading or gardening or cooking? What teams to they support? Add this note to your contact information and occasionally send an article or book recommendation to them on this topic if you come across one.
However, if it doesn’t feel natural and authentic- don’t do it. Professional connections are still connections that should be easy and not awkward.
Can you share a personal story about how a professional business network has significantly impacted your career or business?
In 2008, with the economy on the verge of collapse over the housing crisis, I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer and my husband left me (surprise!) for an old girlfriend. I had a two-year old. My company was in the throes of being acquired and shortly thereafter let go almost all senior management, including me. What a year!
A business school classmate was walking his dog with a neighbor, who had an idea about how to use someone with my background in a company he was acquiring. The role required someone who came from a background like mine (which required all travel all the time) but would not actually require a lot of travel.
I got the job, which started as an idea on a dog walk. Never underestimate the power of your connections or telling your story.
In your experience, what are the common misconceptions about networking, and how can professionals overcome them?
Ugh, there are so many.
First, that networking is something you do in a suit and tie with a name tag and a cocktail. I recommend that my clients don’t even go to networking events- most people are looking to get something, not looking to share. The best networking opportunities are the unexpected ones: backyard barbecues, long lines at Starbucks, doctor’s offices, and sporting events. These are all places where I have had clients get connections and jobs.
Second, that networking is something that only benefits you. For someone who needs to fill a position it is manna from heaven to hear about a candidate through a personal contact. We can short-cut all sorts of time- and money- consuming processes by hiring someone through a friend or contact. Maybe we can even be eligible for a bonus because we found someone directly! Never be shy about putting yourself out there because if there is a match on the other side it is a huge benefit for all involved.
Third, that networking is just chatting with no goal. You have several goals when you are giving someone your elevator pitch. First, you want to get them thinking about how they may be able to help you. Second, you want to get them thinking about who they may know who may be able to help you. Third, you want to get them to say that, at some point in the future, should a job at their company arise, they would be willing to send your resume internally to the hiring manager or HR business partner who is involved. That last one is the brass ring. If that happens, take their contact information and declare victory.
Lastly, the other major concern I hear is that it is just hard to ask for help. Get over it. Everyone is in a position where they need a job at least once in their lives and most often more than once. Almost everyone will want to help. You need to make it easy for them with a good elevator pitch that explains what you are looking for and how the other person may be able to help you.
Can you please share your “5 Ways to Make the Most of a Professional Business Network”?
Your professional network can really be your most valuable asset. You can use your network to cinch references, for the DL on what companies are really like to work for, to get fast-tracked into an interview process or to get inside information on what jobs may be becoming available before anyone else knows about them. However, growing your network and making it work for you requires work. It requires active nurturing.
Actively nurturing your network can mean following a contact’s company or LinkedIn posts and reaching out when something great happens. It can mean forwarding something you know that a contact will find professionally interesting, or that overlaps your interests and theirs. It can mean inviting a contact to an industry association event or alumni get-together. There are a lot of ways to do it, from simple to more involved.
Here are ways to make those contacts meaningful and worthwhile.
- Have a goal for all your interactions.
Think about how you want to leverage your network, and why. Let that guide what you do to nurture it.
If you want to make sure your network is active in case you need a job, you can think about reaching out to everyone in it occasionally via social media to let them know you are thinking about them and generate goodwill.
If you want to leverage your network because your role requires you to interview industry leaders and develop benchmarks, you may want to send people copies of relevant studies you are releasing to establish credibility.
This is personal: ask yourself how you want to leverage your network.
2. Think about your network in actionable segments.
You want to think about your network in ways to make it easy to invest in. If you group people as “former colleagues” and “can be used as references”, for example, those labels will not be very helpful when it comes time to do a little investing in your network.
If you think about “people you may want to work for one day”, for example, you can easily forward all of them an article to about leadership to stay on their radar. If you group contacts you “may want to hire one day to put on your team”, then you can send them the link to a free course you find that could teach them about relevant skill development. This kind of segmentation also saves you time when you want to reach out to leverage your network for a particular goal.
How would you want to group your network for actionable nurturing? Think about it in terms of your goals.
3. Control all your interactions.
Don’t just recommend that one contact reach out to another. If it never happens, it is a lost opportunity for you to build goodwill and rapport — plus you never know what kind of benefits may result! Be a central part of making sure the connection happens, then that there is follow up and also execution. If one of your contacts never follows up, you look bad. If the contact happens but they don’t understand why you made it in the first place, you look bad. Make sure there is a goal –a conversation about a specific topic, an exchange of CVs, information sharing on a potential project — and that goal is reached. After that, you can step back. By the same token, don’t promise to set up a connection if you are not sure it will happen. If you can’t control it, don’t say anything.
Think about what becomes the most reliable way for you to follow through on a connection. Could be a live meet and greet, a shared phone call, or a string of emails.
4. Don’t make a connection for the sake of making a connection.
Staying in touch because you have enjoyed speaking with someone is nice. But unless you have a clear idea percolating about how you may be able to help each other at that point in time, don’t schedule an immediate follow up. It’s a waste of time for both of you if you know from the start that it will not lead to anything. Make sure you understand how a jumping off point may happen in the future and put that specific potential on the backburner. You’ll both be happier for it.
You may want to create a standard test or question you ask yourself for when and when not to immediately follow up with a new contact.
5. Follow Up
If someone supports you in some way, do not forget to circle back. Let them know you got the interview, got the job, talked to the person. Or not. But let them know.
I have probably voluntarily helped over 500 people from my college, other schools, friends and family with career issues they were facing before I became a full-time career coach 12 years ago. I asked every single one of those people to circle back with me to let me know what happened. Some of those people I took to nice lunches. Some of them I spoke to on the phone for an hour. For some, I rewrote their resumes or cover letters or helped them strategize how to handle difficult interview questions. Yet I can count on one hand the number of people who actually got back in touch with me afterwards to let me know what happened as a result of our work together.
Getting back in touch to let people know you appreciate what they did is rare and valued. You may want to keep a list of people who have helped you in a specific goal or project so that when it finishes you can circle back and share the outcome.
What role does digital networking play in today’s business environment, and how can individuals maximize its potential while maintaining meaningful connections?
Digital networking, within which LinkedIn is the lingua franca for modern times, is a fantastic tool to use for networking but it is ONLY a tool.
The search engines on LinkedIn are amazing for serving up who you may know without you needing to ask. Just log in and take a look at your home page for “You may know.” You can also search for the intersection of your Venn diagram between “your alma mater” and “the company where you just applied;” or “any company where you used to work” and “any company where you want to work.” When you identify these potential connections, they can be gold for
- getting your resume forwarded internally,
- learning more about an upcoming interview process,
- learning more about the culture of a company where you have an offer,
- doing exploratory informational interviews.
However, LinkedIn has its limits. Never use the standard “I would like to add you to my network” message to add a contact. It is the best way to make sure it will be ignored. Customizing the message is ok, but you can also easily find their direct email with a google search of their “company name” and “email convention.”
This search will return one to ten email conventions that may be used at the company such as Jane.Doe@company.net or Jdoe@company.net. A short email that outlines your connection, why you are writing, and asking for a short call is the best way to go. If you get the address wrong, it will come back. If they ignore you, so what? An inbox still gets noticed much more than a LinkedIn account.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
My big idea is that the world needs a single comprehensive business dictionary. There are thousands of terms used daily across industries that sounds the same but have different meanings. For example, consider “product development.”
Developing a pharmaceutical product means following the four very strict, costly and well-defined government phases. Developing a technology product can have its own set of defined rules, but these can vary by company and industry. How about developing consumer products like new ice cream flavors? New television shows?
For a newbie or someone seeking to switch industries, it can seem almost insurmountable to learn new terms and activities even though the underlying job title and goals are the same. If you are in product development in one industry, do your skills transfer to product development in another industry?
As an example, I work with people all the time to convince them that yes, if they are tired of selling retirement products then they can absolutely sell SaaS products — and we work on the vocabulary they will need together. But wouldn’t it be great if we all had a definitive resource?
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Oooo, I would have to say Mary Barra right now as I would love to get insight from her for my female clients. I also have always been fascinated by the role GM plays as a driver of the economy and the influence it can have on the government. I’ve been a long-term fan girl of Indra Nooyi and an audience with her would also be a dream come true- both for her career expertise and her global industry insight.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/hireahiringmanager/
Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/hireahiringmanager/
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@hireahiringmanager
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyfeindreeves/
Web — www.hireahiringmanager.com
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
