Networking Down the Rabbit Hole
By Mariah Stewart, Excel 2018
When I applied for Birthright Israel Excel, I wasn’t sure if this program was too good to be true. Considering I found out about the program through a Facebook advertisement, I was a bit concerned it was a scam! But with a little more research, and after talking to my university’s Hillel, I quickly learned what an extensive community and network I had just stumbled upon.
During my summer, I developed incredible friendships with Israelis and North Americans. The first week in, I secured an invite to my friend’s family’s Shabbat dinner where we sipped green tea on the beach and relaxed into the weekend. A few weeks later, some Israelis pioneered a meetup to make delicious poyke on the beach (AKA throw a bunch of food into a pot and hope for the best!). To this day, I still skype my close friends from the program and plan on visiting them in the near future.
Through Excel, time and time again, I’ve learned that some of the best opportunities one can stumble upon are sheer dumb luck: it’s really what one makes out of the oddest of connections. When Excel began interviewing me for internship placement, I didn’t have a lot of experience in any of the fields that were offered but decided to take a chance on financial technology since Israel is known for its innovative work environment. And WOW, I had the most incredible internship at Visa in the one of the most beautiful offices in Tel Aviv and was given more responsibility than I could have ever dreamed of. I was meeting with the CEOs of startups one-on-one and conducting market research for key partners at Visa’s Innovation Studio.
At the beginning of the summer, my mentor (who I still talk to frequently!) asked me what my future career path looked like and it was quite different from my role at Visa. However, with our open dialogue, he was able to suggest some amazing potential opportunities for me that was at an intersection between my passions and the work I had been doing over the summer. At the end of the summer, I had learned a great deal about payment technology and how dynamic the industry truly is. Having the opportunity to stay involved in payment technology while also focusing on passions I already had coming into the program was truly a gift.
During my internship, I stopped thinking about networking as a stressful, mandatory part of advancing one’s career and began to realize the more upfront you are with individuals about your interests, the results will come to you. In this regard, I emailed a client I worked for over the summer to just catch up. The startup had a great ethos and I wanted to see how their business was doing and divulge my latest summer camping trip, which included breaking my foot when I slipped on some algae (photosynthesis is to blame!). There was no ulterior motive behind maintaining a relationship other than a genuine desire to keep in touch. From that, the client offered me a part-time job while I’m finishing my university degree — the great part about it is, it’s work I actually enjoy!
So what does all of this amount to? Send, send, send those emails — even if you’re shy and perhaps uncomfortable! People are much more willing to help than you would expect and they personally love to do it! You never know how knowing someone could help you in the future, and it never hurts to also think about how you can help people in your network. Basically, networking isn’t only attending wine and cheese nights: it’s about small moments of individuals helping each other. It’s about poyke on the beach and Shabbat dinners and keeping in touch.
Mariah Stewart is an Honours B.A. Candidate, Major in Political Science, Double Minor in Mathematics and Contemporary Asian Studies at University of Toronto C/O 2020. She interned at Visa in Tel Aviv through Excel and is currently working part-time at fin-tech company, Behalf, as a Product and Market Researcher while she completes her studies. Mariah is passionate about community service and philanthropy and has taken the lead on a variety of projects in Canada, though she grew up in California.
