Interview #3: Diana Chan, Founder at MyMarketability

Please note this series was inspired in styling and function by Julie Ann Howlett’s Women in Tech blog series. She is a female entrepreneur with a passion for sharing people’s stories and fostering community engagement. Check her out!

Tap Your Network series was designed with a purpose to share stories about professional networking, with the hope of showing job seekers the importance of networking and provide practical tips to build and manage your professional network. Over the years, I’ve experienced the benefits of a great professional network and the struggles of entering into a new career. I’ve come to realize that building your professional network with the right contacts is one of the greatest investments you can make.

For our third interview, Tap Your Network series, I talked with Diana Chan who is a Career Coach and Speaker who empowers ambitious professionals and executives to find a meaningful career.

Diana is an expert at distinguishing your unique brand value, mastering your messages, and networking with confidence to gain a competitive edge.

Since launching My Marketability (www.mymarketability.com) in 2011, Diana has helped her clients change careers, land multiple job offers, increase their income by 5- to 6-figures more, and join top companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, BCG, Deloitte, PwC, RBC, Credit Suisse and many more.

She has a free Networking eGuide that is included here: https://mymarketability.com/career-boost/networking/

Help us elevate the conversation on how to Tap Your Network the right way. By sharing and engaging in these articles, it opens up space for more people to find meaningful jobs and careers through networking. Let us know your thoughts!

Diana

Okay, so I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. I’ve always been really passionate about helping people to achieve success, whether it’s coaching, recruiting and training. To give you a bit of a story, I moved to Canada by myself when I was 16. This was 20 years ago. I had zero networks.

I quickly discovered the importance of networking. I got three part-time jobs when I was in high school working at the gap, a Chinese restaurant, and kernel popcorn. At that very young age, I learned the importance of just putting yourself out there to pitch yourself and build networks.

Adam

Where did you move from?

Diana

I’m from Hong Kong. My parents sent me here to get a better education and a better future. I was the oldest sibling out of four. So they gave me this responsibility to be a good role model for my siblings. So that’s the backstory here.

Fast forward to university, again I needed to build relationships and build my network because I didn’t know anyone at all. I volunteered and spent more than 1000 hours as a mentor to thousands of international students. I was involved with recruitment for these international students for off-campus jobs and all that.

Despite this, when I was about to graduate and apply for jobs myself, I was not getting anywhere at all. I decided to just tap into my relationships and go to information sessions.

I got hired into TELUS in a leadership development program, out of like 1000 people who applied, and got selected. I knew this was because I had developed a relationship with a high manager because he saw that I was really curious about the company and the role.

If I look at my career, all the jobs, I got through networking. Even my role as a recruiter at Google Canada was through my network. It was referred by my MBA friend who knew I had a passion for people and recruiting. I’ve always believed in the importance of relationship building and networking but also helping people build a brand and a clear value proposition.

What I do now as a career coach, I specialize in helping people to find a meaningful career. The first step is to have career clarity. And then. It’s all about helping people differentiate themselves as a top talent so that they can get amazing opportunities faster through networking effectively, and not rely on the job posting to find opportunities.

Adam

Yes, absolutely. I’m not sure people realize how important it is. There’s a commonly shared statistics in the industry that more than 70% of all jobs will never be posted online and can only be acquired through a personal network.

Diana

I’ve worked on hundreds of people now, and I’ve only had a handful of people who got jobs through an online application. Everyone else got jobs through networking and referrals, relationship building. That’s how they discover these great opportunities.

I mean, you can go apply for jobs online. But your chances of success are low. So if you just rely on job boards, you aren’t using one of the most effective strategies.

Adam

Yes, that’s so true. I’m assuming would you consider online job boards more like a lead generation tool? A way to see who is hiring and who is hiring consistently.

Diana

Absolutely. It’s a great lead generation tool to identify which companies are hiring and then look for the backdoor to get into the company. LinkedIn is a great way to find out who works at that company, who are the recruiters and hiring managers and then reach out to them directly as well, before applying.

Adam

So aside from LinkedIn, what are some of the other strategies people can use to get through the backdoor?

Diana

Yes. You should look to make some informational interviews and coffee meetings. By having informational interviews with the right people, you can really get a clear idea of what the company is looking for.

It’s important to know, “what do I have to offer” before these meetings. So I’ll give you an example to paint a picture here. I had a client from the UK, he was a consultant, an HR consulting, He was trying to apply for tonnes of jobs, over 100 jobs online. And he was trying to move to Canada with his partner. He was not getting any calls back. He was overseas and not getting anywhere.

He hired me, we worked together and identified his path? And through our work together, I introduced him to someone who works in HR consulting, just for an informational interview. My contact really liked him. And because he was well prepared, knew what he could offer, she decided to help him out and introduce him to the managing partner there. Then they showed him a job opportunity that was not yet posted.

Adam

Right, exactly. With good referrals, people can find these openings that would otherwise be hidden.

Diana

Yeah, and this also applies to people who don’t have a lot of experience or have limited experience in a certain industry. If they’re looking to make a career change or industry change. One of my favorite stories comes from a client I had years ago, who was an MBA grad and coming from the public sector. He was a policy advisor and wanted to get into tech, as a product manager. That’s so different, right? The complete opposite sector. It seemed almost impossible.

I thought no way a recruiter would be willing to give him an opportunity. But, he became really knowledgeable about the trends and industry challenges and opportunities. And he found his way into a tech company. He was able to get in by meeting with over a dozen people, and every single one of them gave him a referral.

Adam

So, he was able to show that he’s a good fit with the people that already work there?

Diana

Yes, he was a cultural fit. Enough people endorsed him. You need to have people vouching for your character when you are changing careers and just starting out.

Adam

Yeah. So I was reading one of your recent articles on LinkedIn on the top 10 networking strategies to advance your career. You mentioned that people need a glowing introduction, which I thought was pretty important. But another strategy you mentioned, was that you need to find a way to give back to the people helping you.

Diana

I’m so glad you brought this up. I like to define it as positive networking. It’s all about being of service and adding value. So it’s about discovering what you can do for others, right? It’s about building connections and trust. So, it’s not just a contact. And in terms of strategy, one of the rules I always like to talk with my ABC — Always Be Connecting.

I have another formula, which is called the CONNECT formula for people to network effectively. These are like the qualities that people want to exhibit or demonstrate to have meaningful conversations with people.

Confident and charismatic.

Open mind.

Nice

Natural Curious

Engaging, enthusiastic.

Clear, concise and compelling

Trust

The first letter C stands for being confident. This is how you show up. Your ability to hold a conversation. Charisma is in terms of having that reliable presence, a personality, and character because that will give people the impression that you know what you’re talking about.

Next, the O stands for having an open mind and offering value. This is all about being receptive to new ideas and conversations. I found this really helpful when I was a recruiter for the Executive MBA program. Meeting executives from various industries that I don’t know anything about. Everyone has something to offer and it’s important to be interested in other people’s ideas. Have an open mind, go with the flow with a conversation and look for an opportunity to give back.

The N stands for Nice. This means being friendly, polite, respectful and warm. This helps to have a more pleasant conversation and you’ll appear more approachable. Simple things like smiling, and making small talk, or giving people compliments or even using people’s names.

The following N is being naturally curious. For me, this is all about asking good questions. And I always suggest people ask open-ended questions.

The who, what, how, where, why when. Questions that are related to someone’s career background, career path or advice, industry trends, the company’s culture, the hiring process.

The E stands for being engaging and enthusiastic. This is all about listening and showing interest.

The C stands for being clear, concise and compelling. So this is all about being an effective communicator and making sure you can get to point with your messaging, bottom lining. Verbal communication skills are one of the top skills employers look for. So it is really important that you want to keep your message short, sweet and avoid rambling.

Finally, T is about building trust. It’s all about giving people that assurance and confidence that you are credible. It is so important that you have that trust and I think a lot of times with job seekers, people are so desperate for a job they jumped right away asking for help without building any relationship at all.

Adam

Absolutely, it’s important to think about networking on a long term basis. Just because you have a job, you shouldn’t stop networking. It’s important to build that social currency. At some point, you’re going to need to cash it in.

Diana

Yes. It’s so true. I like to say that networking is the currency of the job search.

I’ll tell you something. I’ve referred over 100 people to a company that my husband works at and had a success rate of over 50%. This is the power of networking.

I’m really fortunate that I have a pretty big network. If I know someone who can help, I would want to make that introduction. I’m more like an advocate for someone. I’m a cheerleader and I’m endorsing people. And I know that if I make an introduction to someone, the likelihood of them getting a call or invite for an interview will be really high because of my endorsement.

Adam

Right, this reason we created the Tap Your Network series. Learning to Network is so important. Everyone needs referrals and for other people to endorse their motivations and ambitions and the type of person they are.

Diana

Most people, even senior executives, struggle most with networking. People have been in the same job or career for a long time, and they’ve never gone to any networking events, it feels awkward, right? It just feels awkward for people. So it’s not something natural for people unless you’re in a profession where like you’re in sales, you’re always out there going to networking events. Then, it’s natural for you.

Adam

What are some good questions to ask? What should the flow of the conversation be like?

Diana

I get invited a lot to speak with engineers over the years. One of my signature talks is networking to connect from awkward to awesome. How do you go from an awkward to an awesome conversation? Imagine yourself, when you don’t want to meet with someone. Now, compare that to meeting your best friend or someone like a long lost friend. You bring that energy up. Right? So it’s a little bit of mind tricks to get your energy in the right. To set the right frame.

Adam

As you know, you don’t just want a network to network, you want to network with the most relevant people to you. How do you build your target list? And what types of tools or services are you using to enhance your ability to manage your professional network aside? I guess you are using LinkedIn?

Diana

Yeah, I use LinkedIn. The first thing that I suggest is to create a target list and to focus your efforts. You want to make sure you’re talking to the right kind of people who can actually move the needle and help you advance.

I’ll give you an example. Many years ago, I worked with a CFO client who wanted to move to Canada from Spain. She was doing tonnes of networking, but for some reason, she was not getting any results or interview opportunities.

And when I actually went to dig further, I realized she was not networking with the right kind of people. She was networking with people that were too junior. I suggested she reach out to CFO, presidents or VP. Then, she started getting results and got an opportunity like shortly after.

Having a target list is important, but you also want a clear idea of what type of companies you want to target. Small companies, mid-sized companies or fortune 500 companies. You then want to find at least 5 to 10 people per company that you can reach out to. So this could be people like the recruiters, hiring managers, and VP’s. I always recommend people, who are just starting out to start with people at a lower level, where it’s all about exploring and discovering what it takes to work at this company and be successful.

Once you get comfortable with that, that next level is to start meeting with the hiring managers and influencers. At this point, you want to start pitching yourself, using an elevator pitch.

Adam

Right. So you recommend to start with an informational type of conversations and then work your way towards identifying the right person and pitch your value proposition.

Diana

Yes, exactly. Yeah. It’s all about being focused and targeting your attention in the right direction to find a job.

Adam

Do you use any tools for that?

Diana

I don’t have any tech tools, per se. Most people use a spreadsheet and add the people they know from organizations they are interested in.

And then they target this list of companies using LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best tool to search for the right contact person. Once you find the right person, the next thing you should do is to find their emails or just directly reach out to them on LinkedIn.

Adam

That’s awesome. We’ve reached the end of the casual coffee discussion for our 3rd Interview Series on how to Tap Your Network.

Thanks for much for this interview. For those of you reading this interview and are looking to enhance your professional networks to advance your career, reach out to Diana and she will get you on the right path.

My Marketability (www.mymarketability.com)

About Adam Dorfman: Concerned about the stagnation in higher education and the rapidly changing jobs marketplace, I have been particularly interested in developing solutions that combine technology, managing professional networks, and building new career paths. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Tap Your Network which is a fully customizable, career center technology for programs of all sizes that grows the power of any team. If you are interested in being featured in this series, you can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn or leave a comment below.