How to Network During the Pandemic

Don’t let hard times deceive you.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Two years into living the same existence, I decided that 2020 was the year I was going to make some big changes in my life. At the beginning of last year, I was just on the cusp of preparing myself to embark on new adventures when the pandemic hit hard like a bowling ball. All my pins of a plan came crashing down, and it was by no means the kind of strike I was hoping for. Like many, my New Year’s resolutions became a vapor, and I eventually realized that 2020 wasn’t going to look the way that I envisioned it would.

Once it became clear that we were in the midst of a pandemic, I made a commitment to steward my time as best as I could. There was a moment in 2019 where I remember wishing for a year to slow down, rest, and focus on things that I’ve been wanting to do without having any other distractions.

Now that such a time had actually come to pass — incredulous as I was — I wanted to find a way to honor that. I was determined to use my newfound sense of free time as productively as possible. It occurred to me that I might never get another chance like this to retreat and reflect for an extended period of time, and if the whole situation did turn out to be more permanent, then I would have the rest of my life to watch movies and chill if I really wanted to.

I certainly didn’t expect to learn more about myself during this period than I have in practically any other period of my life. Part of that comes with the stage of life that I’m in, but I also think that staying at home has driven me to think deeply about what matters most in life, who I am in light of that, where I need to be, and how to take steps toward getting there, similar to what has probably crossed the minds of many others.

For me, this last year has been rich with exploration, experimentation, and most surprisingly, extraordinary new connections. It is during this very time of being at home where I’ve been able to (virtually) meet people whom I don’t think I ever would have crossed paths with if we were living in our regular world. I really thought 2020 was going to be a damper in this regard, but it turns out that relationships and progress are being made precisely when I least expected it. There are breakthroughs to be thankful for amid the first time in history it’s been a universally hard year for everybody.

It’s prime time for informational interviews.

I believe that now is the best time to network, and personally, it’s proven more effective than ever. For starters, being stuck at home implies a few things:

1. You may have more time on your hands because you are less involved with other activities that used to occupy your schedule.
2. Consequently, you may have more energy to be tenacious and proactive in reaching out to people of interest, as well as the time and energy to spend conducting informational interviews.
3. In addition, other people — those whom you are trying to get in touch with — may have more time on their hands, too. Everybody is online now because they have to be in order to stay connected, so there’s a chance that they will actually see your message and give it some consideration.
4. Furthermore, empathy and compassion have become more important than ever today. With the times that we live in, many of us feel compelled to cultivate kindness and help others to a new degree, and conveniently, we may also have more time to do it.
5. Virtual interviews make these kinds of meetings appear less intimidating, easier to participate in, and less involved for both the interviewee and yourself. It is perceived to be of minimal effort.
6. At this point, even the introverts are feeling lonely and wouldn’t mind meeting someone new. Being that we all need human connection, informational interviews are an opportunity for both parties to enjoy something different and unknown, even if it’s small like a brief conversation. People are probably more open to this now than previously, especially given that digital communication has become the status quo.

All of these factors make informational interviews more accessible today than it was a year ago. This is why you should leverage your chances while you can.

Wait, back up. What is an informational interview?

With traditional networking, you’d probably attend a large in-person event, spark conversation, and build connections from there. Obviously, we can’t do this at the moment, but just because we can’t meet in person doesn’t mean that networking has to stop; it just means that we have to be a little more creative.

Informational interviews involve inviting someone else to share about their experience in an industry, tell you about their background, and provide insight to consider as you navigate your own professional journey. Your goal is to ask questions and learn more about what it’s like to work in their role and how they got started.

Informational interviews are great for networking but also first and foremost getting a sense of whether or not you’d be interested in a particular career path, feeding two birds with one scone. Moreover, they provide a clear, mutually understood purpose to the conversation, which is essentially networking made less awkward because they establish a well-defined structure for the interaction without any pressure to schmooze.

Tips for successfully cold contacting someone:

For the reasons listed earlier in this post, I’ve been able to conduct multiple informational interviews in which the result has been unexpected. That word pretty much sums up the year 2020, but I mean it here in a positive way.

Below are some tips that were helpful to me as I cold contacted various individuals for informational interviews, who despite seeming like long shots agreed to have a conversation with me:

1. Research the person of interest and observe what makes them tick. Identify a subject that will strike a chord with them, which they’re so passionate about that they won’t care who you are because they’re so eager to share about it. Frame your invitation to highlight a subject that they want to talk about purely because they believe in it and it carries a unique meaning to them.
2. Personalize your message and give them some context about why they should give you the time of day. Even though you’re likely casting a wide net and reaching out to a number of different individuals, people can tell when answers are boilerplate. Take the effort to write a thoughtful message that makes them feel like they’re the best person in the world to help you out with what you’re looking for.
3. Position your ask as mutually beneficial, so that the meeting adds value to their lives as well: give and take at the same time. For example, I reached out to someone on LinkedIn earlier this year asking for some of their time. In my message, I also mentioned that I would share five tips on how they could improve their marketing. I knew they would be interested in this kind of information based on some previous activity, and I believe this helped me land the interview, which snowballed into a freelance opportunity.
4. Make your ask appear as low-lift as possible, like it’s so easy that they can’t resist saying yes. Avoid asking for something that they can’t give, like asking them to give you a job upfront. This can work and should be done in some cases, but it really depends on the context. The primary purpose of an informational interview is to learn, and I’ve found that people are oftentimes much more responsive when it’s presented primarily as a learning opportunity. Once you land the meeting, it’s easier to be more direct because you’ll be able to showcase non-verbal cues that help soften the ask. You can also learn a lot just from hearing about someone else’s story, which might be more useful to you than having an offer on the table early on in your career.
5. If you’d like to indicate the time commitment involved, keep it brief to show that you respect their time. This way, they’ll know exactly what to expect.
6. Along the lines of expectations, expect to be ignored the majority of the time. However, just know that for the 20 people or so whom you reach out to, you only need one person to change your life. Persistence will pay off.

You might be thinking that while the frequency of successfully elicited responses may increase during current times, perhaps the quality of those conversations will prove poor by the nature of them being virtual. This could potentially be the case, but I think it’s better to gain practice and do what you can than to feel like you’re hitting it out of the park every single time.

The time of our lives (literally)…

Over the past year, I’ve met some of the most remarkable individuals even though they had no real reason to speak with me. We can’t wait to live our lives only once everything returns to normal — we don’t even know for sure if that’s going to be the case. But what we do know is what’s possible now, and in some ways, maybe even easier now too.

If I had chosen to wallow in the ruined state of my initial plans, last year could have easily looked as sad as I thought it was going to be. My dreams for 2020 didn’t come true, but a whole lot of others did that I didn’t even realize I had.

If you think that the pandemic has delayed your life by two years, maybe think twice before drawing this conclusion. This could be a time to perfect your craft and laser focus in a way that you might not have been able to otherwise. In the quietness of our daily lives, there are plenty of exciting moments to be discovered. Keep looking for them, because they’re simply waiting for you.