The JobUp Guest Speaker Series
Networking for New Americans: A Conversation with Marc Oppenheim, Founder of MEOjobs and Dean of Hosftra Center for University Advising
The JobUp Guest Speaker Series is a frequent column based on my conversations with innovators in workforce development, professional immigrant integration, or other areas about career growth. They participate in The JobUp either during semesters, to share expertise and interact with my students, or in between academic periods when I invite them to engage with The JobUp’s alumni.
Marc E. Oppenheim is the Dean of the Center for University Advising at Hofstra University, in Long Island. He’s also a faculty member there, teaching courses in public speaking and communication studies. In 2014, he founded MEOjobs (Marc E. Oppenheim), a job aggregation website and newsletter that helps professionals have better access to quality work opportunities.
Since then, he has also produced over 50 media industry meetups, both in person, in midtown Manhattan in New York City, and on Zoom, to bring people closer together and stimulate career growth. Marc has channeled his passion for networking and helping others into both a business and an artform.
This Q&A interview was edited for length and clarity.
Marc, before you came into the Zoom class this evening, we were discussing going to a networking event or meeting someone for networking purposes. Should we use our company business card or a personal card?
It would normally be appropriate to give out your company business card, unless you are either planning very shortly to depart that role, or there’s any reason you may be deciding that you won’t be affiliated in the near future.
I do have a number of colleagues who have both their professional business cards, issued by their employer, and their own personal cards as well. And you could do both and use them as you see fit.
But normally, there wouldn’t be any downside to using your professional business card, as it will provide your new contacts with a better sense of your professional status.
Why is it so important to network in the U.S.?
I think of a piece of advice that I received from one of my mentors. He said,
“You want to connect and reach out to people when you don’t need them so that they are there for you when you do need them.”
I consider myself in the relationship business; that is what we do when we are networking. If we establish relationships with other individuals, they will be likely to provide us with guidance, advice, and if their company is hiring, they may let us know.
The other key thing about jobs is that, oftentimes, many of them are invisible. You know, not all employers are posting their jobs online, and that’s a challenge. If you’re not affiliated with an organization, you may not know about an opportunity. But if you are connected to individuals in different employment environments who may be privy to some of that information and able to share it with you, you would then find out.
The key is, the more individuals in your network, the more people you can get advice from and can advocate for you. And it goes both ways.
What’s a good way to network?
A good way to network is that you go to an event to offer yourself as a contact, even though you want to gain access to other people, and leverage their skills to expand your network and access to opportunities.
When you’re networking, if you can give to the group, share any of your insight or expertise. People will appreciate that and exchange their business cards with you, and be more likely to connect with you either on LinkedIn or on other social platforms.
When it comes to networking online, you might not be able to give out those business cards quite yet because we can’t accept them on Zoom. But you will be able to put your LinkedIn profile in the chat, right? Or you may be able to share a link to a blog that you write, or a professional biography. So, we modify the way we interact when we’re not face to face.
We really need to make sure that we are also connecting with people who are in industries or places of employment that we aspire to be in. It may not be our current space, and we have to figure out, sometimes, how to pivot from one space to another.
I met with a professional last week who worked in sales, and she wants to go into higher education. I encouraged her to start looking for relationships. One way to consider that is to look at professional organizations related to your desired field.
In higher education, there’s a National Association for College Advisors. In journalism, the Society of Professional Journalists is one of the professional organizations. But they exist in just about any professional industry. Most of them are online, and you can connect with their members to establish new relationships.
What if we work at a company that we’re happy with, but we are at the point in our career where we’re ready for something new. When we go out and network, which card do we use — the one from our current position or a personal one?
I would normally give my professional card and frame in the context of being interested in expanding my network. You don’t have to say that you’re there to look for a new job.
It’s common for professionals to go out on behalf of their current employers to establish relationships. We tend to be very private about looking for new opportunities, but you’ll find that some people are always networking, even when they are gainfully employed, because it’s always helpful to be on the lookout for new opportunities and new relationships.
Not every new American professional or, for that matter, American-born ones approach networking with ease. For some people the process is not intuitive. Perhaps they come from countries where career development is a very private pursuit. Others may be very shy and feel awkward. What advice would you give those immigrant professionals?
The job search is a very personal, and often private experience, regardless of our culture or ethnicity. I often find that many people don’t want others to know they’re looking for a job. They don’t want to jeopardize their current employment, or they may not want others to know their personal business — you know, that they may be unhappy or feel under-compensated.
My advice is to tell at least the people we trust that we’re looking for a job — our inner circle of colleagues, or friends. We need to share a little about where we’re applying because there may be people we know there willing to advocate for us.
I’ve had people who work with me who were very private with their search. Meanwhile, if they had told me where they were looking, I would have connected them to people I have relationships with at those companies or organizations. I would have advocated for them or shared my experience engaging those employers.
Obviously, you’re not going to tell your rival, who might steal a job away from you, about a great opportunity you’re seeking out. But we can be more open with the people we trust.
Look, I teach public speaking and know that putting yourself out there can be awkward. But with the internet and with social platforms like LinkedIn, which I highly encourage you to utilize, you can ease into networking by selectively seeking out people while protecting your privacy.
So, you have to realize that you’re not a burden or an annoyance to people. If people didn’t want to be contacted, they wouldn’t be on these sites.
The last thing I wanted to say is that you have to be patient and persistent. If you don’t hear from someone, you should try again in a couple of weeks. Send another note; that would be my advice. If they don’t respond, often it means that they were not able to attend to your message.
We all receive requests from people that we don’t know. Sometimes they say why they want to connect, other times they not. Perhaps they want to connect just to access our network. What’s the best way to handle that?
There’s no single correct way to approach this situation. The first good step in engaging with the platform is that you should approach it how you’re most comfortable.
In my case, I get a lot of those requests because people know me as “the jobs guy.” I look at the requests to see if the people are in my industry, or in media, or in higher education, and whether they would be someone of relevance, industrywide.
However, I also get a lot of requests from people who want to give sales pitches about their products and their companies. I hit “decline.”
My last piece of advice is that when I get a request, I look at the person’s background. Sometimes the reason I accept it is because maybe they work at a company I want in my network, and I want to ask to connect me with their employer. So, you can take it on a case-by-case basis.
Networking takes effort, energy and time. What’s your suggestion to select worthwhile networking events?
If I’m unsure about the value of an event, look for connections that have utilized that kind of event. You can put in the name of the event, or the host in LinkedIn. Sometimes there will be someone’s comment, or post that comes up.
However, if you take the approach that you’re going to leave an event with five or six new names, and emails, for the most part, you will find value in all of the opportunities.
But you have to cultivate the contacts. I use a very strategic approach. When I meet people, my first thought is: what’s in it for them to connect with me? So, in the initial follow-up message I send, I will say that it was great meeting them at the networking event — that I loved hearing, say, about the film they’re producing. I ask for a link to the trailer so I can share it with my network and spread the word.
Then, I may say that I’ll be back in touch to let them know of any opportunities they can help me with. It’s that investment where there is some real connection.
People always say, it’s who you know, but I would argue that it’s not just who you know; it’s how well they know you. A lot of people know me; they may know I’m a successful person, but they don’t know me well enough to put their name behind me.
Just participating in an engaging event, without growing a rapport afterword, there isn’t going to be enough of an interpersonal element to remember you as a real individual — someone they would be more willing to refer, advocate or endorse, as opposed to just a generic connection on LinkedIn or some other platform.
I connected with someone on LinkedIn last year and built the relationship because I knew I wanted to ask for something a few months down the road. You don’t want to be that person who reaches out only to ask for a favor. I get that all the time. “Hey Mark, I haven’t seen you in five years. But can you write me a reference letter? And how’s your family?” It’s a matter of being polite; it’s not always genuine.
One last thing we need to acknowledge when we’re trying to get the expertise or advice of a colleague is that they get paid to share their expertise. So if I’m going to ask a colleague for something, I will acknowledge the value of their time.
I may say that I realize that they could be charging me for that kind of guidance, and while I don’t have a big budget, I ask them to let me know if there’s a fee. It validates the fact that you honor someone’s expertise.
That’s a tip for all of you, too, as your time is valuable. If you are asked to contribute and you have the skill to do it, then you would want to think about non-offensive ways to inject that.
