Whether your WIL experience is in person or remote (or a bit of both), the experience presents an opportunity to build your network within your field. When working remotely, you may have to schedule these networking opportunities rather than relying on in-person meetings or hallway chats (but it’s recommended to still intentionally schedule time to connect regardless; some people prefer scheduling dedicated time to catch up rather than spontaneous interactions).
So Why Network?
Networking is much more than a strategy to “get a job”; there are multiple benefits of networking and building connections that go beyond transactional relationships:
Create A Support Network
Cultivating connections establishes a robust support network where you can seek advice, obtain feedback, participate in conversations about job search strategies, or simply find someone to share your career aspirations with.
Decision-Making
Networking can help in your personal decision-making journey, be it in determining your preferred job type, assessing alignment of values with potential employers, evaluating a job offer, and more.
Future Opportunities
Building connections provides the opportunity to engage with potential employers, unveiling both immediate and future openings that may not be present through traditional job search methods.
Learn About The Field
Forging connections allows you to connect with individuals within your field of interest, gather invaluable insights about employers, and deepen your understanding of the industry. Through this process, you can get familiar using impactful language and terminology, enabling you to communicate your academic background effectively in non-academic settings.
Additional benefits from building connections during your WIL experience include:
- Hearing career stories of individuals working both in roles you share and are also interested in
- Gaining knowledge about the kinds of roles or departments that you might want to explore but were not aware of
- Getting referrals to other contacts outside of the department or employer with whom you could conduct an informational interview
- Learning how non-academic employees engage with research and their relationship to research
- Gaining insight into how research is applied in non-academic contexts, and what language is used to discuss research in these environments
Introducing Yourself
In your WIL experience, it can be difficult to know what to share when introducing yourself to new people. Preparing in advance, you can craft a concise self-introduction that you can use for introducing yourself to new colleagues within your WIL experience and for future connections.
When connecting with your colleagues, share a little more about yourself and give a sense of what you would like to talk about. Components of your self-introduction can include some of the following:
- what excites you about this WIL experience and how it relates to your career interests
- your goals of your WIL experience: the skills you want to develop, the kind of contributions you want to make, the knowledge you’d like to apply, etc.
- any other relevant research and/or academic interests and how they relate to your WIL project and career goals
- invitation to chat and what you hope to talk to them about (it can be simply to get to know them but there are some prompts below)
Try to go beyond “I’m a grad student in X department.” You’re more than just a student – you have career interests, skill sets, you may be working on a project, and you have motivations for taking this type of course for a reason. Let your network know these aspects about you, your graduate degree, and your career.
Some people may experience more barriers and challenges in navigating workplaces and networking than others simply due to the identities they hold. The resources in CareerHub's Identity and your career on the intersections of career and identity provide guidance and resources for navigating some of these challenges.