How do you Network?

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Networking is a valuable skill that can help you find new opportunities, advance your career, and learn from others. What are your tips for networking?

Help the community by answering the question:

  • How do you network?
  • At an event should you ask someone where they work?
  • Should you be ready with any sort of structured questions about their job?
  • Should you be ready with any sort of structured questions about their approach to testing?
  • How do you take a more structured approach to events where networking is a goal?
  • How do you best take advantage of a yearly conference that has so many brilliant people all at once?

Share you thoughts and comments below.

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The thread is missing the first question: Do you network? (insert a definition here)

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Itā€™s implied in the question if that helps - ā€œHow do you network?ā€. If you donā€™t then the answer would be"I donā€™t network", and hopefully people that do not currently network can learn something from the community and thread. :smiling_face:

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This is a great question! Iā€™m looking forward to find some good answers :slight_smile:
Me personally is hard to network.

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I donā€™t network:
I find too many people under-prepared for professional testing work and have no patience to undo their wrong learnings.
I am on the spectrum so avoid talking to people in general.
I tried in the past with several conferences and meetups. I just felt too depressed.

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Iā€™m curious - do people find it easier to network online, or in person?
Iā€™ve attended webinars and conferences online (not Test Bash unfortunately) and find potential for casual conversation is limited, or maybe itā€™s me!
In answer to the original question though - if Iā€™m online then I donā€™t understand how to approach other people who may simply be a random name on a list of attendees. Versus if I was sat next to someone in a conference centre, I would say hello.

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I joined MoT to network :sweat_smile:

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  • Talk to people. Your ability to talk to people will make it easy to network.

  • Show Up! Most of the good networking comes from consistency and showing up.

  • Add value In whatever ways you can. Even if you are in a community, add value to it. I captured some ideas here: A-Z of How to Contribute to Communities - Rahulā€™s Testing Titbits. Value attracts people to you!

  • If you have an opinion, Share it!
    Liked a talk, share your feedback!
    Something resonated, Talk about it!
    If something doesnā€™t feel so good, Share constructive feedbackā€¦

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Thank you for sharing. :blush:
Do you have any tips or wish list of what would be an ideal scenario/environment for a meetup for you, or a conference?
You might be surprised how many people feel the same way, or also on the spectrum but they have different experiences.

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I most certainly do network! Online and in person!

I find that by putting stuff out there, like LinkedIn posts, talks, blogs, MoT content and content with other providers that I will get people coming to me to ask about testing things. Thatā€™s usually a foot in the door for follow up conversations and building relationships.

  • At meetups and conferences, I come knowing that I want to engage and network so will try to seem approachable and engage in conversations (I prefer one on ones).
  • I try not to rush away following talks so that I can be available to chat to people at the socials (except for one TestBash where I had an impacted tooth and wasnā€™t very personable lol).
  • I follow up by continuing to talk to awesome people on slack / in coffee chats and wherever really, sometimes about testing and sometimes JUST ABOUT LIFE. Like with my teams, I like to be human with other testers heh.
  • If people want to come and talk at me to explain how something Iā€™ve said is so totally wrong and want to explain how it doesnā€™t work in their contextā€¦ they get a bit of polite listening but Iā€™m not obliged to give them hours of my time :wink:

Personally I never have a set of anything structured planned to talk about, but thatā€™s me. I like a more off the cuff chat about topics that we organically find interesting (maybe even not testing). I find that this makes me seem more authentic and engaging.

However, Iā€™m very used to talking about testing topics so donā€™t need all that much preparation to have a chat about a lot of topics. Plus Iā€™m always happy to say when I donā€™t know somethingā€¦ so your experiences may differ.

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