Teach Your Student to Network Effectively

The old adage that it’s not what you know but who you know has never been more true that in today’s competitive world-wide economy that often depends on locating expertise outside your personal circle.

The knowledge and skills to do a job only matter after a job opportunity comes your way.

Your student can begin now building the network or social capital for their future. At a minimum, they can begin to master the skills to build that network when they meet someone who matters.

Use these discussion points as you coach your student to use their socializing, extra-curricular activity, and relationships wisely:

• Create effective links to various stakeholders by generating and harnessing rich stocks of social capital, enabling students to serve as trustworthy and influential volunteers and leaders in creating a rich and resourceful environment that supports student success.
• Build the intangible relational assets that emerge from social interactions (e.g., access to extended contact networks, confidence gained from moving an introduction to a valuable contact, etc.)
• Through give and take, activate the norm of reciprocity that creates social obligations that connect and bind people and groups.
• With social capital, the more it is used, the more powerful it becomes and the more plentiful its benefits.
• Effective social capital builds on three interrelated structural, emotional, and behavioral components. They are, respectively, networks, trust, and collaborative cultural norms.
• Building social capital takes the conscious and strategic application of strong communication, relationship building, and collaboration generating skills.
• Experiment and consciously use simple, practical principles of connecting, giving, helping and collaborating to create a generous supply of social capital to achieve academic and social-emotional growth goals.