Junior Year

Your junior year is key to networking. In between lectures, studying, parties, trips to the library or wherever you may go, make the most of your junior year. Continue cultivating a meaningful network by adding more professors, mentors, and advisors to your network, as well as, continue to search for potential internships.

1. Be Retrospective. Take a look back at your networking goals that you have set over the past two years. Did you meet them? If not, take the time to evaluate why. Where can you improve? Make any necessary changes and move forward. "It's great to have ambition to ultimately succeed in a chosen field, but don't let that make your vision too narrow too soon. Don't shut out the larger picture: that there will be dozens of ways to fail, succeed, and grow." -- Heike Currie, Program Coordinator Communications, The Juilliard School.

2. Be Innovative. Create a strong resume, and yes a resume does matter. Be creative with your resume. Use people in your network to critique it so that you are able to put your best foot forward. Now is also the time to be creative with “networking cards.” You need to have something tangible to hand out to people.

3. Be Online. Networking can happen anywhere and anytime, including online. Develop a solid reputable social media presence. Improve and polish your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook profiles. Social media is one of the first places potential employers will look before hiring you, your presence matters.

4. Be a Dreamer. Make a list of dream companies that you would like to work for and start targeting them. Think of people in your network that might help you get your foot in the door. If possible meet and interview their employees.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the expression, “there’s plenty of fish in the sea,” and probably even rolled your eyes at that cliché expression. This dating idiom applies an Abundance Mentality. However, an Abundance Mentality isn’t limited to the dating realm; we can use that mentality to overcome obstacles that we face on a daily basis, especially in the business world. Networking and almost every aspect of our business would benefit if we trained ourselves to have an Abundance Mentality.

An Abundance Mentality means:

· There really is plenty to go around. There is more than one pie and you don’t have to fight for your piece of the one pie.

· There really is room at the top. You have plenty of room to grow.

· You are beneath no one and at the same time superior to no one.

· The world bears fruit for all.

· Situations can and do yield mutually beneficial outcomes - Win/Wins

By adopting this mentality, we are freeing ourselves from a Scarcity Mentality based on fear. We are also becoming immune to negativity, rising above our critics, and ultimately experiencing infinite freedom in our minds and hearts. Our subconscious behaviors become more inline with success and less inline with failure, negativity, superiority, and criticism. We can achieve victory with the help of others, not at the expense of others, because we find value in their uniqueness. Often an Abundance Mentality isn’t our first nature, so I challenge you in 2018 to strive to apply this mentality to all aspects of your life.