Thursday, August 11, 2005

Finding Contacts at a Company or Organization

For SCU MBA students and alumni, here are recommended steps for finding contacts at a company, whether they are needed for an MBA project, employment, new ventures, or anything else.

First, you'll need to build your network to gain access to contacts:
  1. Sign up with LinkedIn, the premier professional networking service.
  2. Join the Santa Clara University Life Long Network Yahoo! Group.
  3. Join the Santa Clara University Life Long Network's LinkedIn Group by clicking the LinkedIn Group link on the home page of the SCU LLN's Yahoo! Group.
  4. Follow the LinkedIn Tips to expand your reach within the LinkedIn network, so that you may find and contact a larger set of contacts.
  5. Join any other appropriate SCU MBA-related networks.
  6. For alumni: Register and fill in your profiles for the Santa Clara University Online Community and the Alumni Association inCircle Networking Community .

Once you've done the above, you're ready to start searching for contacts:

  1. Search LinkedIn.
  2. For alumni, search inCircle and the online community.
  3. Post a message to an appropriate SCU MBA-related network.

If you have any suggestions for improvements to the above processes, please let me know by posting a comment below.