Sean Horton

Listen to understand, not communicate or respond. The more you understand about those you are communicating or networking with, the opportunity to grow your network increases. Before you even get to business, it is important to develop the relationship with true interest which is demonstrated from listening.

Networking goals can be subjective and ultimately lead to lost opportunities when pigeonholing ones self with specific targets or goals from a professional perspective. As defined courtesy of Oxford: the action or process of interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts. Social contacts can turn to professional and visa-versa. Key is inserting yourself in the proper environment for what your General Goal may be. From there I follow the mantra - make a friend, make a sale.

Having power ranked the offerings tying back to a numeric value, once can clearly identify the 'winner' of your employment. More importantly, taking into account those elements that can not be power ranked. How did you feel during the whole process? Did the recruiter take time to understand you or balance your fit into their needed mold??

As stated with Communicating Professionally: Be transparent and forthcoming with information. Clearly not looking to share full specifics on the offers but it is fair and respectful for the offerees to know what they are stacked against. Taking it a step further, sharing what you see and why will allow those providing the offer to counter and/or improve their overall offerings in the future.

Be transparent and forthcoming with information. Clearly not looking to share full specifics on the offers but it is fair and respectful for the offerees to know what they are stacked against. Taking it a step further, sharing what you see and why will allow those providing the offer to counter and/or improve their overall offerings in the future.

Numerically power rank your needs and desires. Having an effective understanding and alignment with what a role/organization offers balanced with what you are needing is key. Adding the numeric values tied to each priority provides the visual balance to begin steering in one direction or another.