How to Win Friends and Influence People is a famous book by Dale Carnegie. It has been read by countless people over decades to learn how to raise their profile and influence more people around them.
Why? Because these people recognised that influencing others in a positive way ultimately will help them positively – they work to build a network of friends, peers and colleagues around them who care about their opinion and holds them in high esteem.
So how can you also create this network around you, while juggling work, family and social commitments?
This is where some simple tools and strategies can really help you connect with your colleagues, peers in the industry and even raise your profile that helps you step up to the next level in your career.
Professional groups
The first step is to meet people who work in your field. Figure out what professional associations or groups align with your career goals and join. Once you’ve joined, get active. Attend professional networking events where you’ll meet people already embedded in your desired field. Look out for updates, workshops, breakfast networking events and fundraisers. You could even become integral to the association by joining their organising committee. The more visible you are in your chosen field, the more your peers get to know you, the more likely you are to have a stronger network.
Social Networking
Social networking online has become a force of positive change in boosting health careers. Medical students, GPs, nurses, specialists and allied health are enhancing their professional networks by embracing LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media platforms.
Twitter in particular offers valuable networking opportunities. Many health professionals are sharing evidence-based information, discussion forums and job opportunities as they engage real-time with others online. Participating in regular twitter forums (tweetchats) makes yours a recognised voice in the healthcare conversation, improving your profile and increasing your visibility. When positions become available, an established professional profile will increase the likelihood of your peers to think of you as an active expert in your field. And remember, Twitter and social media channels don’t have to take too much time, just 20 mins a day, while on the train or at lunch, is all it takes!
Referrals
The ultimate way of creating a link between yourself and another person is to give them something and what better opportunity to give than the gift of your high esteem of that person, say for example, via a referral to the ideal job vacancy.
HealthcareLink is in a unique position where it is the only one of its kind for the Australian healthcare sector, combining the advantages of a job board with recruitment and networking features, offering the whole industry the right ecosystem for jobs and candidates to meet.
HealthcareLink recently launched Referral Rewards, where colleagues can recommend candidates via the HealthcareLink website. Read our Peer-to-Peer Referral Explainer for more on the Referral Rewards. Having an established online profile and active professional network will put you in a better position to be seen as a stable reference, giving your colleague a better chance of getting landing that role.
By referring your colleague to their ideal job creates a win-win-win bond between the employer, the candidate and yourself, making it more likely in the future for you to receive a similar or perhaps even better opportunity that’s suited to you. At HealthcareLink, we reward your generous spirit with a referral reward. Just look out for orange label!
No matter if you’re newly graduated, a registrar or specialist, professional networking will complete the ‘who you know’ part of your profile and launch you into the next phase of your healthcare career.
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