By now you’ve heard that, to get a job in this economy, you need to get out and network. You’re running yourself ragged going to networking events, pumping hands, handing out business cards, and nothing’s happening. You’re still not getting job offers—still not even getting interviews. At this point, you’re ready to throw in the towel and conclude that networking just doesn’t work.

I know that having a strong network makes all the difference in your job search (or business) success. So, why isn’t it working for you?

My guess is, you’re going about it all wrong. One of the biggest mistakes people make is confusing the process of meeting lots of people and exchanging business cards, or handshakes, with effective networking.

Networking is not a numbers game. It is not about how many people have your card. It’s not about how many people you know.

It is about how many people know you, value what you do, and feel comfortable referring you to colleagues and friends.

This is such an important point that I can’t emphasize it enough. During the past year, I’ve had dozens of job seekers and entrepreneurs tell me they joined a professional organization, service club or networking group, but “it was a waste of time; I never got a thing from it.” When I ask how they participated, they say they went to meetings, exchanged business cards with everyone they met, and tried meet as many people as possible.

But…when I ask them if they followed up on any of their encounters, they say no. When I ask how many referrals they made TO the people they met, I get a blank stare. When I ask if they volunteered for a committee or offered to help out with events, they say “I didn’t have time”, or “I don’t have any skills for that type of thing”.

And they wonder why what they call networking isn’t paying off?

To effectively network, you need to establish a bond of goodwill with people. You need to build connections and trust with a useful relationship that benefits both parties.

You don’t need hundreds of contacts in order to effectively network—you only need a few of the right kind of contacts. And those contacts are people to whom you have demonstrated your value.

As an example…you’re at a networking event and the person you’re talking to mentions how difficult it is to find a good mechanic. The next day, drop him or her a quick email, referencing the conversation, and recommend your top-notch mechanic. First, this demonstrates that you were listening and not just cruising through the room looking for your next target. Second, you’ve hooked up two people, both of whom will think of you in a favorable light and both of whom are potential referral partners back to you.

View your networking as the process of building solid, long-term alliances with a close circle of business people or colleagues. A good, active, knowledgable group of a dozen people you’ve nurtured and established a relationship with can be worth thousands of dollars a year in referrals. Remember—it’s not the number of business cards; what counts is the quality of the relationships you develop.

Build your network and hone your networking skills to develop solid, reciprocal alliances that benefit other people, and the benefits will circle back to you in a big way.

What are some of your favorite networking tips? Please share!

Phil Gerbyshak tackles this timely issue on his blog, reminding us that navigating the friend/no friend waters can be tricky and loaded with unexpected hazards. His advice to not cross the personal/professional line is standard good business. Read the whole article here.

I wonder, though, if this isn’t a generational issue that some of us are on the “wrong” side of?

From what I hear, younger workers (and their often equally young bosses) don’t have the same views on keeping work and personal life separate as dinosaurs like me have. If you’re working in a hip, tech-oriented company and your whole department is all over social media, then connecting with everyone on Facebook is probably the modern equivelent of the water cooler—everyone who’s anyone drops by several times a day to keep up with the latest news. In that case, not joining in could brand you as an outsider, unfriendly, out of the loop, or just not a team player—any of which could mean death to your next promotion.

Regardless of your company culture, keep your Facebook (and Twitter) profiles clean, well-groomed and ready for public inspection at any time. Even if you do decide not to friend your boss, your info can easily get passed around by friends-of-friends and your boss could end up seeing something you’d rather she not know about.

I’m curious—what do you think about bosses and employees connecting on Facebook? Would you/do you do it, and why or why not?

Six weeks ago I decided I was tired of being fat and resolved to, once and for all, slay this dragon without subjecting myself to surgery. Those lap-band ads on television are a siren song and I’m so not going there.

Enter Excellent in Fitness and Tony.

Tony has this idiotic idea that I can exert myself more than I’m doing and that I’m not eating the right food. And I’m busy pointing out to him all the reasons HE’S WRONG. Arguing like Clarence Darrow, but never quite arguing him into a corner. The wily bastard always finds a way out.

If I put this much effort into my workout, I’d be a size 6 already.

We go round and round until I say, for the millionth time in my life, I’m SICK AND TIRED of not getting to eat what I want and of having to do things I DON’T WANT TO DO.

And Tony says, calmly (bless his heart—I’d have strangled me by now), OK, Joan, what makes you happy?

And I say, Eating. Food.

~And he says, What makes you miserable?

Dieting.

~What else?

Coming here.

~Coming here makes you miserable? OK, what else?

Pilates. I hate Pilates.

~OK. What else?

Walking on the treadmill.

~OK. What else?

...pause…

How I look.

~How you look makes you miserable?

(softly) Yes.

~Well, which makes you more miserable? How you look, or coming here?

I have no answer. Oh, I know what the answer should be, but I’m awfully afraid that the answer is “coming here”. Because, if how I look made me more miserable, I’d have done something about it before now. Wouldn’t I? WOULDN”T I?

Do I Want to be Right…or Happy?

Tuesday’s gym encounter kind of slam-dunked me. Why was I so adament about finding ways to not follow a program I paid a lot of money to get into?

Because, buried not-so-deep-inside, I don’t want to succeed. If NOTHING WORKS, then I have an excuse for being fat. I mean, look…I tried EVERYTHING…and NOTHING WORKED. Not my fault. It just didn’t work. Too bad. Grab another doughnut and start looking for the next program to prove wrong.

Because I have to be right. Always. I’ll argue down to the last comma, period and exclamation point.

The sky isn’t blue, it’s cyan.

The meeting didn’t start at 9, it started at 9:05.

I didn’t forget; you never told me.

A long time ago, I was in a seminar and the leader confronted me. He asked, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?”

Of course, I shot back, “I’d rather be right. Because when I’m right, I’m happy.”

Flash forward to Tuesday at the gym.

OK, if I’m right about the diet/exercise not working, am I going to be happy? For that matter, am I happy now?

Not so much.

It’s Easy Being Negative

Why do I find it so easy to be unhappy?

And it’s not just me. It’s a national epidemic. We’re enthralled with the cult of being miserable. We revel in it. We’re triumphant in our unhappiness. It’s almost…orgasmic.

See, we say (gleefully), we TOLD YOU “it” (health care, dieting, romance, electing Obama, bailing out the banks, recycling) wouldn’t work. Nothing ever works.

So, why am I so committed to my dark side? Why do I do everything I can to protect the bitterness, anger, shame and old traumas—no matter what it costs me? (And if I let myself think about what it’s cost me over my lifetime…I’d be so weighed down by the knowledge of what I’ve missed I’d probably never get out of bed again.)

It’s so easy to be unhappy and to view things through that prism. It absolves us from responsibility. It puts the “blame” on someone else.

So, the thought becomes, “No one will hire me because I’m too old“, instead of “My resume isn’t up to date and I don’t get out and network”.

Or, “Diets never work for me”, instead of “I keep choosing unhealthy food to eat”.

Or, “That exercise is too hard. I can’t do it”, instead of “I’ll give it a try”.

In the short term, being negative and unhappy and argumentative seems like the easier path. We don’t have to take responsibility for bad outcomes. We salvage our pride with, “That diet didn’t work” and don’t own the part we played in making sure it didn’t work.

Over time, though, each one of those choices adds more (psychic) weight and makes our lives that much harder. When I’m persistently negative, always seeing that half-empty glass, I’m making a choice —even if by default—to live a life of much-reduced joy.

Do I Want to be Right…or Happy? (redux)

Being happy means living with what comes—warts, sunshine, or whatever. It means taking responsibility for every situation, good and bad. We don’t usually mind taking responsibility when things go right, but it’s harder when “bad” things happen.

Being happy means always choosing joy.

When I’m feeling put upon, or treated unfairly, and I’m angrily (and righteously) waiting for an apology, or to get my piece of the pie, I can’t feel joy. Sometimes, joy means accepting that things just ARE, and then deciding to get over it.

Being happy also means choosing optimism and being open to new people, places, ideas, things. Like a lot of people, I have tons of preconceived ideas—things I KNOW to be true. And that knowledge keeps me stuck in the past.

I CAN’T do that exercise; it’s too hard.

I don’t like oatmeal; it’s yucky. (Note: I’ve never actually tried oatmeal, but I KNOW I don’t like it)

To truly enjoy life, we have to be willing to experience things without knowing the outcome. (Who knows…maybe I really LOVE oatmeal. Maybe I CAN do that exercise. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find out for sure?) When we prejudge, we shut ourselves off from the possibility of learning new things, meeting new people, having different results.

Choosing joy is choosing to be vulnerable, humble and willing to be wrong.

Choosing joy means heading back to the gym with a different attitude. Maybe Tony does know what he’s talking about. Maybe I CAN do that exercise. Maybe I AM stronger than I think.

It means…I’d rather be happy than right.

Because when I’m happy, I am right.

Thanks, Tony…

Here are some top choices for things to do career-wise in the coming year:

1. Network. One of the things I hear most often from clients is, “But…I don’t have a network.” I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating—the time to start your network is not when you need it. You need to be connected to other people in good times, so if the bad times hit you have a place to turn for help. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all are excellent places to reconnect with people from your past, or stay in touch with people you meet now.

2. Keep Current. Stay on top of the latest news in your industry and on what your competitors are doing. Read local, national and international news with an eye for events or trends that may impact your field, and then come up with strategies to prepare for changing market conditions.

3. Learning. Take advantage of training opportunities through your company as often as you can, but also consider broadening your expertise and skills into new areas. Tap into credit and non-credit classes at your local community college, or invest in some online webinars or podcasts to increase your knowledge base.

4. Attend Events. Get out and meet new people at local professional events. Social networking is great, but nothing beats personal, face-to-face interaction. It’s a chance to put your best self forward and lets you put faces to names.

5. Be Professional. Come to work early. Take on extra projects without whining. Don’t pass on gossip. Be polite and helpful in all your communications. Present a clean, sharp, well-put-together appearance. Mind your manners. Don’t tell off-color jokes or post drunken pictures on your Facebook page. If you don’t respect yourself and others, don’t expect the boss to view you as a company asset.

6. Mentoring. Find someone you can relate to and ask if you can pick his or her brain occasionally about career and work issues. At the same time, be on the lookout for someone just starting out who you might be able to help navigate through the things that trip a lot of people up. Always try to pass on what you’ve learned and pay it forward. Remember—no matter how new or inexperienced you are, there’s always someone who knows less than you and who would be grateful for your counsel.

What are your career “resolutions” for the new year?

Much love,

Joan

Well, not so much. Yes, there are a lot of people looking for work, and still more who are fed up with their current job situation, so you’d think this would be a prime time for signing up new clients.

All I can say is, I’m getting a lot of tire kickers. They want to look at the shiny new life they could have, and they might even test-drive it with one of my get-acquainted sessions, but when it comes down to digging deep and plunking down cash to own that life, they hesitate.

Surely, they think, I don’t need to pay someone to tell me how to find a new job. I’ll just send out more resumes and something will come up. Besides, I’m too young/old/female/minority/in the wrong industry/unskilled/over-qualified; no one is going to hire me anyway.

Or, they say, my job isn’t that bad. Heck, at least I HAVE a job. I should be grateful. Anyway, this isn’t the time to take a chance on a new career. I’m fine. Only ten (or twelve, or fifteen) more years until retirement and then I can relax and enjoy myself.

And you know…on the suface, it’s hard to argue with that.

The thing is, I don’t believe you need to wait another minute to start living the life you want.

Relaxing and enjoying yourself doesn’t have to be ten or more years down the road. Wouldn’t you rather be enjoying yourself now? and, to put it bluntly, what if that “ten years” never happens? Life is uncertain, and betting on the come isn’t always the best strategy.

Years ago, when I first met my husband, one of my aunts was dithering about buying a new car. She had decided what she wanted ahead of time but, walking into the dealership, she saw a beautiful, shiny new gold Cougar. Suddenly, the car she had planned to buy didn’t seem so perfect. But…the Cougar was about $2000 more than she wanted to spend.

She went home and called me for advice. Michael got on the phone with her and said, “Listen to me. Remember all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert. If you want the car, buy it.”

She went back to the dealer, bought the Cougar, and never regretted it. She even lived long enough to trade that car in for another one.

So, as 2009 draws down to the end, ask yourself—are you ready to own your life? Are you ready to step up and take the leap into a happier, more fulfilled “you”? Are you ready to drop the negative thoughts, the whining, the “nothing goes right for me” attitude?

If you are, I’m ready for you!

A word of warning—once you decide to take responsibility for your life, and for what you create, you can’t go back. It’s a step forward in faith, and there’s no do-over.

My promise to you…once you decide that “good enough” isn’t good enough for you, and you focus your attention on how you feel, you’ll see amazing things start to happen.

You don’t need to do it alone; I’d love to share it with you, so take the first step, and let’s talk. You have nothing to lose and, even if you decide not to pursue coaching with me, I guarantee you’ll learn something new and useful to guide your journey.

If you’re confused or uncertain about your future, not sure where to go or what’s needed to be competitive in today’s job market, or just looking for some help in the new world of social networking, your answer is here.

My friend, Phil Gerbyshak, has put together the clearest and most comprehensive step-by-step guide to this notion of “branding” yourself I’ve ever read.

Whether you’re looking for a new job, or want to improve the one you have, or you’re ready to step out on your own with a new business, you owe it to yourself to read—and heed—this guide. And it’s completely free—right on Phil’s blog. No sign-ups, no downloads, just there for the taking.

Now, go get started.

At this time of year, Americans gather together with family and friends, sharing food and good wishes, and giving thanks for the abundance in our lives.

As I make preparations for my own Thanksgiving dinner, the words of the Beatles song keep running through my head – “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

We all need friends and family to help us get by. Wherever you are and whatever your family traditions, I urge you to tell the most important people in your life how you feel about them. Nothing matters more to me than the warm, wonderful people in my life, and I am so thankful that you are a part of it.

This week, in your own way, practice gratitude. Take a few moments each day to reflect on what you’re thankful for, no matter how small. The time you spend appreciating what you have will multiply and bring an abundance of good things to you.

May your life be full of celebration, thanksgiving, good food, good company, and fun.

All my best, to you and yours…

Warmly,

Joan

Well, it finally happened. You were forced to lay off some of your staff. The news wasn’t unexpected, but it was still a difficult transition that left your staff demoralized and wondering when the next shoe was going to drop.

This is the time for leadership and vision and it has to come from you. It’s critical that you rally your remaining staff to move forward so the company can prosper. You need to invest time, energy and resources in the people who remain.

Here are five things to think about in motivating your employees through this difficult time.

1. Repair trust. No matter how sensitively layoffs are handled, such an action breaks the trust between employer and employee. Remaining employees often feel scared, depressed and (often) guilty about still having a job. Recognize the wide range of emotions your staff (and you) will experience. Be sensitive to the emotions swirling about and cut everyone some slack as you all process the change and look toward the future. If possible, give employees a chance to vent their feelings through confidential focus groups or interviews conducted by a trained coach or other expert.

2. Make it personal. Talk to each of your employees one-on-one. Let them know they’re valued, how their contribution to the company is needed, and that you support them. Encourage them to share their vision for the “new” company. Ask them for their input on redistributing the workload. This is a great time to ask what resources they need to do their job – specialized training, for example.

3. Address the workload increase head-on. There’s no way around it; if people got laid off, those who remain are going to have to shoulder a bigger workload. This isn’t the time to go it alone. Include your staff in every decision, and involve them in deciding how best to proceed. If you allow them to come up with their own solutions, you’ll end up with an engaged, highly-motivated and hard-working team.

4. Offer opportunities for professional development. Right now, you’re probably limited in terms of salary increases or bonuses, so encourage your people to expand their learning with seminars or workshops. If the company can pay for some of these classes, and/or allow employees to attend during normal work hours, you’re way ahead of the game. Tap your very best people for advance training to support their ongoing growth and ready them to move into positions of increased responsibility and authority.

5. Recognize that people respond differently. Some people have difficulty accepting and adjusting to change; others excitedly embrace change and view it as a wonderful opportunity. Some people need to “talk it out” while others withdraw and brood in silence. You’ll have some complainers and some who agree on the surface but try to quietly sabotage any new ideas. Be ready to deal with all of these (and more) as you bring your group back together.

Have you experiences a layoff—from either side? What are the best (or worst) strategies you’ve seen for getting through it?

They recently added a comprehensive list of the 50 Best Career Books for College Students. Take a look at the list, and then check out their other offerings. Whether you’re a college student already, looking forward to college someday, or your college years are behind you, there’s tons of great info here.