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Networking: The Complete Guide

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By Dan Moseson, Humanities Career Coach

Edited by Juan Rios, Career Success Intern

Published: February 21, 2025

Networking may be the most important thing you’ll ever do for your career. Even with a college degree, good grades, and great experience, someone with a connection with an employer will still have an advantage in the job search. In fact, employers may go with someone they know even if they have a weaker resume. While a large part of landing a job can feel like luck, you can strike your own luck by learning how to connect and maintain lasting relationships with companies that you want to work for.

How to Network

Networking is making genuine connections with people who can advance your career. You don’t do it by asking for a job. Instead it's done by showing interest in their career and how they built it. Fortunately, it’s really like everyday conversation. If you’re more outgoing, a networking event would work better when learning about careers. If you’re more introverted, arranging a private meeting will serve you best in gathering the information you need. The key is genuine interest in learning from employers. 

Group Events: For networking during a group event, such as an info session or career fair, prepare an elevator pitch, or a summary of who you are and what you’re looking for. It starts a conversation with someone new and allows you to ask further questions about a company or team you’d like to join. Do your research on the employer ahead of time, and plan questions about things you’re genuinely interested in. Meet with your career coach for help in preparing your elevator pitch or additional steps to grow a new connection into a professional relationship. 

One-on-One: If you prefer one-to-one conversations, the key is to find people you genuinely want to connect with and learn from. These conversations are commonly called “informational interviews.” Again, what’s most important is genuine interest in people and their work. They are not interviewing you for a job, you are interviewing them about their job. Be sure to send a thank you note within 24 hours after your conversation, and follow up from time to time to keep the relationship going. 

Whether you’re attending a group event or scheduling an individual meeting, here are some conversation starters:

  • What is your role like? 
  • How did you start your career?
  • What is the most exciting and challenging part of your role? 
  • How can I set myself up for a successful career in this field?
  • Who can I connect with to continue exploring this career?

Networking Tools

LinkedIn, the best-known tool for networking, is a work-focused social media network. You can use LinkedIn’s browse and search functions to find new people to connect with. A great way to do this is by going to the University of Utah’s Linkedin page and searching for alumni. Your connections to alumni will give you a great advantage in learning more about career paths and building relationships with companies. 

Additionally, you can join a wide range of groups focused on particular career paths of your interest. By joining conversations, you will build relationships and learn about possible careers. Your career coach can help you create a strong LinkedIn profile and help you use LinkedIn to network. 

LinkedIn is great for finding people to connect with, but keep in mind it has limitations in terms of contacting them. Unless you pay $40 per month for the lowest-tier premium subscription, you can only directly message people who have accepted your connection request. You can send five messages a month with connection requests (using the “add a note” feature), but these are limited to 200 characters. Even with a premium subscription, you can only send five messages a month to people you’re not connected with. 

CareerShift is a University of Utah tool that students can access through Handshake to get around LinkedIn limitations. This tool is excellent for finding job and internship opportunities, but it is even more useful for networking. 

Use the search feature under “contacts” to find email addresses for people you’ve found on LinkedIn and write to them to request conversations to learn about their careers. In fact, you don’t even need to start with a person’s name. You can search by employer or by job title, e.g. “content creator” or “park ranger.” Filter out senior or executive-level employees, as folks a little further down the ranks will likely make early networking contacts easier. 

Steps to access CareerShift

Why does networking matter? 

Networking matters because relationships are key in hiring for many roles. The majority of jobs are not posted online, and applications from strangers are the last place employers will look to fill openings. They will start with the people they know then look at their employees’ connections. When employers open desirable jobs to outside applicants, they are swamped with online applications, many of them largely created with AI tools. Hiring managers can often spot these; but even if they can’t, networking can build you something that AI still cannot replicate - the authentic personal connections that will help you start on the career path you want.  

Meet with your career coach to learn more about networking and how to use tools such as LinkedIn and CareerShift.

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