Follow-Up
My mother who read my entire blog earlier this week questioned whether I follow-up on all of the connections I list. I informed her that of course I do; everything gets done.
Today was a banner day for follow-up.
In the morning I filled out the online application for a job that my old roommate connected me to, and that I have an interview for on Monday.
I responded to emails from people I met last night and forwarded resumes of more qualified people to hiring managers I knew were looking, and some recruiters who are always appreciative of talent that comes across their desk.
Then I went corporate. I attended a new consultant briefing at Msquared, a firm that specializes in helping big companies connect with “contingent talent” (consultants). I had been turned on to them a few weeks ago through the Product Development and Management Association of Los Angeles. It was a good experience for me for a few reasons, most of which surrounding the fact that I was the most junior person there by at least 10 years. First, it gave me the opportunity to hear from people who have a lot more experience than me to just know what the future could hold. It also afforded me the chance to meet with the consultant matchmakers of sorts so that they could understand better what I bring to the table. I expressed to them that I should be there go to girl for companies that are requesting a team of consultants because I’m the only one in the room who’d be happy to work under one of the others in attendance. The presenters also emphasized the importance of having multiple resumes up on their site to showcase different skills and experiences.
When I got back to my computer the final proofs were ready for my business cards, made by Printrunner, a friend of mine’s company. It’s always good when a connection can save you money. I responded to a few emails about potential jobs, and sent an email to the Director of Young Alumni relations for the UCLA Fund, who I met last night at the UCLAlumni Academy dinner, about the possibility of being her Assistant Director. I forwarded an inviation for an upcoming Maniatv event to Jun and Ya-kai of FutureDelivery (who I had the pleasure of speaking with earlier this week) and they were grateful. Last, there were a few emails back and forth following up on questions about the Iphone application suite, which is getting more an more exciting by the day.
In the evening I had a call with a product manager of a very big tech product, who I had been connected to through the person I had coffee with on Monday who was looking for a business development person, who I had been connected to through Andrew of Mixergy. This was a conversation that might have been one of the best half hours of advice I could have ever been given. Highlights from our talk are that I should definitely wait as long as I can for an Assistant/Assiciate Product Manager position at a company whos product passionate about. If I have to take a job that’s less dynamic, he reminded me that there are always tons of ways to learn no matter where I am. He also made the very relavant point that I can never have too much technical knowledge and that learning wordpress, and then php/python or another programming language will not only strengthen the products I develop, but earn me more credibility with the engineers and potential employers. Finally, he encouraged me to become what he called a “social media maven”, in todays tech world there is nothing more powerful that a good blog, an active twitter, and Facebook knowledge.
I spent the rest of my evening trying to get my website up and running (still a work in progress) and I’m committed to doing it myself so that I can learn the backend. One of these days it will happen.
After drinks with friends to celebrate one of us becoming a US Citizen (he was waiting until Bush was out of power), I came home and did some more follow up emails with the Msquared folks, and my connection to Non-profit consultants, before coming back to by blog and my twitter and my facebook to continue to connect and learn about connecting in new ways.
