Level 5 Advertising and Brand Communications student Molly Heptinstall shares her top tips for successful networking!

Throughout your experience at university, you will be provided with many opportunities to network, whether that is with other students, lecturers, or professionals in your field, these are all hugely important.đź“ť 

When at university, connections can be what makes jobs, internships, and placements. Connections can also provide you with wider mindsets, can provide you with alternative viewpoints and opportunities you never knew existed. 🤍

Trust me, I know networking is scary, speaking to professionals who you dream of being as qualified as, it’s truly daunting and will have you overthinking every word you speak, but you’ll be fine.

When going into this nature of events, try and think of what will come from them, then also remember that these people were once in our positions, they understand what it is like to want this career, they understand the work that goes into it and won’t judge you.

My top tips for these events:

  • Plan conversation starters and topics, for me this is advertising, think of your favourite campaigns, research the brands that these professionals work for and campaigns they have done, think of research you have done in your course or in your own time online or on LinkedIn. Think of small talk conversation starters and usually the conversation will flow from there, these people want to know about you just as much as you want to know about them.
  • Don’t be shy! I know it’s scary to approach people you don’t know but as long as you’re respectful and polite, everyone there will be more than willing to chat.
  • Have aims of topics that you want to find out about. Is there anything you want to know more about? This links to the conversation topics, but going in with specific aims can help give you confidence and purpose when creating conversations.
  • LinkedIn!!! This app is your absolute best friend at these kind of events, make sure you get names of the people you speak to, to then further connect with them on LinkedIn, on there people are likely to like and reshare content that you’d be interested in. This will also help you maintain the connection and may give you an upper hand when applying for jobs whether it is with companies where you’ve met employees of or completely separate ones, having connections on LinkedIn shows genuine subject interest and shows how eager you are to be a part of the industryÂ