How to Chart Your Connections
This activity aims to demonstrate how to identify people in existing networks who can offer advice, guidance, or connections.
[Note to Instructors: Activity 2 and 3 will focus on building a personal network using the My Network tool. The activity has students identify their career interest and people they know along with their connection to them. Depending on the student, they may have the necessary information to complete the worksheet during this lesson. If not, this worksheet may be given to the student to complete at home or school prior to these activities to better prepare for discussion. This information will be helpful for setting up additional opportunities in Lesson 2: Ask, Listen, Learn: The Informational Interview and Lesson 3: Worksite Tours and Job Shadowing. Encourage students to reach out to their network to share what they are doing as a part of Work-Based Learning and see if anyone in their network would be interested in doing an informational interview, worksite tour, or job shadow experience with them or other students.]
Discuss
Networking isn’t just about connecting with strangers; it often starts with people you already know. You can begin by using the relationships you already have, such as family, teachers, professors/instructors, academic advisor, family friends, coaches, classmates, mentor, coworkers, and more. These people can provide guidance, share their experiences, and even connect you with other professionals who can help you grow. These relationships can lead to opportunities like job shadows, informational interviews, and job tours.
To help us get started, we’re going to use the My Network tool to write down names of people in your support network. First, I’ll show you an example before working on your network. [Note to Instructors: Using a space where all students can see (e.g. a board in the classroom, flip chart paper, or projection screen), use the My Network tool to highlight your network connections.]
I am going to show you how you can start to create your own network. This is just an example, and you can find other ways to list your network if this one does not work for you. I’m using the My Network resource. I will start with my name in the middle circle and a career interest. For this example, I am going to say I am interested in learning more about computers and technology. [Note to Instructor: Feel free to change the interest to something different if needed.]
Now, I am going to think about people I know. These could be people from school, work, church, or even family and friends. I want to think of someone who works with computers, technology, or people who help with hiring people for these jobs. I know someone and I’m going to write their name into the space for Person 1. I am going to write where they work, what they do, and how I can get in touch with them. This can be an email address, phone number to call or text, or another way to chat them.
[Note to Instructors: Complete the information for Person 1 to model how to fill in the My Network tool. Depending on students’ understanding of the activity and time, you may continue to add names. It may also help to see if students know someone at the school that works with computers or technology (or whatever example field you chose). This will help them draw the connection to the networking activity.]
Since I have a contact that works in computers and technology or has a connection to computers and technology. There are a few things I could do next.
- If I don’t know much about computers and technology: I could reach out to them to see if they would be willing to answer some questions I have about their job and to learn more about what they do. They may also be open to letting me shadow them for part of their day to learn about their work and responsibilities.
- If I know a lot about computers and technology: I have some experience and believe I am interested in network security, which is keeping computers and devices safe from hackers or viruses. I could reach out to my contact to see if they do this type of work or know anyone who does.
Resources