How to network as a software engineer during a pandemic

if you're anything like me you have a strong dislike for networking with everything that has been going on within the last year in this world everyone has been transitioning their life to a mostly online virtual environment and that includes networking this does not make it easier to network online half of the battle is knowing where to network the other half is knowing what to say let's talk about some tips and tricks that could help you with both so that you can get out meet some new people build relationships so that one day we could see these people in person hello everyone my name is tiffany i create things that live online and this is one of them if you're new here don't forget to like comment share and subscribe and let's go i recommend going to meetups and events that have to do with networking some people will put on meetups and events so that you can network with like-minded professionals those are the meetups and events that you want to gravitate towards because they have a platform specifically set up so that you could communicate with other people when it comes to meetups conferences and other events use chat rooms to connect on zoom you could send a direct message to somebody that you want to talk to on other platforms it might be different but you should have a chat room available to you no matter what platform that you're on at your event if you don't have a chat room available exit the room immediately and do not come back just kidding don't do that because clubhouse technically doesn't have a chat either and you could still talk to people because it's a voice application so make sure that you're present listening to the speaker understanding what they're saying and if you have questions be sure that you ask those questions during your event or make sure to get the information to contact the speaker after the event usually speakers will have something up there that says okay here's a slide or something connect with me this way and then go on there and find ways to connect with them over social media or email now it's a little bit more difficult to network with the participants at the meetup but it can be done if you so desire so i recommend that while people are coming into whatever platform platform you're on um there might be like an icebreaker question or something like that you could type hello in the chat throughout the event if some participant says something interesting and you want to connect further with them and zoom you can send them a direct message if there's nothing like that in the chat that you're in you could also like say at such and such that sounds cool at such and such and then whatever you want to ask them so let's say mary just said that she has um some cool dogs and that she likes to make websites about her dogs and just put up information about them you'd be like hey at mary that's pretty cool i also have dogs and i'm trying to figure out how to make a website for them can you give me some tips or would you want to connect after this maybe can you tell me about how you're doing your website give me some insight that hopefully i could use for my own website so do you see there that's networking after you have a way to connect with these people that you are finding at these events the next thing you want to do is you want to follow up with them over any social media or email so um this is a good practice to get into when you're following up make sure to mention how you met them what platform you met them on or um what maybe you guys talked about anything like that that might be clarifying especially if it's a future time that you're connecting with them and time has passed this is especially important on linkedin so when you're connecting with somebody make sure to write a message about how you guys know each other uh just so that when they see that message like oh yeah that's mary from the chat i was in of the day because i was in the meetup and she wanted to talk more about dogs and websites okay cool and then now they have that connection and then you could start talking to one another that way and she'll also probably approve it a lot faster just a little tidbit um if you ever try to connect with me over linkedin especially if you don't leave a note nine times out of ten i'm not going to connect with you back i'd respond better with people that send notes so i can understand where we met each other from because i'm like who are you i want to connect but i don't know who you are so you could use social media to network as well i have talked about this in other videos but let's go into a little bit more detail why we're here on twitter instagram linkedin all those social media platforms they all have hashtags i've done a video on various coding communities and some of them actually have hashtags that they use to reach out to their community and for others to be a part of the community and join and chat in i recommend finding those how do you find those well it kind of depends on what you're interested in are you a woman in tech are you a black tech engineer are you interested in coding do you want to figure out learn how to code do you want to know about javascript do you want to learn javascript kind of figure out which categories pertain to you and then just simply go in and do a quick search to see if those hashtags exist within the community that you're trying to get involved in as you get more involved in the community as you start interacting with more people you'll find that they're using more hashtags and then you can figure out what they're hashtagging and all those sorts of things as well with that not only do you want to follow those people on there you also want to start some conversations so you want to make sure that you're liking people's posts if you like it but you also want to make sure that you're interacting with those people because that's where the networking piece comes in at so when you're doing that i recommend commenting on a post that they said that was interesting to you but only if it's interesting to you don't just go around commenting and liking stuff if you don't like it um if they're doing something cool you want to learn more about it make sure that you are telling them that tell people if they're doing something amazing if they're doing something awesome let them know and then also figure out how you can get involved with what they're doing if you think something's cool and you want to learn more about it definitely ask those clarifying questions so that you could start that dialogue with people as well so when you're talking about generally networking with people you're generally trying to build relationships and so in order to make those relationships possible you're going to have to network with people talk with people really um come to just i'm not talking about like know everything about them and their mom and they they people and stuff like that you don't even know all that i'm just saying you definitely need to like start the dialogue and make it happen when it comes to networking for like a a job you want to connect with a recruiter i have a separate video about how you can um reach out to recruiters and i will link that above in addition to using social media there's also forums so a lot of times uh websites like free code camp and just a general websites that connect people together in community also have their own forms sometimes they have their own discord servers as well or slack channels now to find about to find out about these you'll have to definitely search and figure out what platforms they are on and figure out do a little bit of research into that but i believe it always starts with social media and that means finding the right hashtags that you want to follow and then just kind of continuing to like search through there and and find people a lot of times we have a ton of people in our timeline in our feed and so if you're just scrolling throughout the day you'll find something that's interesting that piques your interest and then they might be talking about a different platform or something that you did not know about and they might introduce you to something or a different way to network with people in the form of forums discord servers and slack channels so i would definitely make sure that you are taking that first step which is like finding people out there in the world to connect with in addition to that there's also like twitch there's people live streaming on twitch all the time so they also have platforms that they also connect people on as well so and once you have found um your group of people that you want to connect with it's as simple as figuring out how to connect with them and that's when you go and uh usually their offerings of how to connect with them is very simple it's usually connected to a social media account or something like twitch where you can go in and type in a phrase and then get feedback on how to join that community and definitely take advantage of that and then after that you're in you're in and then you could you could start the dialogue with people now that you know where to go find people how to get started what you're doing the next thing you want to do is you might be like okay what do i say to these people how do what am i supposed to say i don't even know all right well hold on don't click off the video just yet i got something else for you i'm gonna give you a couple of dialogue tips you know i've sprinkled some already throughout this video so far but i'm gonna give you a little bit of something extra that hopefully you can use that will help you start conversations with people so that you can start building those relationships ask people what they're working on we've talked about this so i'm not going to talk about it much more but just ask people what they're working on plain and simple be interested in it and ask about what they're working on ask them questions about something that you can't figure out say that you're having trouble and you're like i just don't know this and you run across someone on twitter under the hashtag learn javascript and jeffrey has a principle that he's talking about and he's tweeting about and you're like oh this is what i was looking for all right tell jeffrey that it was interesting so he knows that you're giving him something valuable and then if you have additional questions about it connect with him and say hey i still am having a little bit of trouble with this or i'd like an example on how to do this do you have one that you're able to present to me ask them about something on their profile if it turns out that theodore has some he's talking about ducks and his profile that he likes to just waddle around with him and whatnot you're like man you waddle around with ducks that's that's a weird thing but i think it might be kind of cool that's cool let me ask you more about that like where do you do this waterling do you have ducks as pets like how does this work so really just kind of get to know people if you're just really trying to network to find more about people i definitely recommend that you just find something in their profile and try to connect with them that way at the end of the day it's all about starting the dialogue you can also just start having your own dialogues on social media as well i don't mean talk to yourself if you're learning something that you think is cool i definitely recommend that you tweet about it or do a blog post about it and share it or maybe you go into different slack rooms that you're now a part of or discord groups and say hey i thought this was cool wanted to share boom you're done all right a lot of times people also will think that thing is cool and then you guys can start talking and chatting about it and then who knows what'll happen all right relationships right this is what we're doing in 2021 we're building them up okay that's what we're doing all right now you got the tips you got the knowledge you know what to do you have the information and i really hope that you just go out there and you need network build relationships with people if this has helped you be sure to let me know below give me a like give me a comment whatever so desire that you feel don't forget to take care of yourself and be kind to others thank you for tuning in to this video don't forget to like comment share and subscribe and i will see you in the next one take care y'all

Channel: Tiffany

Views: 189

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: network during a pandemic, how to network as a software engineer, how to network as a web developer, virtual networking tips, virtual networking tips and tricks, how to make internet friends on twitter, how to build relationships virtually, how introverts network, virtual networking 101, how to network on social media, how to network for introverts, how to network as a developer, network durig a pandemic, how to build a strong network online, Networking during lockdown

Id: aeRMaiHbOx8

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 09 2021