In recent months we have had to adapt how we interact and communicate in order to build professional and in some cases personal relationships. Many citizens across the world and here in the UK have sadly lost their jobs and worse livelihoods as a result of COVID-19. With the job market now very populated, what can job seekers use as an advantage in the hunt for work? One such advantage is the power of networks.
Back when I was 12 years old I missed selection to represent my district football team. I had been performing amazingly scoring over 40 goals in the season and was regularly being watched by football scouts. I was excited when the announcement was being made about the squad selection. Being 12 you can imagine this to me was like being selected for England at a World Cup. When the announcement had been made and my name wasn't called out you can imagine my feelings. My dad on the drive back home offered words of comfort as he usually did after a disappointment. He said “I spoke with the coach and he told me you just need to keep working hard. To be honest son you have scored 40 goals and you're being watched by scouts, you have done amazing things”. His follow up was something he hadn't said to me before “Sometimes it's not what you know, but who you know”. Looking back now he couldn't have been more right!
Connections provide us with opportunities to collaborate, develop and network. Having the key contacts can be beneficial in many walks of life but in particular when looking for work. This is an area perhaps we overlook when we work with students. Students naturally build networks within an organisational setting through friendships and clubs but, how can we develop this further and provide them with the means to access more people and opportunities?
Work placements and volunteering provide some great opportunities for learners to mix and network with professionals and like minded individuals. Not all learners always see the benefit of taking part in such activities. If lockdowns have proven anything to us it is that feeling connected is very important to our personal health and wellness. Thankfully being able to undertake meetings and networking opportunities online have been a godsend. I have no data to go on but I wonder how many active learners in further education took the opportunity to contact professionals online to network? My guess is that this figure is low.
Moving forward due to COVID, there is a real possibility of reduced capacity to complete a work placement or volunteering in person due to the risk and organisations not having capacity to offer placements to non employee based personnel. If this is to be the case, groups of our young people could miss opportunities to gain connections and future employment opportunities for potentially years to come. How can we ensure this does not happen?
Many students will be starting college life this month and perhaps will need to complete a CV to share with their new tutor. If you are reading this and you have asked learners to create a CV, don't bother! Lets get students engaging in professional networks such as LinkedIn. The platform is awesome for learners to develop a presence online, gain new knowledge from contacts and potentially acquire work experience (in person or online) or longer term employment opportunities. The ability to build networks via LinkedIn is priceless, alongside some of the other features such as professional development which is available. This is where we need to move things moving forward.
There seems to be barriers on occasion in implementing something like asking a learner to create a LinkedIn profile. Some staff may see this as a safeguarding risk or it makes students too accessible. In my own opinion, if we educate students on online safety and risks of the internet we should support and monitor them in spreading their wings on an online professional place. Perhaps letting them ride solo without guidance and monitoring is a greater risk.
Even more so than support in using online tools, learners need development in stretching networking muscles. In previous blogs i have spoken about project based learning, there is no greater opportunity for learners to flex these muscles than PBL. Projects are what the world is built on. NASA put a man on the moon = project. Jurgen Klopp took Liverpool to the Premier League title, a project he said he would achieve within 5 years (and he did!!). Projects allow learners to grow, to find expertise, to take control of their learning. Please if you do anything this year with learners run a project and see what happens.
COVID has been a setback for the world in general but as a result we have seen many innovations and brilliance. The future generations will need perseverance to overcome future problems, some current such as the environment and some unknown or uncertain (encounters of the third kind maybe). It is vital that we develop the ability to work with students to see the benefit in collaboration and group intelligence. As Spock says in Star Trek “The need of the many outweigh the need of the few, or the one”. Networks provide us with opportunities and the space for growth. Without that ability I fear for the global health of the planet as we move into the next 50 years.
To conclude, please think about how as teachers and trainers we can develop those networking muscles in our learners. This could be as basic as a mock interview with an employer, attending a career event, video pal schemes, whatever it might be, let's get learners talking to new connections. The long term benefit to the learner is priceless. The short term pain and awkwardness of talking to someone new is far outweighed by the long term benefit of doing so.
Thanks for Reading
