When the time came and I officially held the title of college graduate, I decided my next step would be a congressional internship in Washington, D.C.  At the first networking event I attended on the Hill, I quickly realized that I had no idea what I was doing.  Should I circle the room a few times?  Do I read the name tag again or act like I heard that guy’s name the first time?  To linger or not to linger? It can all be so confusing.  This, my friends, is why I’ve laid out some networking advice for recent college graduates. It’s kind of scary out there… but we have all heard the saying: It’s all about who you know.

1. The power of the business card.

Business cards allow professionals to exchange contact information and encourage further correspondence.  As a recent college graduate, you might not have a fancy title just yet.  That’s OK.  Put your name, contact information, and your degree on the card.  Want to take it up a notch?  Make a creative, memorable business card so you’ll stand out from the rest.

2. Be interested.  

Being a young professional means: 1. You’re young and 2. You’re (hopefully) interested in bettering yourself and improving within your career.  More than anything, networking provides young professionals with an outlet to learn from their more experienced peers. There’s always going to be that one guy who tries to force his GPA and prior work experience into the conversation, but I think most experienced professionals appreciate mentoring and discussing the industry with young professionals interested in improving themselves.

3. Networking is multifaceted.

As a recent graduate, our main focus after graduation is to find a good job that makes the mountainous student loans we’ve acquired worth it.  Networking can help you meet the right people who could lead you to your dream job, but networking is also much more than that.  You don’t just network to find a job.  Networking is about sharing ideas, concepts, and strategies within the professional work world. If a group of artists all painted the same still life, each painting would be unique because of the artists’ differing creative visions. Similarly, in public relations, there are dozens of ways to get your key messages across to the target audience.  It can be beneficial to learn from your peers because they may think of a tactic you never would’ve considered before.

Learn from my initial networking cluelessness with these simple, yet beneficial networking recommendations for recent graduates.  Have any networking tips you’d like to share with us?  We’d love to hear what works for you!