Tracking your networking efforts is critical for tapping the hidden job market. 

As you embark upon your job search, take a moment and think of yourself as a salesperson.  Finding a job is a sales process in which you’re selling yourself.  I know that can sound daunting and many people don’t like the idea of sales let alone selling yourself, but let’s take the selling-yourself-piece out of it for a minute.

For a salesperson to be effective, he or she needs to have good organization so they know who to target and when to follow up.  It’s critical for their success. 

The same goes for your job search.  You need to know who to target and when to follow up.  Rather than taking a scattershot approaching with networking, if you track your interactions with your contacts, you’ll remain more disciplined in your networking efforts, which will help you land your dream job sooner.

Most salespeople use a CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, tool.  A CRM tool helps a salesperson keep track of information about sales prospect so they can maximize their success.

Similar to a salesperson, for you to maximize your networking efforts, it’s critical you also use a CRM.  We’ve created a simple Networking Tracker Template for you to get you started.

DOWNLOAD OUR NETWORKING TRACKER TEMPLATE

Start out by listing every person you know and have stayed in touch with over the past 5 years.  Just start typing names.  Don’t worry about if those people are relevant to your search or not.  Just list every relationship you can think of.  It could be personal contacts or professional contacts.  Ideally, there’s a good mix of both.  Make the list as long as possible.  Can you come up with 50 names?  How about 100?  How about 200?

Now, think of some people who you don’t currently have a relationship with and aren’t currently on your list, but who you’ve heard of in the community and who you think could be beneficial to your job search if you had a relationship.  It could be CEOs of companies.  It could be leaders at certain nonprofits.  It could be people you’ve seen speak at events.  See how many more names you can come up with.

From there, fill in the rest of the columns in our Networking Tracker Template to categorize your contacts and prioritize who you want to start reaching out to.  You can rate how strong of a connection they are.  You can keep track of if you’ve emailed them or called them recently.  This spreadsheet is a repository of who you’re keeping in touch with about your job search.  That way, you know when you last contacted certain people and can set a cadence for reaching out.

You can download this template and customize it according to your own needs.

Good luck!