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When Shira Saiger headed to Cartagena, Colombia for a friend's wedding in October 2010, she wasn't expecting the trip to lead her to her dream job. But as a corporate attorney at Gibson Dunn's New York City office, she was always looking for an opportunity to jump to the legal offices at a media company.
2010年10月，希拉·塞格去哥倫比亞卡塔赫納參加朋友的婚禮。當時，她并未想到，這次行程會讓她得到自己夢寐以求的工作。那時，她還是Gibson Dunn律師事務所紐約市辦事處的一名企業(yè)律師，但她一直希望有機會加入一家媒體公司的法律部門工作。
The bride's sister knew an attorney at ABC, and after following up a few months later, Saiger passed along her resume, not knowing what -- if anything -- would come of it. By July, she was a lawyer at Hearst.
新娘的姐姐認識ABC公司的一名律師。認識幾個月后，塞格便提交了自己的簡歷，但她并不知道會得到怎樣的結果，或者說是否會有任何結果。7月，她如愿成為赫斯特集團（Hearst）的一名律師。
Networking didn't always come easily to Saiger, who admits she was initially shy about reaching out to people she didn't know. "But once I got more in the habit of it, " she says, "it got much easier to do."
構建關系網(wǎng)對于塞格來說并不容易。她承認最初自己對于主動與陌生人聯(lián)系也心存膽怯。她說道：“不過，一旦習慣了這種做法，事情就變得容易很多。”
A 2009 survey by Challenger, Gray &Christmas, an outplacement consultancy, found that Saiger's experience fits the rule, not the exception: The report ranked networking as the most effective way to find a new job, beating out social networking sites like LinkedIn (LNKD) and Internet job search engines like Indeed.com.
根據(jù)再就業(yè)咨詢公司Challenger, Gray & Christmas于2009年進行的一項調(diào)查，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，塞格的做法完全符合規(guī)則，并不屬于例外情況：報告將構建關系網(wǎng)列為尋找新工作最有效的途徑，重要程度超過了商務社交網(wǎng)站LinkedIn等社交網(wǎng)絡和Indeed.com等互聯(lián)網(wǎng)求職搜索引擎。
Christine Shin, career counselor at Barnard College, says she tells her advisees that they should be putting 80% of their job search time into networking and only 20% into cranking out resumes. But for those who send out plenty of networking emails and phone calls only to hear nothing but silence, the question isn't why they should network, but how.
伯納德學院（Barnard College）的職業(yè)顧問克里斯汀?西恩稱，她會告訴前來咨詢的學生，他們必須將80%的求職時間用于建立關系網(wǎng)，編寫簡歷的時間只要有20%就足夠了。然而，對于那些發(fā)送了大量聯(lián)絡郵件、打了許多電話，最后卻無功而返的求職者來說，問題不再是為何要建立關系網(wǎng)，而是如何有效地建立關系網(wǎng)。
Like Saiger originally did, many people feel uncomfortable networking because they feel like they are asking for something -- a new job. But Shin suggests looking at networking in a different light: "Networking is making connections, " not asking for a job.
正如塞格最初的感受，許多人在構建關系網(wǎng)時感覺不自在，因為他們覺得好像是在像別人祈求一份新工作。但西恩建議換一個角度來看待關系網(wǎng)的建立：“建立關系網(wǎng)就是與其他人建立聯(lián)系”，而不是祈求一份工作。
For people who don't naturally find it easy to talk to strangers, networking can be difficult work -- far more stressful than blindly applying to jobs online, for example -- and when efforts seem to fail, many people give up. The first step may be to lower your expectations. According to Shin, for every 10 people a professional networker reaches out to, he or she may only hear back from a few. "They key is to emphasize the positive. If those two people got back to you, immediately follow up, " she advises. "Go see them even if they're not working that closely in something you want." She adds, "Try not to obsess too much about the 'No's.'"
對于那些天生不擅長與陌生人打交道的人，建立關系網(wǎng)肯定有些困難。比如，他們會認為這比在網(wǎng)上盲目求職更有壓力。而且，一旦感覺之前的努力毫無成效，許多人會就此放棄。所以，第一步，或許就是降低自己的期望值。西恩稱，職業(yè)關系網(wǎng)聯(lián)絡人每聯(lián)系10個人，或許只能得到幾個回復。她建議：“關鍵是要看到積極一面。如果有兩人給了你回復，應該立刻跟進。即便他們的工作與你期望的職業(yè)沒有太大關系，也應該去拜訪一下。盡量不要被那些‘拒絕’所困擾。”
Asaf Katzir, co-founder of CareerSonar, a website that matches your LinkedIn and Facebook (FB) connections with the Internet's seemingly endless job listings, offers similar advice. "If the person [you've reached out to] doesn't feel like they can really help you, and they don't want to say it out loud, so they ignore you, try to find someone else to refer you to the job or move on to the next opportunity, " he says. "There's surprisingly a lot out there."
CareerSonar網(wǎng)站聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人阿塞夫·卡齊爾也給出了類似的建議。這家網(wǎng)站會將求職者在LinkedIn和Facebook的聯(lián)系人與互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上海量的職位進行匹配。他說：“如果（你主動聯(lián)系的）那個人感覺無法給你提供真正的幫助，但又不想說出來，他們便會不理睬你，這時求職者便應該嘗試尋找其他人給你推薦工作，或繼續(xù)尋找下一個機會。機會總是無處不在。”
Saiger's experience is evidence of the power of positive thinking and not taking those "No's" -- or, more likely, lack of responses -- too personally. During the nine months she spent networking, Saiger estimates that she reached out to at least 50 people, many of them people she had never met before, and didn't hear back from as many as half of them. "Some of those people were incredibly responsive. Some of them I never heard back from. Some of them I sent follow-up emails to and then they were responsive, " she says. "Some of them introduced me to other people to network with. It was a wide range of responses."
不要把那些拒絕，甚至得不到任何回復的遭遇放在心里。塞格的經(jīng)歷便充分證明了積極思考的力量。在建立關系網(wǎng)的最初九個月里，她估計自己至少聯(lián)系了50人，其中許多都是素未謀面的陌生人，有一半一直杳無音訊。她說：“有的人非常積極地做了回復。有的人卻一直沒有音信。我給有的人發(fā)了跟進郵件，然后他們便做出了回應。有的人會把我介紹給其他人。回復的內(nèi)容五花八門。”
Try to learn from whatever mistakes you make along the way and just keep plugging away at it. "Be respectfully persistent, " Shin says, by sending a single follow-up email to a potential connection if you haven't heard back. "People are busy, " and end up missing emails.
在這個過程中，盡量從自己的錯誤中總結經(jīng)驗，但要一直堅持下去。西恩說：“要堅持不懈，但也應該有禮有節(jié)。”如果沒有收到回復，可以向潛在聯(lián)系人發(fā)一封跟進郵件。因為“大家都很忙，” 發(fā)一封跟進郵件可以避免他們錯過你的郵件。
While Shin recommends just the one follow-up, Gen-Y self-help guru Alexis Sclamberg, who relies on networking to meet editors, land speaking engagements, and find more media outlets to write for, takes a more assertive approach. "I send one email a week for at least a month before I give up on somebody," she says. "If I follow up two more times, the likelihood of my hearing back is very high."
雖然西恩建議只發(fā)送一封跟進郵件，而千禧一代自助大師阿萊克西斯?斯科萊姆伯格卻采取了一種更為堅定的方法。她依靠建立關系網(wǎng)來結交編輯、獲得演講機會，找到更多為媒體機構寫作的機會。她說：“我每周發(fā)一封電子郵件，堅持至少一個月，然后才會放棄某個人。如果我多跟進兩次，得到回復的可能性便會更高。”
Sclamberg also recommends networking with people where there may be a mutual benefit. Even when she was just starting out and had little to offer to colleagues, "I always just offered to support their work, even if I didn't have anything specific I could give them."
斯科萊姆伯格還建議，與可能為彼此帶來好處的人交往。雖然在剛開始的時候，她還不能給同事帶來太多好處。“但我經(jīng)常會主動提出為他們的工作提供支持，雖然我能幫助他們的地方少之又少。”
Keith Ferrazzi, author of networking guides Who's Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone, echoes that lesson, saying that networkers need to learn to "lead with generosity." Whether it's just by being warm and friendly, offering something in return (e.g. to reciprocate with a professional favor or even to volunteer your time to the person's favored charity), or making a personal connection. "Nobody really has time for anybody unless you give them a reason to have time."
人際交往指南《誰在力挺你》（ Who's Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone）一書的作者凱斯?法拉奇也認同這種觀點。他認為，關系網(wǎng)聯(lián)絡人要“以慷慨為先”。你可以表現(xiàn)出熱情或友善，對你想要聯(lián)系的對象提供某些回報（例如提供職業(yè)協(xié)助作為回報，或主動拿出時間參加對方青睞的慈善活動等），或者聯(lián)絡私人感情。“沒有人真的有時間應付其他人，除非你能給他們一個理由，讓他們自愿拿出時間。”
