February 26, 2003: Features

NET GAIN

Networking nights lead to job contacts — and more

By Kathryn Beaumont ’96

Shortly after she moved to San Francisco in 2001, after working in New York and London, Catarina Norman ’96 decided to find a mentor. She had worked in a variety of financial fields — including investment banking and venture capital – but she wanted someone who could help her navigate through the world of business.

“When you’re relatively new in the working world, and even if you’re not,” she says, “you need someone who is neither parent nor friend to give you advice, to help you find your strengths and weaknesses.” So she reached out to the Bay Area’s Princeton community, which led her to the Alumni Council’s Careers Committee, and ultimately to Lee Dudka *77, its chairman. The next thing she knew, Dudka had tapped her to run the quarterly San Francisco-area Princeton Net Nights, and soon she was securing a conference room in a Palo Alto law firm for a meeting space, lining up panel speakers, collecting surveys, and even shelling out for wine and cheese.

Running the San Francisco events has left Norman little time to actively seek out that mentor, but it has made her into one herself. “If I meet someone who says they’re interested in public health, I might have just met someone else who has an M.P.H.,” she says. “So I can introduce them, and even if I don’t further my own specific business interests, I feel like I came away having created a forum for others.”

Such is the nature of true networking — a willingness to give to get — and it is the idea behind the Princeton Net Nights, which have sprung up in five cities in the past two years. Organizers stress that the evenings, which are open to spouses, siblings, and friends of Princeton alumni, are not about flipping out business cards and résumés, but about creating relationships.

“If you start networking when you’re looking for a job, you’re starting too late,” says Ron Coleman ’85, a lawyer who started the New York Net Nights. “If you go in wondering who in the room might be your next employer, you won’t have any fun. And life is about creating relationships.”

The first Net Night was organized by Dudka, a pharmaceutical marketing strategist who has long offered free career workshops to alumni, in Washington, D.C., in December 2001. Adapting networking models used by professional schools like Harvard Business School, the first Washington events were popular enough to spark nights in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York — where 110 people signed up for the first session. Currently, Net Nights are held about once a month in spaces donated by alumni. Most of the time this means a corporate conference room, though one New York event last spring was held in the gallery of the Forbes building.

The Net Nights differ from city to city, but generally follow a format of an initial period of mingling and introductions, a speaker or panel, and a final opportunity for informal networking. Dudka tailors his events to a D.C.-oriented crowd; the January event, which featured a panel on international negotiating, brought out some 75 people on a snowy night. Norman’s January event in San Francisco had a similar turnout for panel speakers in the fields of consumer products, consulting, sales, and investment banking.

A New York night

In the Internet-frenetic years of the mid-1990s, Anne Fifield ’92 had what she calls, “a good run.” A freelance writer, she started writing for the Internet at a time when, as she says, “no self-respecting journalist would touch it.” She landed some big clients and made some good connections, and the work kept coming.

Fast forward to 2001: Fifield knew her freelance business depended on referrals, and the robust economy that had made that so easy, at first, was waning. She was considering ending her freelance life, so she headed to the first New York Net Nights meeting in April 2001 to see if it might lead to some ideas as to what to do next.

At that first meeting, “I opened my big mouth,” she says. “I stood up and said I want to see this networking event work well for people on nontraditional career paths because they need it the most.” Before she knew it, Fifield was recruiting headhunters in a variety of different fields to speak at the next meeting. And she found that her experience as a freelancer — filing Schedule C small business tax forms, creating a professional Web site, and finding clients — was helpful to others.

Fast forward again to January 2003. The New York Net Nights have had their share of panelists and guest speakers, but on this frigid Monday evening, Fifield, now one of the New York Net Nights’ organizers, leads an “Open Ask” session — a sort of live version of the e-mail postings on the TigerNet Career Networking listserve. Some 35 alumni — from a current Princeton senior to the Class of ’73 — sit around a very long table in a Midtown corporate conference room. One by one, they stand to introduce themselves and to say why they’re there.

“Be brave, don’t be afraid to ask for what you’re looking for,” Fifield counsels the group. “Be brief, be generous, be grateful, and follow up.”

A Class of ’95 sitcom writer has moved recently from Los Angeles to New York and wants to meet others in TV production. A Class of ’91 alumna is looking to move into a more arts-oriented field after years in finance. An ’88 former hedge fund employee is “transitioning” and looking for some contacts. A ’73 tech consultant is looking to meet others in different industries. A 2002 grad wants some advice on working for a nonprofit organization in New York City.

After everyone has a chance to speak, alumni begin to mingle (nametags are mandatory), following up on leads, or giving advice. Business cards are passed around, though subtly.

More than job-hunting

Do people get jobs through these events? Sure, and the organizers of Net Nights can offer a handful of happy examples. But they also quickly point out that finding a job is not the point.

“For many alums, networking means sending either a résumé or a business card — and little else,” says Dudka. “That usually passes for networking, but it’s what we seriously frown on.”

The absence of instant gratification is something that might take some getting used to. Jennifer Scott ’92, who works at an online-learning consortium of universities and museums, found herself looking around the room and wondering if her first New York Net Night event really was going to be helpful.

“But I walked away realizing that the diversity of experiences could be useful,” she says. “Sometimes when you work in a certain industry you only tend to talk to people in your own little world, and it’s great to talk to people doing something completely different.”

“I come for the intellectual stimulation,” says Rob Schuman ’74, director of technical operations at Sesame Workshop. “I’m at a point in my career where I feel it’s time to give back to the career cosmos.”

Dudka hopes to use the Princeton network as a base for networking with other alumni groups, including those from the University of Virginia, Smith, and Yale, and would like to see Net Nights launched in places like London and Beijing.

“As organizations downsize and shift more burdens on individuals, we’re being constantly exposed to more things, being forced to know more than we originally anticipated. And for all that, we need contacts in different areas who can help us do our jobs.” Dudka says. “If you don’t need networking right now, you will.”

Kathryn Beaumont ’96 is a PAW staff writer.

Information on Net Nights is available on Tigernet’s career-networking listserve, and is provided by these Alumni Council regional leaders: Lee Dudka *77 (Washington, D.C.), Ron Coleman ’85 (New York City), and Catarina Norman ’96 (San Francisco Bay Area), plus Shep Pryor ’68 (Chicago), Joe McErlean ’85 and Tom Pyle ’76 (Philadelphia), and Geraldine Alias ’00 (Boston).

The Web site, www.networknights.org, provides information on the events and offers a password-keyed database to post career information.

The online Wall St. Journal Career Journal also lists the events at www.careerjournal.com/calendar/index.html.