Page 11 - Networking Receptions - Networking for Law Students Series_1 (1)

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Networking Receptions

Dos and Don’ts – Don’ts

• Don’t - Before you even think about it- no, you should not bring your resume to a
networking reception or event (with the exception of job fairs). But you can
absolutely weave certain aspects of your resume into a conversation. This
should be seamless. For instance, if I were talking about sports, I would say
something like "when I was working at this alternative court in Midtown my boss
was a Yankee fan – hey we all have our issues but I can forgive him just this
once- but I’m a Met fan and he said..." or “when I was working in real estate one
of our clients had this ridiculous shrine to the Bulls and...” Or I can weave it in
another way. For instance, Miami is an area infamous for its lack of public
transportation which is in stark contrast with my home state of New York–
everything was a quick subway, train, taxi/uber, or bus ride away. When I was in
Miami, I talked about how fast I had been able to get to work in New York and
how different it was there. "The court where I worked was in Midtown Manhattan.
So I would just have to go about two stops on either the E or the C train and then
it was about a 12-minute uber ride from there to the mayor’s office for the anti-
human trafficking committees that we'd go to about once every month...but it
takes me about an hour to get to school from my apartment when it should take
me about 20 minutes!” They'll probably interrupt you or wait until you finish but
they'll probably ask you more about it, particularly since it something other than
the typical ‘woe-is-me’ story. They’ll interject or respond with “wait you worked at
what...how’d you like that” or something to that effect.

• Don’t- People tend to advise that in business settings, one should always avoid
three topics of conversation -- sex, religion, and politics. It is ALWAYS
inappropriate for you as a student, trying to get your proverbial foot in the
proverbial door, to initiate a sexual conversation or use sexual innuendo in a
conversation while networking, particularly at a reception or event held solely for
the purpose of networking. You can talk about politics (and possibly religion but
it’s not recommended), but so as not to offend, talk about politics from a high-
minded/intellectual perspective rather than an emotional one.

• In the event that they do not respond to your follow-up right away, do not send
an angry message or even a message saying anything to the effect of “haven’t
heard from you…”.

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