The Young Professionals Forum I run at my organization (InsideNGO) hosted a great workshop on Friday about Career Building for Young Professionals.

The trainer, Maureen MacCarthy, Principal Consultant at MGS Consulting, led us through the high-energy, participatory event with tons of networking opportunities.  It reminded me that while the advances in technologies that bring us webinars and other virtual events save travel time and costs, in-person events are critical for building your network and connecting with people.

Our YP Forum is different from other similar groups because everyone at our events works in the international NGO sector and shares similar experiences, challenges, and your organizations have probably partnered on projects together.

But the majority of the tips Maureen gave us apply to everyone.  I want to share 4 of the most useful ones.

The first is Be What You Want to Become.  Let’s say you’re a Program Assistant and want to become a Program Manager.  Start acting like a Program Manager.  Tell trusted colleagues/mentors that you want to be a Program Manager and to coach you on what that looks like at your organization.  Practice with a friend introducing yourself as a Program Manager.  Be who you want to become.

The second:  Get to know your organization’s culture and what people talk about when they’re not talking about work, especially the leaders.  Understand others on a more personal level so you can more easily be understood when you may present a new idea or try to get buy-in for your project.  Maybe people like to chat about movies, what’s in the news, or their children.  Get to know others to understand them better and use that knowledge to become fluent in your organization’s culture so you can know how to talk about your idea in a language they can understand.

Third, get to know your field.  For example, organizations in the international NGO sector are funded by similar donors and government agencies.  We as young professionals know we must remain adaptable and build transferrable skills because the donors might decide to fund reproductive health projects instead of HIV/AIDS projects.  PEPFAR is changing phases and you have to know how to do the work.  In general, the world is moving faster, there’s the economic downturn, and pressures and changes in budgets.  Be aware of the trends in your field because the complexity of what your organization’s leaders are dealing with is something you should be aware of so you can adapt.

And fourth, one of the best tactics for growing your career is networking:  meeting new people and passing out your business card.  You might be on Facebook but be sure to also create a profile for yourself on LinkedIn because businesses and recruiters do use LinkedIn to find outstanding employees that fit their culture, know their industry, and can do the work.

Like traditional societies, associations, advocacy groups, memberships, and unions, there is strength in the shear number of people Brazen Careerist has organized on your behalf that want to grow careers using social media.

On Wednesday evening, Brazen Careerist was gracious enough to let me produce their first webinar to launch the Networks feature on their site.  I set up the technology but also fielded questions from the audience to feed to Penelope & Ryan.  It wasn’t your mother’s webinar, and it was a lot of fun.  What a creative and thoughtful community Brazen has.

The webinar was for those who started groups in Brazen’s site.  For example, I had started the Associations group to find other young professionals who work at associations.  Brazen had just made the decision to change Groups to Networks and the webinar showed us how to be better Network leaders.  (If you look at my group, you can tell I need advice).

During the webinar many people wanted to know why they should invest time in Brazen instead of LinkedIn.  Penelope thoughtfully responded that Brazen is a network of bloggers and that blogging can help you land jobs because it publishes your ideas when you don’t have the experience to land a job right after college or grad school.

Participants responded, But blog writing is scary.  My ideas?  Out there?  Isn’t execution and experience better?  How do I know this is safe?

No, it’s not safe.  Like anything new, it is risky.  Brazen Careerist is genius because it helps you manage your social media activity risk.

This table shows you why social media activities like blogging are scary to you and explains the difference between traditional career networking and social media career networking.

Brazen Careerist manages risk for you.

Your Social Media Career Networking Risks:

• Someone might disagree with my ideas
• I don’t have enough experience, and my ideas will be dumb, no one will hire me
• What if my boss finds out and fires me
• Blogging needs to be so niche, limiting myself to one topic will hurt me in the log run

How Brazen Careerist Manages Your Risks:

• Network to show yourself, your boss, and others that blogging is a new career tool that normal people use
• Advice at your fingertips from other smart people
• Teaches you how to express your ideas to your intended audience and industry in a professional, thought-provoking manner
• Has created a talent market of tech-savvy, entrepreneurial people – think strength in numbers rather than competing for the same jobs

Questions for fellow Network Leaders:

How can we leverage our Brazen networks to decrease our social media risk even more?

What could Brazen Careerist develop that would make us thought-leaders on the well-executed personal brand?

What type of education/training would help you be a better Network leader?

How can Brazen Careerist stand apart from LinkedIn as a career management tool for Gen Y?

Are we on Brazen an association?  Union?  Advocacy group?  Society?

If we wanted 1 Thing in the world to change, what would it be and how would we do it?

Photo Credit:

Great discussion yesterday with Seth Godin, Holly Ross, and Beth Kanter about nonprofits, social media, and innovation.

Beth and Holly have great posts – read them before you read this because their sums were so good I’m going to write about something else.

I want to talk to the young professionals of our community.

I thought yesterday’s discussion would revolve around tactics to get other people to change – like how to prove a new technology to others in your org.

Really it was about how you can change – into a person who proves new technologies to others in your org.

I know of a technique that can help you do this.  You will think it is weird and unnecessary but you have to do it.  It’s called personal branding.  It’s what we do now.

Personal branding forces you to figure out what you’re about and define that for others.

Some tools for this are starting a blog about your industry, commenting on other blogs about your industry, and learning as much as you possibly can about the problems in your industry.  For nonprofits it might be fund raising in an economic downturn, delivering food to Somalia, or getting people to come to your event.

Blog writing will force you to come up with what you really think about an issue.  It will help you gain your own clarity and insight, which can be empowering.   Keep it about business and ideas and not about your cat or work place annoyances.

On the right of this page you area reading are most of my favorite blogs.  Get yourself set up with Google Reader to have their updates come to you instead of wasting time going to them.  You can even read them on your iPhone.

After a few months you will have enough knowledge to start solving real problems in your industry and connections with other people who can make things happen.

Then it’s just up to you to get things done.

If you already have a blog and are out there making things happen, please post your link below so I and others can connect with you.

Update:  Great post on personal branding predictions for 2010 to check out.