Holidays and Seasons

'Tis The Season... For Networking Tips

How to engage in this seemingly awkward social interaction.

By Vittoria Fariello  
on

The Holiday Season is upon us, and with it seemingly endless opportunities to network at holiday parties and charity events. For some of us, this can seem like a daunting task, but if done thoughtfully, it can be both pleasant and productive.

I have learned a few tricks over the years that have helped me navigate the sea of invites and people that I meet at these events. The first step is to decide what your goal is for each particular event. There are two main purposes to networking; meeting new people and reconnecting with people that you may have not seen in a while.

If you are looking to make new connections, be sure to have business cards on hand and your own business contact entry on your phone to quickly exchange contacts. There are a number of apps — such as CamCard or ScanBizCard — that you can use to scan the business cards you collect and integrate them immediately to your contacts. Once you have a new contact, you can add notes in the entry to help you remember each new person.

Sometimes your main objective at a particular event may be to simply reconnect with old contacts whom you haven’t seen much of throughout the year. If you’re anything like me, names and faces are not your greatest strengths. In college, my best friend would graciously remind me people’s names when we walked into a party. She would whisper in my ear with a side glance at the unknown, “Chris, from Biology, dating Jennifer.”  Alas, she now happily living across the continent, so I’m left to fend for myself. Thankfully, my colleague gave me a brilliant, helpful tip. Since my phone has now become my fifth limb, at the first opportunity I discretely pull it out and enter the name of each person I have encountered in my calendar entry for the event.  Simply typing someone’s name helps reinforce my memory. But by putting it in my calendar entry, when sometime later I reconnect with a contact, a quick search reminds of when and where I last saw them. I also find this often brings to mind details of the conversations we had, which is helpful for when we next connect.

While these are very utilitarian suggestions, they don’t address what seems to be the most daunting part of networking for newbies: how to engage in this seemingly awkward social interaction. This last recommendation is a practical one that comes from my oldest son’s speech at his brother’s eighth grade graduation. He told his younger brother that the most important thing to remember when starting a new school is to simply be yourself. As corny as that may sound, I find that such genuineness is a social magnet that can lead to many new or renewed connections that can be very fruitful. It seems that being genuine is a currency many people are craving.

Of course, you should not forget to enjoy these events — the food, the music, the conversations. And it is not wrong to go to some of these events simply to have fun.

Happy Holidays!

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Vittoria Fariello is an experienced investigator and litigator who has counseled her clients throughout all stages of litigation. She is a partner at the law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where she and her colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach her at [email protected].

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