Traditionally, ‘networking’ means building and maintaining contacts that can be useful for one’s job and career, but today everyone is part of the network, from acquaintances to friends. Expanding your network can start with talking and exchanging ideas with everyone you work with, making friends with your fellow students during your studies, and maintaining your contacts and friendships as you get older.
Your network becomes international from the moment you connect and exchange ideas with people abroad or when someone you know moves to another city or another country. Building a diverse international network may take a little longer and require more effort, but it is definitely worth it: getting to know people from other cultures and maintaining different contacts from all over the world pays off in the long run. The list of reasons for this is long, so make yourself comfortable as we explain a few of them here.
Even more reasons to travel
A language course or studying abroad is one of the easiest ways to expand your international network. All your fellow students or course colleagues have come from different countries to do the same thing. You learn together and then everyone disappears in a different direction. Your newfound friends and contacts could end up moving anywhere, back home, to a new country for a new job, who knows? The best reason for a trip is always to visit a friend abroad. Thanks to your international network, you know people with whom you can stay while traveling, your personal travel guide who can show you the best insider tips and most beautiful corners of his city, and vice versa, frequent visits to your home are also ensured.
Endless opportunities to learn something new
The best way to make connections and become friends is to have experiences together. Basically, if you want real, lasting relationships, something more should happen than just exchanging business cards. Take a cooking class with your new friends, go hiking together or learn a foreign language together. And learning doesn’t have to stop once you’ve made your connections, because with an international network and friends from abroad, you’re constantly dealing with people from different cultures and can learn an incredible amount. If you recreate your friends’ favorite dishes at home and expand your culinary horizons, keep your foreign language skills up to date by talking often to people abroad, or simply keep your eyes and ears open to different lifestyles and perspectives – you always take something and learn from it.
An international group of supporters
If you were moving to a new city, wouldn’t it be nice to know that you knew at least one person there before you arrived? Your old friend from your exchange year could be this person. Are you thinking about a job change, a completely different career or a position abroad? Back when you were doing your language course, the person sitting next to you at the table was there… Today she may be the one who can give you valuable tips, for example about her industry, her employer or simply the city in which she lives. Your network can support you in every situation and in all areas – all the better if it extends across several continents.
Future career opportunities
Get to know new people and try not to act stupid, and also make sure that you are dressed appropriately, not too casually, not too chic… Networking at work can be quite formidable. But it doesn’t have to. Because networking doesn’t always have to take place in conference rooms where business cards are exchanged, the air is stale and conversations are forced. Your friends, classmates and former colleagues often pursue career paths that might also interest you because they know people who can help you and introduce you to their network.
You never know when a random conversation partner will turn out to be a valuable contact you never would have found online, or who might be able to introduce you to their acquaintances who, in turn, have the knowledge, experience or even the job you dream of. If you are unsure about where you want to go or what you want to do with your life, it can be helpful to maintain your contacts. There can always be someone who inspires you to pursue the same career path. There’s just one thing you should never forget: the whole thing doesn’t just work in one direction. One day you might be the one who can help a friend in your network. Or you are the expert who gives an old friend the right tip for his dream job.
So what are you waiting for? Go among people, approach others, and don’t lose sight of each other!
