Networking: A Basic How-To for Students

MAKING CONNECTIONS 101

Everyone tells us that networking is so important but no one ever really teaches us how to do it. I’ve had no formal education in networking (in fact, I don’t think such a thing exists), so I’ve had to learn on my own. I am by no means an expert, and these are my own experiences in networking for my intended career in emergency medicine.

I’m a medical student and so my advice is generally oriented to the medical field, and specifically to applying to residency. I do believe that the basic tenets of what I describe will be relevant to other specialties as well, be it law or art history.

Before we get started, here are some other blog posts I wrote about the US residency journey. There might be some overlap between those blog posts and this one:

• Residency Match Application Tips
• Tips for Finding US Clinical Experience

Below, I’ve listed some of the networking techniques that have worked for me — perhaps they will help you, too.

1. Take initiative: things will rarely fall into your lap, unfortunately. A lot of it will require active work on your part. I’m not a social butterfly, and my heart races basically before every encounter. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but it does get easier with practice. Start by reaching out to those around you. Send emails (we’ll get more into how down below). Introduce yourself at conferences, shake hands. Know who’s who: people are pretty impressed when you know something about them.
2. Follow-up: networking is nothing without this. You met someone at an event (even virtual)? Send a follow-up email. “Dear Ms/Dr/Professor _, It was really nice to meet you…”. One doc remembered me 3 years (!!) after we met because I sent a short follow-up email.
3. Ask questions: emails are even better if there is an actionable question at the end. You can ask for advice, clarification, etc. but make it relevant.; this way people are more likely to answer.
4. Don’t get discouraged: I sent dozens of cold emails with no response. Doesn’t matter. That wasn’t meant to happen. One day, one person WILL respond and it’ll be all worth it.
5. Be professional ALWAYS: use proper titles, good punctuation, perfect grammar, etc.

A few words on some of the things I discussed above, in a bit more detail:

Conference Tips and Tricks

Conferences are about the academics, yes, but they are also a professional social gathering. I’ve been to a few conferences only, and would definitely like to attend more. Where to get started?

• have an idea in mind of what you’d like to do — speciality, field, area of interest — and search on Google to see where the conferences are being held. Plan (timeframe, travel, presentation & funding?).
• most universities will host a conference every year: check to see if yours has one and look to see who’s attending – are any of the lecturers in your field of interest? it might be worth going!
  • I wasn’t involved in much research in med school, unfortunately, but I still attended a few conferences as a passive participant, meaning I wasn’t presenting. Looking back, I would definitely change that and try to present, but you can absolutely do what I did and just attend and network, without presenting.
• if there is a professional organization in your city/university, consider joining! I attended most of my conferences free of charge because I was part of the team that organized the conference (free room, board, registration fee and the like!)
  • fun fact: this is also great for two reasons: 1) you get to learn who’s who, because you’re the one doing the registration/welcome packets, what have you. This means that you’ll interact with nearly everyone at the conference, and I’ve used this as an opportunity to say, “Oh Dr. ___, I saw your presentation on ___ last year and thought it was great. My name is ____ and I’m an X year medical student.” 2) Since you’re essential in welcoming guests and helping with whatever issues they have, you become a person who is of ‘value’ and people will often turn to you for help.
• if you do research, your team will likely have some idea of what conferences are good to attend, and they will often fund your travel and registration fee, which is really great.

When I go to a conference, I check the booklet to see who’s presenting about what. I circle all the emergency medicine related ones, and attend the interesting topics. I pay attention, and, when relevant, I approach the lecturer afterward with a question (I generally don’t dare raise my hand). This is a good chance to introduce yourself, and some docs will give you a business card so that you can follow-up, which is great.

How to Approach Someone?

Oof, good question. Again, I’m not great at this, but here are the things I try to do:

• dress appropriately, professionally: that might mean different things for you than for me, but dress does matter
• introduce yourself with a firm handshake and a winning smile: “Hi, my name is ____ and I thought your presentation was ______.” Don’t interrupt – try to wait for a natural pause in the conversation if there’s a group, etc.
• be specific: mention something about their lecture that you genuinely liked or found interesting, and if you had a question, ask it. Don’t ask a question for the sake of asking a question though, because that’s very transparent.
• thank them for their time

But What About Online Stuff?

You might think, as I did, that you can’t possibly connect with anyone properly via virtual events. I realize now how very wrong that was.

In the post-pandemic era we are entering, more and more things will be online. Search for online conferences or presentations or webinars in your field of interest and be there. YOne of my best mentor-mentee relationships was established following a brief Zoom session (mostly by luck, but that’s a discussion for a different time).

Find residency meet & greets (see below for more info on #medTwitter) and show up. Ask a relevant question so that you’re not just a random face in a crowd of little screen-boxes — be sure that your question is relevant and not easily answerable from the website.

Introduce yourself very briefly, ask your question, re-mute yourself, be attentive when they’re answering you. Do not goof off in the chat box (it becomes very obvious). If a resident or program director shares their email, store that in your little book of secrets (I use Notion for this, personally, but anything can work).

Whenever you felt like there was a connection – or you have a question that remained unanswered – do not hesitate to reach out and send an email; chances are, if they gave out their email, it’s because they genuinely don’t mind receiving them. Make that connection: you might be surprised how far you get with a simple email!

Basics of Email Etiquette

I hate sending emails. I suck at them.

It takes me 30 minutes to write two lines. Then, I finally send it, and 80% of the time, I don’t get a reply. It’s not fun — but it’s essential. It’s definitely one of the things I wish I was better at. Writing emails is nevertheless a critical part of networking, so here are some basics of that too.

• no grammar mistakes, no spelling mistakes: might seem like common sense but you would be surprised
• do not misspell their name (whoops)
• make sure that you’re using the proper title (if I’m not sure if someone is a doctor, I Google their name to check — if I’m not sure, I err on the side of caution and use doctor if it’s in a med-related setting)
• be polite, never pushy, never demand or request anything
• include some niceties (differing opinions on this, but I generally do start my emails with ‘I hope this email finds you well’ or something similar. I just find it too intrusive to jump right into the meat of it.)
• trigger their memory: how do you know them? how did you get their email address? “Dear Dr. ___, I attended the Zoom session last night about ____ and I wanted to thank you for ____.” This is especially useful if you asked a question during the Zoom session, so that they might recognize your name (if they don’t, it’s still not an issue)
• always change the header/body of the email to suit the people/place you’re emailing: don’t talk about wanting to rotate in NYC if you’re emailing a program in North Carolina because you forgot to change the template.

When sending an email, it helps if you ask a question at the end. This is an actionable way to conclude your email, one that warrants a reply. You can also send a, “Hey doc I thought that presentation was great, thanks so much,”-style email, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get an answer.

NOTE: I would be very cautious about cold-emailing program directors. Yes, their email is freely available on the website, but it might be deemed a little strange to email them out of the blue, with no previous ‘meeting.’

When you get an answer, ANSWER. I’ve fallen into this too often – I get too excited that they answer, then forget to respond because I get busy and then I look like a jerk.

EMAIL HACKS:

Here are a few things that make my emailing life easier/better; they are not necessary by any means, but it helps me.

• turn on Gmail’s ‘undo send‘ feature: this has saved my butt a ton of times; after sending an email, you have the next few seconds to change your mind and undo that ‘sent.’ You’d be surprised how quickly after hitting the send button you realize that you made a giant spelling mistake.
  • [here is a quick link on how to lengthen the timeframe (the default is just a few seconds I think)]
• consider adding MailTrack: this is a Google Chrome add-on and it’ll show you when/if your email was read. It’s just nice to see and helps keep my mind at ease, but it would induce anxiety in many others, so definitely not for everyone
• use the Gmail sidebar to quickly access Google Keep: I use this to store templates for frequently used emails, so that I don’t have to rewrite it each time
• consider adding a spell-check function to your Gmail (I don’t have this, but I’ve seen Grammarly advertised and I imagine that there are many more).

Let me know if you have any life-changing emailing tips or hacks and I’ll expand my list!

The Power of the Follow-Up

It’s not enough to just meet someone – you want to be remembered. You want to stand out, and if they gave you a business card with an email, use it.

A quick example of how I did it that worked for me:

1. I was at a conference – I circled all the EM presentations, and attended the ones I thought were interesting. I listened then approached the lecturer at the end; we chatted about nothing in particular and he gave me a business card.
2. A day or so later, I sent an email along the lines of, “Dear Dr. ___, it was so nice to meet you…”. We didn’t see each other again.
3. Three years later, I sent him an email with, “I’m not sure if you remember me, I am a student at [your alma mater] applying into EM this year, and I was wondering if you had any rotation/research opportunities.” (I’m paraphrasing.)
4. He responded within an hour with a massive email full of advice, which he started with, “Yes, I remember meeting, hello.” (Paraphrasing.)
5. I was shocked. It worked!

But I follow-up not just in those situations — I follow-up with mentors every once in a while. If you’ve got a contact, it’s nice to check in with them somewhat regularly. I’ll send an ‘update’ email every few months (6-12 months or however it seems most fitting), along the lines of, “Dear Dr. ____, I hope all is well with you. I wanted to update you on….” and then talk a bit about how you’re doing.

Example: I have a doc that we text with, and for example, if I’ve been busy working on things other than our joint project, I’ll text him an estimated timeline. “Hi Dr. ___, I’m flying back to [med school city] tomorrow to take my final exam. I’ll send you the first draft of [our project] the weekend after the 27th,” and he’ll reply with “Ok, great, good luck!” It just helps us stay on the same page and manage expectations.

I also follow-up with doctors that I’ve rotated with, if I’m in the area (I pop my head in to say ‘hi,’ and most will be very happy to see you).

This isn’t something that I was taught to do; in fact, maybe it’s annoying? I’m honestly not sure. But in general, I’ve had very positive feedback from doctors. They seem to like knowing that a student that they helped in one way or another is succeeding, which I think makes sense. Let me know your experiences with following up with mentors.

Where and How to Meet People

Where to find opportunities to meet people? A good question, especially if you don’t have the budget for traveling to conferences. I would recommend starting online, and trying to attend conferences down the line. Oh, and definitely look into participating in whatever events your university has.

• check your professional orgs for virtual conferences: emergency medicine in the US has two large organizations (ACEP and SAEM), and both host events. Otherwise, there’s a few international orgs — you can get involved with those too. Check online for your national organization and consider signing up (it’s often free for students!)
• check Twitter (#medTwitter!): I cannot stress this enough. Lately, Twitter has become a very powerful networking tool. You can communicate with people you’ve never met, even those who are very prominent in your field, and get your name out there.
  • find the hashtags relevant to your field! For me as a student applying into emergency medicine, I follow #embound; for neuro, the hashtag is #neuromatch2022 — you’ll have to find what works for your specialty.
  • since the start of the pandemic, more and more residency programs have started hosting virtual meet and greets: follow the programs’ Twitter accounts and keep your eye on any upcoming events.
  • many people have reservations about using Twitter to network, and I get it, I really do. I was never on Twitter either until my last year of medical school, and to this day, I don’t think I’m doing it right. But I do read a lot and I’ve found so much useful information on there.
  • since I’m not great at Twitter, I won’t pretend to know enough to give advice, but definitely look into professional Twitter etiquette before you break into the world of #medtwitter
• college/med school professors: this might seem like an obvious one but you would be surprise. We sometimes had guest lecturers or classes taught by a specialist; you can definitely approach them post-lecture, much like at a conference, and make contacts. This was how I found one of my favorite opportunities a few years ago: the doc held a great lecture on disaster management, and I asked him questions and eventually ended up rotating with him in trauma.

Don’t Get Discouraged: Networking is Hard

You might spend hours writing emails and never get a response… it sucks. But it’s the reality of the world we live in. Everyone is so busy that they can’t possibly answer all their emails. Don’t allow it to discourage you. Keep trying; you might have to send a hundred emails and shake dozens of hands before you find that one person who will be your mentor throughout the journey.

A lot of it depends on luck – being at the right place, at the right time, crossing paths with the right person. But the more you get out there and the more you take initiative, the more chances you are giving yourself for being in that perfect spot. So keep at it, and as one of my favorite docs once said, “Be appropriately aggressive.”

Thank you to the cover photo, by fauxels from Pexels.