Who You Know

When it comes to finding family friendly work, it s not always what you know that is important. Most often, it is who you know. Finding a job using your network of contacts has many advantages.

For example, through your network you can often learn of job opportunities that have not yet been made available to the public. Often jobs are filled through referrals before an advertisement is placed. Further, you can often learn through a contact if a company actually lives up to its' family friendly claims.

Many traditional opportunities for networking exist. You can go to parties that you are invited to, or try to stay after an important meeting to get to know key players at your company.

But it is the Internet that has given us the most opportunity to network. There are of course the well known social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. But from a business perspective we are starting to see some more professional online networking opportunities as well.

For example, I have spent some time this evening updating my contacts on www.LinkedIn.com. It seems to be a widely used site that allows you to enter your personal network with the opportunity to expand your network through your own contacts.

If you have done your research and want to apply at a company that you think is family friendly, such a networking site can help you find the right contact to submit your resume to. And at the worst, you have established a few solid contacts on the way.