How to Network and Forge Lasting Links with People

It started as a one-time event in the summer of 2014 and now it's a program of events you can watch online. We are talking about "Networking: Getting to know it", a series of four seminars organized by BAA's Career Advice service to make alumni learn how to make its networking activity effective.

The corporate consultant, soft skills coach and trainer Laura Scaglione is in charge of the program. She says that: "Networking is an activity we all do and think we know how to do, but which in fact cannot be improvised." The four meetings will be held in classroom N08 in piazza Sraffa. The first meeting, to be held on April 16, is open to all Bocconi alumni, while the remaining three, to be held on May 14, June 11, and July 9, respectively, will be open to BAA members only.

The basic idea is that networking is not an art, but a science. To obtain the best results, it's best to leave behind the self-interested approach to adopt what Scaglione calls "healthy networking". By this she means: "A kind of networking which is not based on 'I do a thing for you, if you do a thing for me', but on the strategy of giving altruistically, which does not expect quick returns, but rather embraces the reciprocity principle behind the sharing economy." If you do this, Scaglione says: "The results won't be slow in coming, even if people reciprocating won't be those whom you might have expected". The key of the game is to add value to one's community, while being wary of not falling into a frequent error, as the soft skills trainer reminds her listeners: "The mistake of wasting time and energy to build a good network of contacts and then stop maintaining it".