Are you a CPA looking for a new career challenge? Do you want to strategize your career direction and navigate your path to advancement? Are you routinely made aware of great new opportunities before they are advertised? Do others in your industry consider you as a first choice candidate and go-to expert?

Creating and nurturing vibrant and extensive personal connections is key to achieving professional success, peer recognition and financial remuneration for your efforts. Today, connections are even more critical for facilitating transitions via the inside track before plum positions are advertised. Networking ensures that you are among the select few who find out about such opportunities for career advancement before your competition learns about these top assignments.

It is not just what you know and who you know, but how you promote your talent through your relationships. It is important that you make hiring decision-makers aware of your potential value to their organizations and have you in mind when they have challenges you can address. Who knows you is just as important as who you know today. Being on the right radar keeps you informed about new challenges. In fact, with over 70 percent of new hires stemming from a personal recommendation, not the Internet, having effective connections is just as critical as being smart, trustworthy, personable, qualified and available when a new opportunity comes knocking.

• Network Purposefully™ to design and build a network tailored to your career objectives. Establish connections with hiring decision-makers, industry thought leaders, respected academics and other authorities in your field who frequently are asked to recommend candidates for openings in your industry.
• Nurture relationships by emphasizing two-way communication. Networking is not a transaction-based experience, but a long-term investment developing meaningful and credible relationships. Maintain your contacts regularly through written correspondence, telephone communication and in-person meetings. Because it is awkward to reach out only when you are needy, it is imperative that you always stay in touch by exchanging ideas, information and leads outside of job-searching mode.

Personal connections generate between 70 percent and 80 percent of new hires. CPA Tip: Get to know employees at organizations where you want to work. This way, when an appropriate hiring opportunity arises at a target employer, you are among the chosen few to be informally recruited.

© 2008 Debra Feldman

Debra Feldman is the JobWhiz™, a nationally-recognized expert who designs and personally implements swift, strategic, and customized senior level executive job search campaigns, banishing barriers that prevent immediate success. Her gift for cold calling, executed with high energy and savvy panache, connects candidates directly to decision makers, not HR. Network Purposefully™ with the JobWhiz, and compress your job search into mere weeks, using groundbreaking techniques profiled in Forbes magazine. In addition to her private practice, writing featured columns and conducting exclusive workshops, Debra is a recommended resource to alumni of top-tier business schools. Contact Debra at www.jobwhiz.com to expedite your executive ascent.