Domain Expert:
I was able to come in contact with my domain expert through my summer internship at a recruiting firm last year. He is the president of the technologies and engineering sector of his firm with nearly 20 years of experience in the recruiting industry. I contacted him and introduced myself and let him know I wanted to discuss my business concept with him and briefly described it. Hopefully he will be able to provide me with some expert insight on how to move forward with this project. This contact could benefit him because I introduced him to a new concept in his industry that he has yet to explore. I believe with his experience in recruiting and my knowledge of current undergraduate needs, we can contact a wide array of customers and clients for this product.
Market Expert:
I thought the Career Connections Center at UF would have a similar market to my own and I sent an email about my business concept. Because my business concept serves the purpose of placing recent undergrads, I have a lot in common with the goals of UF CCC and we could potentially collaborate to come in contact with more students in the future.
Supplier:
For my supplier, I decided to contact the vice president of operations of a popular job searching board, as nearly every recruiting firm uses these to find talent for their clients. She has been working for the company for 15 years and has held her position for eight. I found her contact information online and reached out to learn more about how job searching boards work and a little bit about my business product. Hopefully, we would be able to help each other, as I have no experience working with technology development and her company has yet to specifically cater to college grads.
Reflection:
I believe I gained a lot from completing this assignment. I contacted three people who have seen much success in my industry and I have showed them how I can assist them. Hopefully, I could one day collaborate with one if not all of them. This helped change how I look to network because I had to conduct extensive research on each of them. I learned they are all highly regarded in their fields and I made sure to acknowledge their professional accolades when I reached out to them. I believe they are likely to be more responsive because I proved that I truly value their expertise and opinion and took the time to understand what they could offer before I reached out.
Hi Jackson,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog post! Your reflection showed that you had a great understanding of the assignment and I think it was smart that you acknowledged their professional accolades when you reached out. This assignment also changed how I look at networking because there’s so much more to it than I ever thought. I used to think that I needed to find this specific type of person; but now I understand that, if I look at the big picture, there are many different people that are beneficial to acknowledge and get to know.