As promised, here are the last five tips:
- Have a prepared comment on what you do, and what makes you special
Invariably one of the first questions you’ll be asked is what you do. If you hold a position with a smaller organisation or are self-employed, you’ll often need to go further than merely stating your position name. In these cases, having something memorised can be very useful. Apart from saving you from stumbling over your words, a prepared comment can more methodically highlight the position’s complexities, interesting points and particularly noteworthy achievements. If you hit the right note with this introduction, you can greatly increase your chances of having a more rewarding conversation. By the same token, knowing what makes you special – why you’ve been selected to participate – is useful in determining what unique contributions you can make to discussions and how you might like to position yourself in relation to other participants. Knowing and exploiting this point of difference can help you stand out and be remembered. - It takes time before a contact becomes useful
You’ll probably encounter a few people who appear to be expert schmoozers, working the room with a vengeance and collecting a fistful of business cards. Such haphazard and superficial networking is seldom useful. Whilst it would be an error to stay with the same people for the whole conference, introducing yourself and asking for business cards from other delegates isn’t going to do you much good. A contact is only going to genuinely help you out if they feel you are worth helping – you have to be seen as skilful and likeable. As a rule of thumb, if you have to ask for their business card, then you haven’t reached that threshold. Take time to really talk to people and be genuinely interested in what they do. It’s only after they know you (at least a little) that they’ll be willing, in future, to lend a hand. - Dress slightly more formally than requested
Beware of casual dress codes! Apart from the difficulty nowadays of ascertaining exactly what a code like ‘smart business casual’ means, participants often ignore these casual dress codes, especially if the conference is being held in an urban location on a weekday. While of course how you interact with other participants will ultimately determine how you are perceived, you may find that dressing slightly more formal than requested will bring you into line with many of the other participants and make it that much easier and less intimidating to participate in conversations. - Have an opinion
Aside from general introductions, the most frequent topic of conversation will relate to the conference’s presentations and workshops. It is very tempting to stay silent in these discussions, unsure of how you feel about a particular topic or wary of making comment before you’ve had a greater chance to read more about it. While there is certainly much to be gained by listening to the conversations of others, it is worth your while to form opinions and be unafraid of discussing them, at least insofar as they are disclaimed as preliminary opinions. Agreement and disagreement are both positive, and provide invaluable opportunities of engaging with participants and the conference material. - Leverage your youthfulness
Last but not least, remember that as young people we can get away with a little more! Whether it’s making more courageous or innovative statements or using feigned unfamiliarity with protocol to gain access to restricted meetings or people (if you walk in with enough confidence you might find yourself lucky), your youthfulness provides a valuable (and time-limited) opportunity to get a little more from your experience. Everyone seeks to stand out, and youthfulness often provides a way of doing so without being written off as gauche or grandstanding. Take advantage of it while you can!
