Over the years, your support has made Women’s Web the leading resource for women in India. Now, it is our turn to ask, how can we make this even more useful for you? Please take our short 5 minute questionnaire – your feedback is important to us!
As working women, we might be working hard, but it is equally important to involve ourselves with professional networking to stay updated and relevant.
As a working woman I have often wondered, if I have done enough or any professional networking!
Being a working woman is tough. And being a working mother is tougher! Have you ever felt that the ‘mother’ part overbears the ‘woman’ part leaving the ‘working’ part to fend for itself! Yes I am working like any other working woman but am I spending enough time on professional networking?
I am not. I belong to the group of women who would like to engage more on this but almost everything else takes priority. The never ending household chores, the constant home vs work balance, kids homework, workplace challenges and even our own socializing on FB and Whatsapp! I often feel that many women do not impart as much focus and attention to it unlike men, for whom it is a part and parcel of their working life.
Are we wired differently or just that we do not accord professional networking the required importance and attention?
I observed the kind of posts made on Linkedin by the women I am connected to. It was completely outnumbered by the posts men made. Do I consciously try to create a definite profile on Linkedin through my posts, shares and connections? I don’t. I barely keep myself updated on the latest in our field of work. Realization hit me real hard when I found myself at a loss of words in an after-hours conversation amongst my colleagues on some new trends.
The realization got me going. This ‘out of depths’ situation needs to be converted to a ‘having depth’ situation!
In the wired world, information is easily accessible. Sign up for newsletters and blog posts from the leading sites in your areas of work. Once the articles are delivered straight to your mailbox, it makes it easier to go through. Even if nothing else, the headlines or the article synopsis is enough to give you a fair idea.
Read the relevant news items in the various news apps. Along with your FB feed!
Write a blog post and share on your profile.
Comment on other’s posts and get a discussion going.
Sign up for online memberships to professional networks in your area of work.
Catch up with an old colleague who has moved onto other areas of work.
Catch up with ex-colleagues who are now in different roles in other companies. You will get a different perspective and lots of industry news. Who knows, the next job offer may come from one of these sources.
It’s good to be wired into your professional sphere. Takes some amount of disciple but then women are multi-taskers. If we can balance 5 things at a time, 6th thing can find its way in!
Happy networking!
Join the Women’s Web Network for women at work by filling in the form below. You will receive a monthly newsletter from us with great resources, plus we’ll keep you posted on all Women’s Web events in your city!
Email Format
Image source: shutterstock.
Barnita De is a Bengali by birth, brought up and educated in Kolkata. Working in Bangalore for the past 15 years. She has 2 daughters aged 11 and 7 who are her world. She loves read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
He said that he needed sometime to himself. I waited for him as any other woman would have done, and I gave him his space, I didn't want to be the clingy one.
Trigger Warning: This deals with mental trauma and depression, and may be triggering for survivors.
I am someone who believes in honesty and trust, I trust people easily and I think most of the times this habit of mine turns into bane.
This is a story of how a matrimonial website service turned into a nightmare for me, already traumatized by the two relationships I’ve had. It’s a story for every woman who lives her life on the principles of honesty and trust.
And when she enters the bedroom, she sees her husband's towel lying on the bed, his underwear thrown about in their bathroom. She rolls her eyes, sighs and picks it up to put in the laundry bag.
Vasudha, age 28 – is an excellent dancer, writer, podcaster and a mandala artist. She is talented young woman, a go getter and wouldn’t bat an eyelid if she had to try anything new. She would go head on with it. Everyone knew Vasudha as this cheerful and pretty young lady.
Except when marriage changed everything she knew. Since she was always outdoors, whether for office or for travelling for her dance shows, Vasudha didn’t know how to cook well.
Going by her in-laws definition of cooking – she had to know how to cook any dishes they mentioned. Till then Vasudha didn’t know that learning to cook was similar to getting an educational qualification. As soon as she entered the household after her engagement, nobody was interested what she excelled at, everybody wanted to know – what dishes she knew how to cook.