Highlights:
- Most college students treat networking meetings like casual conversations. Employers remember who came prepared.
- 80% of jobs are filled through relationships, not job boards. The networking meeting is where that starts.
- There is a right way to run a networking conversation. This is it:
Most college students treat a networking meeting like a casual conversation. Employers remember who came prepared.
Meet Emma. English major, strong GPA, a couple of college summer internships under her belt. She had landed a networking meeting with the Director of Marketing at a digital agency she really wanted to work for. When I asked how she was preparing, she said:
“I’ve had plenty of interviews. I’m great on my feet. I’ll just wing it.”
She almost blew the best opportunity she had.
Most college students do exactly this. They get in front of someone who could actually help them and hope the conversation takes care of itself. It doesn’t. The call ends awkwardly. Nothing happens. They go back to applying online and wonder why nothing is working.
The meeting didn’t fail because Emma was bad at networking. It failed because she had no plan.
Networking is a skill. And like any skill, it has a structure. At Next Great Step, we teach our clients a simple framework called the 3A’s. It works for networking calls, informational interviews, and any meeting where you need someone to help advance your career.
Here is how it works.
The 3A’s: What They Are and Why the Order Matters
Before every networking conversation, you plan three things: the Action you want the employer to take, the Attitude you need them to have about you, and the Answers you need to better assess the role. But here is what surprises most students. You execute them in reverse order.
You start with Answers. Then you build the Attitudes. Then you ask for the Action.
A is for Answers. Start Here.
We coached Emma to open her meeting with a quick agenda. Something like: “Thanks so much for making time. I’d love to hear about your path, tell you a bit about my background, and then hopefully we can talk about where to go from here.”
That one sentence does something important. It tells a busy professional exactly how this conversation will go. They are not sitting there wondering when you are going to ask them for a job. They know what to expect. And they appreciate it.
Then ask real questions. Not things you could find on their website. Emma came in prepared with questions like:
- “How did you get to where you are?”
- “How do you define success in your role?”
- “What is the biggest challenge your team is focused on right now?”
- “What do you look for when you hire?”
These questions do two things. They give you actual, useful information you cannot find anywhere else. And this is the part most students miss: they give you the answers to the test. What this person cares about, what their team needs, what impresses them. You are going to use all of that in the next step.
A is for Attitude. This Is How You Build Real Credibility.
At some point in the conversation, they will say “tell me about yourself” or ask what you are looking for. That is your opening.
Do not list your resume out loud. Do not say you are a hard worker or a team player. Those words mean nothing to the person sitting across from you.
Emma used to do exactly that. In our practice session, she led with adjectives. Motivated. Detail-oriented. Passionate about writing. We stopped her and rebuilt it.
Instead, connect your actual skills to what they just told you matters to them. The Director mentioned the agency was struggling to grow its content reach.
Emma had a direct answer for that:
“I actually worked on something similar during my last internship. I was writing five blog posts a week, and our social following grew 10 percent over the summer. That content brought in three new client leads for the firm.”
That is an Attitude. She was not telling him she was good. She was showing him, with real evidence, that she had already done something relevant. Now he believed her. And when he believed her, he was willing to do something for her.
A is for Action. Now You Ask.
This is the step most students skip entirely because it feels awkward. It should not.
You are not asking for a job. You are asking for the next step. There is a big difference.
As Emma’s meeting wound down, she said,
“This has been really helpful. Based on what I have shared, do you think my skills could be a fit here? If so, is there anyone else on the team you think I should talk to?”
He introduced her to three other people at the agency that same day.
Most people will say yes when you ask this way. Not because they owe you anything. Because you spent the last 20 minutes being prepared, curious, and genuinely focused on their world, not just your own job search. You made it easy for them to say yes.
That introduction is how jobs are actually found. 80% of positions are filled through relationships and referrals, not job boards. The Action at the end of the call is the whole point.
One More Thing
Emma sent a thank-you note within 24 hours referencing something specific from the conversation. She progressed to the next round and landed the job.
Three sentences. Almost no one does this. The students who do are remembered.
The 3A’s are not a script. They are a preparation strategy. You go in knowing what you want out of the meeting and how to get there. That changes everything about how you show up and how the other person sees you.
Emma thought she could wing it. She couldn’t. Most students can’t. But once she had a plan, she walked in confidently, asked the right questions, made the right impression, and got the outcome she wanted.
That is what preparation does.
If your student has a networking meeting coming up and no plan for how to run it, that is exactly what we work on. Call us at 973-577-6161 or schedule a complimentary consultation.
