[patio11]

This is Networking 2.0. Good on you, but hypothetically if you hadn't gotten "lucky" by having the predictable consequences of directed effort come to pass, you (and similarly situated geeks) still had options.

1) What if big names in your space hadn't retweeted you? Well, since you know who the big names in the space are, you take an hour or two to lookup their email addresses. Then, you send a one-paragraph email:

Hiya Bob,

My name is $NAME and I really like your work on backends as a service at $COMPANY. In particular, your post on the blog last year about $TOPIC was really insightful. I was able to apply a few ideas from it to my work.

I just wrote a post on BaaS myself. $LINK

I'd appreciate any thoughts you had on it.

Regards,

Anyone who writes you back is no longer a stranger. Instead, they think you're intelligent about a field where they currently cannot hire for love or money. You can then followup with "As it happens, I'm looking for opportunities to put further my interest in BaaS professionally. Do you happen to know anyone who is hiring?"

2) What if he wasn't really close for coffee?

Planes, we've got them. I am totally serious. A day off and a few hundred bucks versus a career upgrade, which has the higher NPV? "I will be in Boston for one day only on XX/YY (or, alternately, week of XX/YY). Would you let me buy you breakfast to talk about this?" is a very compelling offer psychologically. Your time is scarce, and hence valuable, plus you've already demonstrated three things they'll get out of saying "Yes." (Food, interesting conversation, and "the ability to get to know someone whose comportment suggests that he is going places.") Note that that is the only decision they need to make - after you have yes, then you can schedule the details.

3). What if he wasn't hiring?

He knows someone who is. Get warm intro.

[solutionyogi]

Patrick, this is great for our field where there are tons of influential folks blogging and/or tweeting. But what if you don't work in IT industry?

My very dear friend works as an Internal Auditor. She earlier worked for KPMG and now she is working for a Fortune 50 company. She is looking for other opportunities as she feels that she is not growing in her current position. Now, there aren't that many Internal Audit bloggers and certainly no hiring manager is blogging/tweeting. What approach should she take to get noticed by the right people?

[patio11]

There's so many possible answers to this question but the easiest possible one is to go to a conference in the industry, on your company's nickel if possible (trivial), and start making friends. Or you can use existing contacts in your Fortune 50 network and get warm intros to the right sort of people at peer firms, clients, vendors, etc. Or, since I'm guessing one does not become an Internal Auditor the first day out of high school, you work the alumni network at your college.

Also, even if nobody in your industry blogs, doesn't mean you can't start to generate a portfolio for yourself. How many blogs have you ever read by Japanese salarymen who do Enterprise Java development? Can you think of any which had an article or two that suggest maybe the author is smart enough to take out for coffee? (You can totally do this without bringing down the wrath of God on yourself for spilling company secrets. Just talk in very general terms about challenges in Internal Auditing and how one could overcome those, optionally with heavily anonymized anecdotes.)

[EwanG]

Almost hate to say it, but this is where a place like LinkedIn can really shine. Almost any profession has one or more interest groups on there where you can share stories with folks of a similar interest. You do have to be careful as more popular professions have their share of groups that are little more than recruiters and desperate job hunters in a mortal spiral. But reading for a while before joining can usually help you steer clear of those.

[refurb]

Agreed. If you don't have the network to find a job, create it. Cold calling/emails is a pretty inefficient way to do it, but it does work. Figure out what kind of job you want, find people that have that job and start talking to them. The most important thing is DON'T ASK THEM FOR A JOB. Just ask them how they got there and what advice they have for you. I've gotten more job offers that way than any other method.

[camz]

As someone from this field who's had a number of friends in management and executive positions in accounting and taxation. Getting into these positions is something that is really only reserved for people with

(1) Proven experience in the position (2) A number of years experience in public accounting firms (3) A peer recognizing and hiring you outright.

Finance positions are usually different because accounting, law and etc are very structured and getting into these positions requires authorization by various levels ranging from executive to board members.

But, you should definitely network because it's where everything starts. Just dont expect it to get you a job overnight - ever.