Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, Independence Day, and a great time for networking. Throughout the U.S. are cookouts, parties, barbeques, festivals, and other social gatherings making it a terrific time to build and maintain your network. In our teleclass Rebuilding Your Network 5 Minutes a Day, one of the tips was to incorporate your networking into things you’re already doing… if you’re already attending a fun social gathering, make networking a part of it.

A quick tip for networking tomorrow: Listen. That means really listen to your guests for opportunities, problems, or situations during a conversation listen to how you could help them. It could be a nice opportunity for you or someone who is in your network already to help one of your guests. One of my clients, an electrical engineer, was visiting a friend during a holiday. My client’s friend was just hired at a software company and invited my client for a tour. Next thing my client knew, he met the owners happened to be walking around during the tour and my client landed an interview. The interview was much more relaxing rather than a standard grilling because the interviewers had more time to spend with my client because of the standard holiday shut down. It was a more casual and pleasant interview, rather than a standard grilling. This person was more introverted and had been thinking about passing on the party but went and now he’s hired at a new wonderful job.

Something to think about when networking to your next big gig. Enjoy!