Do you know what Skype is? Most likely you do but, just in case you don’t, this is what Skype has to say about itself.
Skype is software that enables the world’s conversation. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video calls and voice calls , send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people everywhere use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles.
Not impressed? Well, howzabout these stats?
- There are over (say it like Dr. Evil) 520,000,000 subscribers on Skype.
- In 2010, a report by TeleGeography Research stated that Skype-to-Skype calls accounted for 13% of all international call minutes in 2009.
- In 2009, Skype was growing by 380,000 users a day.
With so many people on Skype, its a great place to network (and not just chat with pals). All you have to know is how to find people to network with and there are a couple of ways to do that.
- Search for people to connect with via the Skype application.
- Search for people to connect with via Google.
Let me show you both ways, step by step.
To find people via the Skype app, click on “Contacts” at the top of the application, then click on “Add a Contact…”
A smaller window pops up. In the window are several fields (Email, Phone Number, Full Name and Skype Name) In the full name, type in the word, umm… “Recruiter.” At this writing, 200 matches were found.
To the right of the number of matches found is a “View” button. I click that to look at the 200 people on Skype who have identified themselves as Recruiters.
At this point, I would simply click on each one, introduce myself and see if they have an opportunity that would interest me (or someone in my network). Of course, why stick with talking to Recruiters only? Check out what else I found when I looked for other terms in the “Full Name” slot.
- 200 matches found for Human Resources
- 200 matches found for CEO, CFO and CTO
- 200 matches found for Google, Cisco and Facebook
Now I am using the latest version of Skype which (unfortunately) does not have as robust a search as its previous version. Ugh! Oh well, its free, so how can I complain. Oh! I wish I could say that each contact I found with the term “Cisco” in it meant that they were all Cisco employees. If so, that would be great if I wanted to network with someone at that company, but truth is I don’t know. I do believe its worth a shot however. So, let me know how it goes?
In part 2, I will show you a different way to find people connected to Skype which may be better. Okay, its a lot better, but more time-consuming. You’ll see what I mean when I post it.
Ciao!
Jim
