Networking is a must in any job hunt, so you’ll find no end of advice about how to effectively network to find a new job. I’ve had some success networking to find jobs as I became more experienced, and thus had a broader network, in my career. Sometimes jobs you get through networking can turn out to be complete dogs, however. But that’s a post for another day.

For today, here are three key phrases for your networking efforts, as posted on the Huffington Post recently.

The first is “And I’m looking for…” or basically an intro for you to launch into your sales pitch or elevator (read brief) speech about yourself and your capabilities. To have one of these, you have to know yourself and what suits you first, one of the basic tenets of the Always Be Job Hunting.

The second phrase is “do you know anyone at,” because you can’t know everyone but you can hopefully know somebody who knows somebody, who knows…you get the idea.

The final phrase is “I’ll keep you apprised of my search.” This one surprised me but the rationale makes sense, essentially you’re staying connected and, perhaps, providing them intelligence on the job market as well as you go through your search.

John N. Frank