I’ve applied for jobs a few times and this has always been a problem. Now that I’ve been out of college for a while it’s even more of a problem. I don’t have anyone from college that would even remember me. I can’t use my current coworkers because I don’t want my current employer to know I’m leaving until I have a new job lined up. I don’t keep in touch with old coworkers. I don’t do anything outside of work as far as volunteering or anything. I know I’m not supposed to use friends or family. Who is even left after that? The only people I have the contact info for are friends, family, and my current boss.
I am definitely friends with and will keep in contact with a few of my coworkers. One of them is the forever dungeon master (the DnD kind not the kinky kind) in my friend group. The problem in my case is that I only have 3 jobs in my work history and the 1st and 3rd job are the same company. I started at my current company straight out of highschool and worked my way up. Then I went elsewhere for a few years before one of my old coworker friends basically begged me to come back and work on a new project so now my excoworkers are now my current coworkers again. At my second job I was a one man department and I was lucky if I even saw anyone else all day. I probably should have tried to network more there though. As I said in the origional post I really don’t want to use any current coworkers so that eliminates 2 thirds of my work history and I didn’t network for the other third. I’ll definitely be keeping in touch with people from my new job, considering I’ll be apprenticing under someone it should be easy to make at least one contact.