Building Vital Contacts (10.16.23)

This week in ISM I have moved onto a new chapter in my ISM journey. My focus has now shifted to making research professional in my field and getting ready to take the next important step in my professional journey which is connecting with professionals and setting up interviews.

An important task I did this week is starting to make my contact list. I started by looking for radiologists in my area on LinkedIn and through online research to accomplish this. By doing this I gained knowledge about finding and networking with professionals in a certain field and strategies to go about it. I also started developing a cold call script, which is essential when contacting potential mentors and industry experts. Writing this script showed me the value of clear and effective communication when trying to successfully network and connect with companies.

This week's task made me wonder What strategies and tactics I can use to most effectively get radiologists to agree to interviews and are there certain things I should stray away from discussing when requesting an interview.

A difficulty this week was creating a cold call script that was concise. I found it was difficult to include necessary information but still make a call that was short enough to keep the receiver's attention. I overcame this by writing down a full script and then cutting out things I felt were unnecessary. This week's success was the creation of my contact list because it is a huge step in my ISM career as it is my first time actually reaching out to companies and professionals on my own.

My main goal this coming week will be to start making cold calls and contacting businesses and professionals using my script. In order to broaden my knowledge of the field and create connections that might influence my future in radiology, I hope to schedule at least two interviews by the end of the week.

Overall, this week I have finally begun to really network with professionals. This week has been very exciting and interesting and it has only been confirmed by interest in the field of radiology.