The 20-Minute Networking Meeting - Graduate Edition: Learn to Network. Get a Job.

Updated 2025.
"The best advice I can give on navigating one-on-one networking is to check out The 20-Minute Networking Meeting. Follow their advice and your meeting will be a well-crafted success." - USA Today College

*WINNER - USA Best Book Award - College Guides Category!

Part of the multi-award-winning The 20-Minute Networking Meeting series, Graduate Edition is a simple, step-by-step guide written expressly for job-seeking grads, whether two-year, four-year, trade school, graduate or doctoral level, and shows you how to use your educational background to express your professional experience. This includes anyone that has gone back to school, and can be used whether your meetings are virtual or in person!

Built using the acclaimed The 20-Minute Networking Meeting - Executive Edition networking model lauded by business leaders around the world, the Graduate Edition shows you how to develop the most important career-making skillset in business--networking.

Taking the best elements of the best networkers from a wide array of industries and professions, combined with 40 years of the authors' professional networking experience, the Graduate Edition culminates in a highly productive networking approach from a hiring perspective.

In this book, learn what networking (really) is, and how to:

• Master the 5 most important parts of a networking meeting
• Create a networking agenda
• Construct key questions to lead a discussion
• Write networking emails to people you don't know
• Expand your professional network with more names
• Break into the "Invisible/Hidden Job Market" (where over 70% of all jobs are obtained)
• Make a networking meeting more effective, efficient, and mutually beneficial
• Execute the above (and much more)-- inside of 20 minutes
• Maintain your new network throughout your career!

Chockfull of real-world scenarios, short stories, meeting examples, and dozens of tips and observations from students, hiring authorities and recruiting experts, the Graduate Edition is an end-to-end lesson on job-search networking founded on the premises of gratitude, positivity, and reciprocity.

Specifically constructed to clarify and simplify networking for even the most introverted networker, the Graduate Edition is rounded out with a complete set of readiness worksheets that guide the reader through actual networking preparation, with fully written stories that show the entire The 20-Minute Networking Meeting model in action.

Take control of your job-search - and your career!

Also from Career Innovations Press:
The 20-Minute Networking Meeting - Professional Edition
The 20-Minute Networking Meeting - Veterans Edition
The 20-Minute Networking Meeting - Executive Edition

Nathan A. Perez is an award-winning author, national speaker and executive career and job-search coach at Career Innovation.
Prior to his Career Innovation consultancy, Nathan worked in the executive search industry in the Research function. Responsible for the first step in the executive recruitment process, Nathan researched and "found" the candidates for recruitment. Networking is a day-to-day function of his job, connecting with leaders across the country on a regular basis. He has been cited by The Huffington Post as one of the most connected people on LinkedIn, world-wide.
Author of the multi-award-winning job-search networking book The 20-Minute Networking Meeting, Nathan speaks on its principles to students, veterans, career coaches, executives and corporate teams everywhere. Nathan draws on 20 years of stage, film and television experience in New York City and Hollywood, and is a member of the Actors Equity Association union (AEA); a voting union member of The Screen-Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA); the Author's Guild; and served as Vice Chair at The Loft Literary Center, the nation's largest literary and writing organization. He was recently inducted as an Honorary Commander with the 934th Airlift Wing, U.S. Air Force Reserve, home of the Global Vikings. 

Marcia Ballinger, PhD is co-founder and Principal at Ballinger|Leafblad, a St. Paul-based executive search firm focused on serving the civic sector. She conducts executive search projects for top executives in non-profit organizations, higher education, foundations and professional associations. /Marcia has a BS in Business Administration and an MA in Speech-Communication, and a PhD in Organization and Management from Capella University where she served on the Board of Directors. She is active in a variety of non-profit organizations and was named an Industry Leader by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal in 2008; Real Power 50 by Minnesota Business Monthly; and 50 Over 50 by AARP in 2016.