Kelly Maselli teaches Youth to Aspire to Stardom through Networking

Clarksville, TN – Kelly Maselli of Gateway Realty & Investment Group, LLC & A+ Property Management shared the importance of networking to aid students in pursing their career goals.

Youth listened intently as Kelly addressed overcoming the fear of rejection and encouraged them to implement some of the timeless principles from Dale Carnegie’s book of “How to win friends and influence people”.

Some of the tips she provided students when networking consisted of

• Always smile and make eye contact while firmly shaking hands
• Memorizing and using everyone’s first name so they feel valued
• Actively listening and asking relevant questions to that you leave the conversation knowing more about the other person than they know about you
• Keep business cards handy to distribute and collect others cards so that you can follow up within 2 days after meeting them

After providing insightful best practices for students to engage networking in person, Kelly began to educate the students on social networking online. She stressed the importance of being careful o the content posted on social media sites and understanding employers policies about accessing those sites while at work.

“Social networking sites have become very popular among our youth as they seek to explore and define who they are and connect with others like themselves. I appreciate Kelly setting clear guidelines with examples from real life scenarios so that the students could understand the risks involved in placing personal information online. “ commented Richard “Reason” Garrett

“It is my hope that the students leave this class with valuable tools that create opportunities for open communication and help maximize the benefits of the internet while avoiding its potential dangers.” Kelly expressed.

The students concluded the class with an exercise where they were group in pairs and tasked with interviewing one another then writing one positive thing about each other on a sheet of paper that they learned about each other. Each student was given the opportunity to interview the each member of the group resulting in each one having a reminder of all the positive attributes that their classmates noticed about them.

Kelly encouraged the students to fall back on the list whenever they feel discouraged and/or nervous about engaging new individuals for networking purposes.

The next session for this group of LEAP Interns, will be at Daymar Institute and cover Career Search Preparation. Applications are currently being accepted for the next group of interns to participate in the program. For more information on the Youth Career Development Program visit www.leaporg.net