Here is the second part II of Heather White's guide to meeting, greeting and coming away from conference season with a great network of contacts. Part I is here.

When you do meet people it is generally assumed that you have got two minutes to make a good first impression with a contact and then if you do a good job, you have another two minutes at best. First things first - how to break into a group? If the group is tightly gathered in on itself i.e. there is little room to squeeze between people, please don’t try to get in. It is not only embarrassing but considered very rude. However look out for the following signs that say now is a good time to break into a group are:

o the group is standing in horse shoe shape - men do this a lot

o someone has just left the group — it is ok to subtlety ‘stalk’ someone whilst waiting for your chance, stay out of eye contact however

o there is little eye contact within the group

All you need to do is make eye contact with one person and step in. When you step into the group and the group carries on talking, show real interest in the conversation and don’t worry that as yet you haven’t been introduced.

How can you tell if you have cracked making a good impression? There are three things to look out for - body language, conversation and agreement. For body language, it’s very simply demonstrated — contacts are likely to make good eye contact, posture is more towards you and you get a sense they want to be with you. Conversation: even if they are rushed to move on, as they will be, the conversation will be fairly easy without awkward silences, they will ask you questions or be very happy to share with you. In other words it won’t be hard work. But don’t mistake a hard conversation (negative) with a challenging conversation (positive). As mentioned earlier, it is better you have an opinion. Finally agreement; they will be happy for you to follow up, there will be a willing rather than a stunted ‘OK — if you must’ reply.

Have your business cards ready and if you have had a positive interaction with someone, don’t be afraid to pass your card across. Conference season is all about making contacts and sharing information so people expect to swop cards. This doesn’t mean that you should be rushing round handing cards to anyone you’ve managed to gain eye contact with as it will make you look desperate and superficial. For those you’ve had a good conversation with, try and be imaginative about why you should exchange cards. However be realistic about the longer term prospects of whether they will find you useful and vice versa. What works really well are phrases like ‘I’d love to talk about that more’, ‘I will get in touch soon so we can have coffee’ or ‘that research sounded really interesting, would you be able to send me the link?’