4 Career Assets You Need to Be Networking-Ready
It helps in networking to be prepared with at least these four assets. They will never be perfect so do what you can and let them out into the world.
Resume
You likely have a resume and have updated it countless times.
So I will add just two points for you to consider:
Add a company description:
Add a brief description of each company including product, industry and scale. Note if it is public, private or venture capital/private equity funded.
For example: Educative is a Series A venture backed, edtech company (SaaS) whose technology platform provides hands-on learning for software developers.
Mimic the job description - Use the exact same words as the job description (as appropriate) to make it easier for recruiters and hiring managers to connect the dots between my experience and what they want (or at least what they said they want).
Introduction bio
The introduction bio is useful when you ask connections to introduce you. Send a separate email that they can easily forward to facilitate the intro and in the email, include why you want the introduction, your LinkedIn profile link, and your introduction bio to provide context on your background.
You can also use the bio to draft the About section of your LinkedIn profile and shorten it for your elevator speech.
I leveraged talks by Rebecca Okamoto and Jodi Glickman to come up with the following structure:
1a. For job search - What can you do for the reader? How can you make their life better? - Use this structure to get you started - [I help [my target audience] achieve [a benefit they desire]] without [negative consequence]].
1b. For networking - What are you driving forward? What are you hoping to achieve next?
2. What is your experience? - Pick and choose from your background that supports your ability to achieve ‘What you can do for the listener?’
3. Connect the dots.
I have different versions of my bio based on the objective of the email or meeting.
Elevator speech
‘Tell me about yourself’ is often an explicit request in interviews and implicit request in networking meetings. It is important to prepare an elevator speech and practice it until it flows easily and casually. Your bio is a good starting point.
This is hard! I still stumble all over myself and catch myself improvising my intro - often resulting in a jumbled mess!
Practice your elevator speech. Modify it based on the meeting objective, how you feel saying it and reactions from your listeners.
LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn influencers have a lot to say about optimizing your LinkedIn profile, so read as much as you dare and pick what works for you.
At a minimum, update your:
Photo - Ask a friend to take a headshot in natural light.
Headline
About - You can modify your introduction bio for this section.
Top Skills reflecting the role you want now
Experience with brief description of the company and your accomplishments
Education WITHOUT graduation date and GPA
You will update these assets periodically. They won’t ever be done, so don’t use ‘perfecting’ your assets as an excuse to delay going out and meeting people.
Here is my example bio:
Cecilia Cayetano is an operational and financial partner to CEOs and founders — the person who steps in when something critical is broken, unbuilt, or about to break under growth, and builds the team and systems sustainable, high-impact performance.
Her background spans management consulting at Andersen, Hitachi and Ernst & Young, financial operations at Expedia (including running a $27B consumer payments platform and enabling global market expansion), and building and transforming teams at tech startups from seed to pre-IPO.
She is known for assessing a situation fast, designing a clear path forward, and executing with the team — in environments where the playbook doesn't exist yet.
Cecilia thrives in partnering with CEOs who want a builder at their side—someone who can align teams, operationalize strategy, and drive the business forward.
Here is my example elevator speech (90 second version):
I'm the operator CEOs call when something critical is broken — or doesn't exist yet — and need a true partner to fix it.
My career has had a consistent thread. I walk into complex, ambiguous situations, figure out what's broken across people, process and systems, design a better future state, and build the team sustainable, high-impact performance. I've done that across three chapters.
The first was a decade in management consulting at Andersen, Hitachi and Ernst & Young, where I led risk and finance transformation projects at large enterprises. What I loved about that work was building a team fast, earning trust quickly, and successfully handing off redesigned operating models to client employees ensuring long-term operational continuity.
The second was Expedia, where I started in internal audit — which for me was really a way to reverse-engineer how a $10 billion travel business actually worked across all its brands. That led to leading financial operations, including running the consumer payments team responsible for $27 billion in annual transactions and enabling the company to expand into new markets with local payment methods.
The third has been startups — seed to pre-IPO — where I've built and transformed teams across functions, scaled one company's headcount from 5 to 400, and helped lead another through a successful exit within six months of joining. What drew me there was the speed, the stakes, and the fact that my work directly shaped whether the company succeeded.
What connects all of it is this: I'm at my best when the problem is hard, the team needs building, and it matters whether we get it right. That's the kind of role I'm looking for now — an early-stage company where I can be a true operational partner to the founder and help build something that lasts.