Career Spring Cleaning: Contacts, Contacts Everywhere

Here we are in week three already. Your documents are wrangled. You've renovated your resume, bio, and online profiles. This week, it's time to tackle your contact database (insert loud groan here). If you're like me (and in this case, I hope you're not), you have contacts spread across various databases—a few hundred on Outlook, a few hundred on Gmail, a few hundred on LinkedIn. Having all of your updated contacts in one place is a huge career time-saver, especially if you are job hunting, publishing a newsletter, or maintaining a blog. (And remember, if your contacts are listed online, they belong to the site's owners.)

I have tried (and failed) to maintain my contact database on various “contact management” apps, but overall, I find that one solution rises above the rest: the spreadsheet. Here are a few tips for putting together one of your own.

Get it all together. Apply the “Export” function (usually found under "Tools") to all of your contact apps, creating spreadsheets—much easier to work from than numerous databases. You can select which “fields” to export as well, so include whichever fields you need. Set up a few separate spreadsheets to begin with, then merge them all into one master document. I sort my contacts alphabetically, then begin the process of purging and updating.

Say "out with the old." How many of your contacts are out-of-date? People change jobs, email addresses, and phone numbers all the time. If you have old email addresses, delete those first, and then update other contact info as needed (you may need to call your contacts for updated info, so hopefully you at least have correct phone numbers!). This step is time-consuming, so depending on your number of contacts, it may take more than a week. But the next time there is an update, you'll be able to easily enter it into your spreadsheet.

Pay regards to your cards. There has been much discussion lately regarding the demise of the business card—one camp believes their time has passed, while the other side strongly disagrees. I have no opinion on the debate, but I do have stack of business cards that need to be entered into my database! I have used card scanners in the past, but they're not that reliable, especially for creative and colorful business cards. I can type pretty fast, so these days I just enter card info by hand. If you have many cards to enter, set a goal of 10 per day until you get through the stacks.

Import away! At the end of this process, you will have a master spreadsheet that is ready to import into the app of your choice (I use Gmail). I also recommend backing up this document on a flash drive or CD. Another great feature of the master spreadsheet is the ability to create specific contact databases for targeted emailing, such as newsletters or announcements. If you need a refresher on working with spreadsheets, you can find many free resources and tutorials online.

Whew! I had planned to cover networking this week as well, but your organizing your contacts should be enough to keep your hands full. Remember how organized you'll feel when it's over, and treat this step like a major accomplishment—because it is!

Last Week: Resume Renovation

Next Week: Organize Your Networking

—Kristi Enigl, Global Career Coach