Students, faculty, staff and members of the Latin community gathered at the Otto M. Budig Theater to hear the keynote speaker of Northern Kentucky University’s National Hispanic Month Celebration discuss how to make yourself visible and create a network of people to excel in opportunities.

Mariela Dabbah innovated the crowd with an exercise to get them involved in the topic. The exercise, according to Dabbah, was good for networking because it is easier to talk about someone else then yourself.

It is good to go to events and find one person that you can get to know and learn more about, Dabbah said.

“Nobody is going to offer you anything if they don’t know what you want, what you stand for, what you want to do with your career … if nobody knows that about you, nobody’s going to come and offer you an opportunity,” Dabbah said.

Dabbah said that it is important to get noticed and presented five steps on how to do that: establish relationships, create a board of advisers, build a brand, support colleagues in achieving their goals and get involved in projects at college and in the community.

It is important to have sponsors who want to promote you and help you get into positions that you would not be able to obtain without their help. They put their reputation on the line in appointing you to a position they believe that you are capable of handling.

A mentor is someone who supports and guides you, and “teaches you the unspoken rules of the field.” These are also the individuals who help you learn in how to work in the field and adapt to the environment.

It is important to be open to feedback from advisers and to grow from that feedback.

An advocate is someone who talks well about you, and it can be anyone who is at a company or organization. They are connections that will point out how well you work and can get you in the door.

Supporting colleagues and their ideas, these can be mentors or teammates. “People notice people who are supportive of others,” Dabbah said.
It is good to find a board or program that you can be a part of to start building a platform to perform on.

“Now you have these ideas,” said Dabbah “What will you do to become relevant in your life so you can fulfill your goals?”