How do you keep in touch in a professional relationship?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The background is that I had a temporary job over the summer and I want to stay in touch with some of the people I’ve met there.

I’m a law student, so I feel I should at least stay in contact with them until I graduate and get a steady job. Until then I have to keep looking for temporary gigs and I can use all the help I can get.

Someone close to the people I want to stay in touch with told me that they don’t like it when former employees don’t contact them after the employees leave the temporary job.

What I’ve been doing up until now is sending boilerplate emails every once in a while. They’re vaguely job related and and usually comment heavily on the weather, and I’ve been getting decent responses back.

So the questions are:

  1. Does anyone else do this? And if so, how do you do it? That is, how do you maintain contact with someone who you have no personal relationship with, but you want to keep as a professional contact?

  2. Am I doing this right? I feel weird sending content light emails to these people. Yet I don’t what I else I could be doing to “stay in touch”.

  3. What would you do if you found yourself in this situation? What would you write in the email?

2

Have you tried LinkedIn? It’s designed for precisely this purpose.

3

ditto on linkedin. One thing to not forget is that professional relationships are personal relationships also. Sure they are different than classmates, drinking buddies, etc., but they are still relationships that have to be maintained. Sounds like you’re doing fine.

4

I stay in touch with many people when I leave a job - it really helps when I’m looking for work.

I email, I call and I have lunch if I can.