同时别忘了和老板打个招呼。“通常人们面临的最大障碍就是得到老板的同意。担任董事耗费时间，特别是在经济形势困难时期，老板不想让自己手下的高管为外部事务分神。”沃德说。“他们希望你全力以赴投入到日常工作中。”

    如果能说服老板，让他相信某个特别的董事职位很可能让你更加胜任现有的工作，则会有所帮助。至于理由，可以说帮助你结识潜在的新客户，或者通过长远的财务安排来丰富自己的经验。如果这些事情听起来令人望而却步，实际上确实是这么回事。不过一旦你被选中担任某个董事，沃德说：“你就从饥荒直接跨越到盛宴了。第一份董事职位总是最难得到的。以后，收到的邀请会多得让你应接不暇。”

    马克•罗杰斯就曾经有过这样的遭遇：在得到第一个董事职位的一年之内，他就收到另外五个邀请。至于他创建BoardProspects的原因，如他所述：“在我寻找第一个董事位置的过程中，我遇到了很多志同道合的聪明人，他们都能胜任董事工作。就是没有直接有效的方法可以联系到有职位空缺的董事会。”

    祝你好运。

    Don't neglect to mention to your boss that you're doing this. "Often the biggest obstacle people face is getting their bosses' okay. Directorships are time-consuming and, especially in rough economic times, CEOs usually hesitate to let their C-level people take on outside commitments," Ward says. "They want your full attention focused on your day job."

    It might help if you can make the case that a particular directorship is likely to make you even better at the work you're already doing -- perhaps by letting you rub elbows with potential new customers, or giving you broader experience with long-range financial planning.

    If all this sounds daunting, it is. But once you've been picked for one board seat, Ward says, "you'll go from famine to feast. Getting on your first board is tough. After that, you'll probably get more offers than you can handle."

    That was Mark Rogers' experience: Within a year of snagging his first directorship, he was tapped for five more. He started BoardProspects, he says, because "while I was still looking for my first seat, I ran across so many qualified, talented people who were looking, too. There just was no direct, efficient way for us to connect to the boards that had openings to fill."

    Good luck.