Tips for Leveraging Your Alumni Network

Tips for Leveraging Your Alumni Network Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Building a network If you havent put effort into building your alumni network or think it needs some strengthening, there are plenty of ways to do so. A good starting point is heading to your campus career center or department office, which will have pamphlets and people that will detail different opportunities for you to connect with various alumni. Many departments and career centers have a mentorship program that connects current undergrads to alumni through different networking events like luncheons, panels, or simply introductions. Joining a mentorship program will help ease you into building an alumni network and connect you to alumni that are in a program because they actually want to help undergraduates. You dont necessarily have to be an underclassman to start building your alumni network, but if you join different organizations that relate to your career or major, you will be in constant contact with upperclassmen. The upperclassmen you socialize with now will eventually be alumni and having a personal connection with them will only help in the future when you seek them out for advice or career help. Those spam emails you get from your campus career center or your department that detail different events on campus? Try giving them a little more attention next time you find them in your inbox. Sometimes your department or the career center will send messages advertising panels or workshops hosted by alumni. Not only will you get to hear whatever the workshop or panel promises to cover, you will also have the opportunity to meet the alumni before or after the event to make the event a networking opportunity. Stay connected with your alumni network You dont want to meet your alumni at different events on campus (or elsewhere) and expect them to remember you or be willing to help a near complete stranger when you come to them for advice later on. To avoid this, you will want to stay connected with your alumni network so that when you do come to them later on for help, they will be able to recognize you and be more willing to help someone they know. An obvious choice for staying connected professionally is to add alumni on LinkedIn. Doing so will allow them to be up-to-date with your latest career ventures and you to be up-to-date with them as well. If they have public  Facebook or Twitter profiles that they use somewhat professionally, you can always use more than one social media platform to connect with your alumni network. More importantly, do not be a ghost follower. Try to interact with your alumni network every so often. For example, if you have someone on LinkedIn, you will be seeing their latest career moves. Instead of scrolling past notifications of the latest job position or a work anniversary, send them a congratulations instead of scrolling past the notifications. Always be appreciative and never beg Never outright ask for a job position. While you may be full of envy at certain accomplishments of some alumni in your network, its not right to expect part (or all) of your alumni network to pave a perfect path for you to get where you want to be in your career. Instead, try approaching your alumni network with the mindset that can help you, but are definitely not obligated to help you out. There are multiple conversation starters that you can use when approaching people in your alumni network. If you have a particular point of interest that you want to discuss, you can try Hello, I have a question about how you were able to acquire or Congrats on your latest position! Would you mind taking the time to tell me about it? When it comes to having an alumni network, its important to maintain it. Remember that as much as you want to use them for your own benefit, they have their own career and lives going on and arent there just to help you. Best of luck in your college career and career endeavors with your alumni network!