How to Engage Alumni in Your Careers and Employability Agenda
Making use of alumni networks can be a great way to champion careers and employability within your university. The wealth of experience and knowledge that past students bring can support current students on their employability journey, offer opportunities and guidance for recent graduates, and even inform how you deliver your careers services by providing insights into industry and the labour market.
However, careers professionals can sometimes find it difficult to tap into these networks, and the question of how to engage alumni in the employability agenda remains. Many graduates tend to relocate after leaving university, and fostering that bond while they pursue fulltime employment can be challenging.
A more personalised and targeted approach to alumni relations is imperative to strengthen that community and ensure that current and graduating students, as well as your careers service itself, can reap the benefits.
In this blog, we outline 4 ways you can create that personalised approach to alumni relations from an employability perspective, with examples of innovative practice from across the sector.
Streamline Networks by Industry, Subject or Profession
Generalist, university-wide networks often fail to capture the unique and varied experiences of alumni, which can differ significantly based on variables such as the course they studied or the profession they entered into on graduating. The communications sent to these large lists are unlikely to strike a personal tone and therefore have real impact or appeal for alumni.
By orienting networks around areas that alumni continue to engage with post-graduation, you can enhance the avenues by which you connect with them.
The University of Northampton’s Corium Club is a unique example. Established with the intention of engaging former students of the Institute for Creative Leather Technologies, this group offers the opportunity for current students to connect with alumni working in industries relevant to their field of study. The society’s activities have included networking and careers events on campus as well as off-site trade fairs in industry hot spots such as India and Hong Kong, where students have even been interviewed and offered jobs.
The value of Northampton’s approach is the specific, industry-oriented nature of the Corium Club network. You might consider how you can orient your own alumni networks around:
Subject area or school/college, particularly for those subjects that lead to specific career paths such as Medicine and Education.
Industry area, to provide a bridge of guidance and support for those who express interest in working in a certain industry delivered by those who have direct experience.
Professional roles – this could be an effective way to bring together past students at different points in their career and encourage networking opportunities.
By location – this may be useful for helping international alumni to connect after graduation and provide insights into the global labour market.
Research Alumni Activities
To engage alumni effectively, understanding their journey and activities on leaving university is crucial.
A recent roundtable brought together employability professionals to explore next steps following the publication of a HEPI Policy Note on student perspectives on careers services. The participants offered several practical solutions to the challenges faced in delivering excellent employability support, but one idea stands out as particularly innovative and related to alumni networks.
Participants discussed the potential benefits of a scheme that allowed academic staff from the university to shadow alumni in the workplace. Such a programme would enable staff to understand relevant skills in the workplace, and also to identify potential skills gaps. They could then tailor teaching and learning to better prepare graduates entering employment.
Careers professionals would have an important role to play in programmes such as this. Your knowledge and experience working with alumni to provide placement and internship opportunities would be crucial.
While this solution is more novel and would require evaluation, conducting research into your alumni activities should form part of your employability agenda regardless. Other steps you could take to do this might include conducting surveys and focus groups, or reviewing regional skills plans, to better understand current labour market practices and skills gaps.
Co-Create Resources and Interventions with Alumni
Co-creation alongside students is becoming an increasingly prevalent area of practice across the sector, but what about past students?
Alumni have a unique understanding of the journey your graduates go on when they leave your institution and the opportunities available to them. So, when thinking of how to engage alumni in the employability agenda, this could be a potentially impactful solution.
There are plenty of examples from across the sector that could be repurposed elsewhere. Our top recommendations are:
1. Use social media, especially LinkedIn
Creating alumni groups on LinkedIn is common practice when it comes to institutions based in the United States and Europe, but most UK universities are yet to tap into this.
The LinkedIn group function allows members to post opportunities and network with one another. You can use insights from activity on the group to inform your careers services – whether that’s discerning ideas for future events such as panels and fairs, or tailoring the support you offer to current students based on challenges faced by former ones.
In general, social media can be a great tool for engaging alumni and to target former students at different stages in their career. For example, older alumni may be more likely to use a platform such as Facebook, whereas it may be easier to connect with more recent graduates via Twitter or Instagram.
2. Create an alumni blog
The blog format is a great way to engage alumni and enhance your careers service delivery.
City, University of London’s alumni network has a content platform that includes blogs from former students as well as recordings of careers events. The content is wide-ranging, with pieces from recent graduates as well as stories from alumni further on in their career.
Many of the pieces highlight social justice work being undertaken by alumni, tapping into a broader concept of ‘graduate outcomes’ beyond salary or professional status. By highlighting the meaning graduates can find in their work after leaving your institution, you grow the potential for student satisfaction with their university journey.
Having insights from alumni can be a powerful resource for current students to draw on in their own employability journey, providing examples and a blueprint for their next steps.
An alumni blog also signals to your former students that you are interested and engaged in their experience. Indicating this can help you to foster connections with these networks and maintain them into the future.
3. Set up a mentoring programme
Many institutions choose to set up a mentoring programme to allow current students to shadow alumni in the workplace. These schemes often have competitive application processes, which can in itself be a useful experience for current students to undergo.
Our top tips for recruiting mentors to run this kind of programme are:
Be specific about what you’re looking for. UCL indicate that they’re hoping to engage mid-career professionals, while the University of Birmingham’s programme seeks alumni in leadership roles.
Indicate how much time mentors will need to commit. We recommend starting small – asking mentors to meet their mentees virtually once a month in a fixed duration programme, for example – with the option to expand that contact to include more regular meetings with on-site opportunities.
Offer rewards and promote the benefits of the programme. Mentors may find it advantageous to have their organisation sponsor careers events or appear on industry panels.
Focus on building strong connections with employers via alumni, outlining ways you can support their recruitment, such as assessing CVs and identifying long-lists of candidates for graduate roles.
Offer Events By and For Alumni
Most career services will deliver events that involve their alumni imparting advice and guidance to current students. However, it’s also worth considering what your institution can do to support alumni in their own employability journeys.
While it’s pretty standard to allow recent graduates to continue accessing university careers service up to a certain point, you may be able to take your provision a step further.
Having a platform that is open to alumni and students beyond more than a couple of years after graduating allows for alumni at all stages of their career journey to connect. The use of dedicated platforms such as Handshake or CareerConnect have become increasingly prevalent across the sector.
You should also seek to expand your range of events and resources to support alumni. UCL’s Connect Programme offers events and recorded webinars, as well as resources such as blogs, case studies and podcasts, on topics relevant to alumni, such as guidance on how to change careers and work in an international environment.
By supporting alumni in their own employability journeys, you can grow their sense of belonging and loyalty to the institution. As a result, they alumni may be more likely to engage in other forms of support your services provide, such as mentoring schemes.
Your alumni community can be a great resource to draw on. Their expertise and experience can provide important insight to current students, as well as help you to understand current labour market trends and the kind of skills that are valuable to employers and industry.
By enhancing your services through alumni engagement, you can better support students in your institution to achieve good graduate outcomes. For further insight into how you can use data from former students to inform areas of practice in your careers service delivery, join us for the 2023 Graduate Employability Conference.
