Career College Central

Subscribe at careercollegecentral.com 45 Alumni relationships In our previous alumni articles, we've talked about the importance of building relationships with our graduates. We call it "alumni relations" for a reason. Alumni programs are all about relationships. We want to serve and support our graduates by fostering a mutually beneficial relationship. Engaged alumni are more likely to refer family and friends to their institution, become advisory board members, guest classroom speakers, mock interview employers, future faculty, student mentors, provide connections for student internships and, ultimately, employment. Building relationships promotes alumni engagement, and this engagement has incredible value. Staying connected in a new way Once our students graduate, our relationship changes, and we no longer have classroom face-to-face connections. Our challenge is to determine what this new relationship looks like and communicate the "new way" to our students before they graduate and leave our campuses. So, what is your new way? Is your plan of communication going to be via email or printed newsletters? Will your relationship method be a dedicated alumni website? What way will you communicate with your graduates and ask them to communicate with you? Will you rely on an alumni Facebook page or LinkedIn? How will you maintain your relationship with your graduates? We all know one of the biggest challenges facing an alumni organization is finding the graduates we've lost touch with. ey've relocated, changed postal addresses and possibly even have new email addresses. It's difficult to foster a relationship with someone you can't find, and it's very expensive to buy those address lists. Dedicated alumni website One of the benefits of having a dedicated alumni website is the ability to cater to your needs and those of your graduates. For example, some of you direct all transcript requests to be processed through your alumni site. is brings desired traffic and meets a graduate's need. At Pima Medical Institue, we designed our website so upon login, our alumni land on their profile page showing them the personal information we currently have for them in our database. On that same page, we encourage them to update any information (email, phone, etc.) they see is incorrect. is has been really effective in helping us gather updated personal information from our graduates and stay connected. Rather than us trying to track them down, they are actually coming to us! is is another great place to get updated employment information and provide opportunities for your alumni to give back by indicating their willingness to serve on an advisory board or become a student mentor. e No. 1 reason graduates come back to their institution of learning is for career services assistance. Could you offer a job board or a link to career services advisers via your site? Would there be value in offering resume writing or resume review services for your graduates? While your institution may offer these services for brand-new alumni, it might be a great idea to expand your career services to include those who have been working in their profession for five years or more and are looking for a job change. Establishing relationships before we need them If we think about how we can meet our graduates' needs and what might draw them to our sites, we are able to benefit from their participation in the site. Also, focusing on building relationships while alumni are still our students and "under our roof " may have significant and lasting benefits. If they know the expectations for the future and know our intent and reasons for wanting to stay connected, they will be engaged with us. ere can be lasting benefits in establishing relationships before we need them. JUNE GUDEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER June Gudeman is the alumni coordinator at Pima Medical Institute. She began just over 10 years ago, creating PMI's alumni program from the ground up. She focuses much of her efforts on gathering alumni success stories and creatively sharing them with prospective and current students, as well as the PMI staff and community at large. You can contact her at jgudeman@pmi.edu.

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