Alumni Networks

Ultimanecat

Are alumni networks and events worth the trouble? I'm not particularly interested in any social aspect of it - I live decently far away from my previous university, and I still have personal relationships with most everyone that I really knew well in school. Mostly I'd be interested in professional development stuff (I'm unemployed and only getting a longer and longer gap in my resume), but like I said, it's not like I'd know any group of alumni any better than any other random gathering of people.

My school is also pretty well-known for being kind of asocial, so there's that to consider as well.

Anybody have any success with these sorts of things?

TychoCelchuuu

There's no catchall answer. If you meet someone who's inclined to give a job to a fellow University of Shittingon graduate, then it's worth it. If you don't, it isn't. We can't know ahead of time which will happen, and neither can you, probably.

finral

The general consensus is that networking is the best way to get a job these days, so joining an alumni network and being active in it could help. It's really key to get involved and talk to as many different people as you can about your career interests. When I was out of work, the people who knew I was looking passed potential job information on to me, so it can definitely help.

Ultimanecat

Yeah, I know the name of the game right now is networking...it's just that my network has run dry, and I need to expand it apparently. Someone suggested my alumni network but 1) I kind of had a poor university experience and 2) that seems like a weak potential connection anyway, in my mind.

Just curious if it would be worth the effort to make some trips to events where I don't know anybody and nobody knows me, like if these sorts of things had a greater than average success rate compared to your average meet market.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

it depends on the expense of the trip of course, but if it's just gas and an evening it can't really hurt you to check it out. The reality of a general alumni association is that probably relatively few of the people who go to the functions actually know each other from undergrad anyway.

My undergrad uni's alumni association also negotiates group deals on stuff like insurance, so it's potentially worth joining for that reason.

Jurg

More distant connections can actually be better if you don't just come across as JUST looking for a job. They have access to a lot of non-redundant information that your close ties do not.

TychoCelchuuu

Does your university have a LinkedIn group for alumni or something? That can help you check out who's going to be at these things (or at least who will potentially be there) so you can at least see whether anyone in an industry you can work in might be on your radar.

Edith_Bagot-Dix

This depends on awful lot on your school, your major, and what you want to get out of it.

I did my undergrad in Computer Science, worked in the video game industry, and am now completing an MBA. In all three of these cases, professional networking with alumni has made a huge difference (especially the MBA - being from the same school and having a good recommendation from a particular professor has opened some very major doors). Straight up asking for a job isn't the way to go of course, but trying to track down people with interests similar to yours, or who work in fields you want to be in, is a big benefit of these networks. Once you start meeting people, you're eventually going to start meeting friends of friends and colleagues of colleagues who are going to have some role that needs to be filled.

The school being kind of asocial can work to your advantage, too. I have the same kind of thing, and it makes you a bigger wheel in the networking scheme of things than would otherwise be the case.

Darkewolfe

This is going to be one of those "get out what you put in" things. If you're active and people get a good perception of you, this could lead to good things. You won't be able to just drop by a couple meetings without putting anything else into it and be that much more likely to get a job, though.