The following list of best practices was compiled based on feedback from academic departments and student groups who use AfterCollege Career Networks. These steps will help strengthen your alumni and industry relations while providing a valuable department or group-specific resource to your members. We hope you benefit from these ideas and also invite you to share your best practices on how you use AfterCollege to help your members.
Keeping track of students after they graduate
Most academic programs struggle to keep track of their alumni. One of the main reasons to keep track of alumni is to help determine what types of jobs students can expect to have after they go through your program. For a number of programs, knowing where students go after college can also help with their accreditation efforts.
Through AfterCollege, you can keep track of where your alumni work. Encourage your students to go to AfterCollege before they graduate and have them update their contact information and place of employment. Students can enter their job title and employer history. This information is available to you via your Career Network account on AfterCollege.
Students and alumni select their affiliation (e.g. academic departments, student groups, professional associations) when joining AfterCollege. As a result, alumni profiles are available to you for any member who chooses to affiliate themselves with your program or group.
Build and strengthen relationships with employers
Many employers go directly to departments and student groups, in addition to going to the career center, to promote their opportunities, on-campus visits, and sometimes research projects.
You can use AfterCollege to enable employers to post jobs, internships, and event announcements directly to your students by having them post on your AfterCollege-powered Career Network. Log on to your career management account and create employer accounts for your industry contacts. They will be able to post opportunities for your students free of charge via AfterCollege.
At the same time, you can automatically create PDF books of your students’ and alumni’s resumes and distribute these to your industry contacts as you see fit. Many groups and departments compile resume books, and AfterCollege allows you to easily coordinate this activity by having your members upload their resumes and allowing you to easily compile these into a nicely formatted resume book.
Provide relevant opportunities for your students
Make sure you let AfterCollege know what types of jobs your students are looking for. When we see relevant jobs, we’ll make sure to place them on your Career Network. The opportunities you receive from us will be relevant to your school and program. At a minimum, AfterCollege will make you and your students aware of opportunities that you may not know about.
Allow your alumni to provide mentorship to your students
One of the most effective ways for college students to find jobs is by talking to people who work at the companies of interest. Going back to the first point, you should encourage your graduating students, and also your alumni, to register on your Career Network and list their job title and place of employment. Your students will be able to go on your AfterCollege Career Network and see companies where alumni work. Students can then submit questions and your alumni can answer them. Students benefit from interacting with professionals who share their career interest and alumni gain satisfaction from sharing their valuable insights.
Add links to your customized AfterCollege Career Network on your website
Get the word out about your AfterCollege Career Network. Add links to your customized AfterCollege Career Network on your website. We’ve found the most successful Career Networks to be those that are actively promoted and linked to from the academic department or group web site, and incorporated into the top navigation of the web site.
To find the unique link/URL for your Career Network, go to the AfterCollege home page, type your school’s name. Once you do so, look for your group or department on the list, and copy the URL. If you don’t see your department or group listed, please let us know (
).
To promote and give your students easy access:
1. Place and title the link “Department NameCareer Network”. We recommend placement on a main page of your website to ensure students and alumni can easily find and access your Career Network
2. Let us know when the link is up ( )
3. Our University Relations team will set the filters in place to make sure you only get relevant opportunities for your students.
If space allows, we recommend that you add a description below the link: “The Department Name Career Network, powered by AfterCollege, allows you to connect with alumni from the department. You can also access specific opportunities targeted to your school and major from employers who are interested in students with your background.”
AfterCollege can also provide you with free email templates, posters and flyers to help promote your Career Network.
Privacy and User Confidentiality
AfterCollege follows a strict privacy policy and will never release a user’s information without their consent. Unlike many services, AfterCollege does not offer resume search services on its site. But rather, allows users to receive relevant opportunities and then decide if they want to share their information when they apply. At the same time, user profiles on AfterCollege are private by default, and are not made public for anyone to see.
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