Helping to further your alumni or members’ careers, whether through mentoring, networking or offering job opportunities, is an effective way to provide continuous value for your alumni throughout their lifetime, and is a key tool that can be used to drive engagement. Whether your alumni come from your school, university or company, or you run a membership club, the benefits of providing support in advancing your alumni careers will help to further your brand as well as supporting your fundraising goals. However, it can be difficult to know where to start to make a meaningful impact, and how to build a community that wants to help and engage with one another.

"ToucanTech is a game-changer for schools. We need a sophisticated CRM to track pledges and payments, alongside a communications platform for news, emails, mentoring and events – we’ve definitely made the right choice!"

Andy Whittall, Development Director, Tonbridge School

As a school or university, how can I help my alumni in their careers?

Schools are often overlooked in their ability to help alumni advance their careers, but your development team can play a huge role in assisting the networking that may help former students to get ahead in their careers. Using a community site provides your alumni with a way to tap into an extensive network of professionals from different industries wherever they are in the world, and enabling further steps such as mentoring or applying for job opportunities through the site will help to set your alumni up for success. 

Universities are far more well-known for their focus on assisting students to find work after studying, and indeed are rated on their employment statistics after graduation. Careers services work effectively to provide students and recent alumni with resources, but oftentimes the thousands strong alumni network can be underutilised. By engaging alumni across their lifetime, and connecting younger graduates with more experienced alumni, you may be able to offer exclusive opportunities either through mentoring or job opportunities. Therefore, creating a community portal that allows alumni to connect directly with others in the same industry or location is extremely beneficial as it provides a mutual interest and an incentive to stay in touch with their alma mater. 

Highlighting the achievements of your alumni is another way to provide a platform for alumni to showcase themselves and their skills to others in their industry, and can lead to excellent mentoring opportunities from alumni who feel flattered by their university and want to help out younger alum by providing career expertise.

As a membership club, how can I provide my members with value to help their careers?

Membership clubs are often centered around people working towards a shared mission, and this often in itself leads to career progression through ideas sharing and increased knowledge. With the lack of physical events occurring this year, membership clubs can facilitate greater value for their members’ careers by developing their virtual networking and connecting people in similar industries from around the world through an exclusive member’s portal. By providing forums for discussions on industry matters and connecting inspiring and influential members, you will help to springboard careers and drive change for those in your organisation. 

Another way that membership clubs can help to advance their members’ careers is by providing resources; the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) host hundreds of resources on their website that can provide knowledge and share insightful work that can lead to new opportunities through their Alumni bookshelf,  or display current job listings that alumni can apply for. 

Additionally, becoming a more involved member of a club can help to advance career progression due to the organisational responsibilities taken onboard that can give unmatched experience for younger members. The IDS has a network of ambassadors around the world that organise events, help to grow the community and access exclusive support and knowledge, developing their soft skills which employers increasingly search for. 

Our customers are helping their alumni and members to advance their careers and building strong community connections all over the world. Discuss ways to make your community more engaged with an experienced ToucanTech engagement evangelist; organise a time to talk to the team here.