Almost every professional knows it’s a good idea to leverage your alumni network. After all, attending the same college or graduate program gives you a shared history—and that commonality is a great excuse to connect with other interesting, accomplished people. But how can you build relationships with other alumni without it seeming awkward or transactional?
As Harvard Business Review reports, there is one basic step that professionals often overlook: write an update for your alumni magazine’s class notes column. This makes you findable by other alumni in similar fields, and it provides an easy opportunity for existing contacts with whom you’ve fallen out of touch to reach out again. These connections can be quite powerful, because you have a sense of familiarity and trust born of a long history, but your careers may have taken unexpected directions that have suddenly become relevant.
Another way to leverage your alumni network is to volunteer for a role that gives you an excuse to be in touch with other classmates. For example, marketing consultant Robbie Kellman Baxter doubled down on her business school alumni connections through a variety of strategies, including serving as a class reunion chair and launching an alumni breakfast speaker series in her region.
You could also tap into alumni connections by sharing your professional expertise. Universities are desperate to keep alumni connected, so they strive to offer resources that add value throughout one’s career. Alumni offices will frequently host professional development webinars; you could volunteer to lead one, exposing hundreds or even thousands of fellow graduates to your expertise (even those who don’t attend will receive promotional messages featuring your name and bio). Read the full story.
