Tag Archives: Alumni Connections

Question of the Week # 8: “Why is it important to connect with alumni?”

Posted on by

Through­out your time at Prince­ton, you will meet so many peo­ple who will have an impact on your future. One of the groups that can be extremely help­ful in the “career sphere,” in par­tic­u­lar, is alumni. Prince­ton alumni are great — they want to see and help other Prince­to­ni­ans excel in the world. They are also extremely well con­nected and want to help lever­age their net­works in order to give back to their beloved alma mater’s stu­dents. Through­out my four years at Prince­ton, I’ve reached out and stayed in touch with many alumni — and have seen pos­i­tive results through each interaction.

9708Tonight, Career Ser­vices is host­ing their annual “Alumni Con­nec­tions” student-alumni net­work­ing at Prospect House from 6–8 pm. Over 40 Prince­ton alumni from a host of indus­tries and fields will be in atten­dance. Come learn how their major influ­enced their post-Princeton choice and also get advice on how to pur­sue your own career inter­ests! RSVP today if you already haven’t. This is the largest student-alumni net­work­ing event of the year and you do not want to miss it! Tables are arranged by indus­try and each stu­dent will receive a book­let with bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion of the alumni participants.

Last year, I scoured the Alumni Career Net­work (ACN) and set up inter­views with alumni in my field of inter­est. (Of course, I blogged about this and you can read all about it here.) This is a search­able data­base of Prince­ton Alum who have vol­un­teered to pro­vide career-related advice to Prince­ton alumni and stu­dents. There are over 4800 vol­un­teers worldwide!

In addi­tion to the alumni vol­un­teers in the ACN, it is also impor­tant to main­tain your con­nec­tion to “soon-to-be alums,” or grad­u­at­ing seniors. Some of my clos­est alum contacts/friends are from groups on cam­pus. Since we were already friends (or acquain­tances) on cam­pus before they 9823grad­u­ated, I always make sure I get their phone num­ber or stay con­nected to them through Face­book, LinkedIn, and Twit­ter. I made an effort to check in with them every few months to see how they were doing. Another perk is that since these alums already know me in such a per­sonal capac­ity, they have been really influ­en­tial and help­ful through­out my time here. I feel very com­fort­able going to them to ask for both school and “real world” advice. They also are closer to my age so the Prince­ton expe­ri­ence (both highs and lows) is still pretty fresh for them.

Another impor­tant aspect of reach­ing out to alumni is the help they can give dur­ing the job and intern­ship search. Want to speak to some­one in a field you are inter­ested in? Want some gen­eral career advice? Need help con­nect­ing in a new city? Want real job search strate­gies from a Prince­ton­ian? Alumni can help with all of this! Career Ser­vices also offers so many other student-alumni engage­ment pro­grams you can check out: Princetern­ship, Princeton-in-Washington, the IMAGINE Speaker Series, and Alumni Panel Events based on Industries.

9907If you want some more advice on how you can con­nect with alumni, make an appoint­ment with a career coun­selor. A career coun­selor might be able to give you tar­geted sug­ges­tions based on your needs and interests.

Hope to see you all tonight at Alumni Connections!

It’s Career Services’ 100th Birthday!

Posted on by

It’s somebody’s Birth­day! Career Ser­vices is hav­ing its cen­ten­nial cel­e­bra­tion this year, and you’re invited to the party.

The office, founded as the “Self-Help Bureau” in 1912, has passed through some sig­nif­i­cant changes over the last cen­tury, but one thing has remained the same—its com­mit­ment to stu­dents. Through­out the years the office has served stu­dents and alumni in a feat that has helped land stu­dents in hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs. Today, Career Ser­vices is a staff of 16 full-time pro­fes­sion­als plus stu­dent work­ers and vol­un­teers. Together they are respon­si­ble for putting on an infor­ma­tional event nearly every day, around five job or intern­ship fairs yearly, meet­ing with around 50 stu­dents a day, reach­ing out to hun­dreds of com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions, orga­niz­ing the hustle-bustle of job and intern­ship inter­views through­out fall and spring, and much, much more.

Today more than ever, Career Ser­vices thrives to have a close rela­tion­ship with the stu­dents it serves. Whether it’s meet­ing with stu­dents for coun­sel­ing ses­sions, hear­ing feed­back on events, engag­ing with stu­dents of all classes, or pub­lish­ing stu­dent reports on Princetern­ships, Career Ser­vices has taken recent strides to incor­po­rate stu­dent voices. In recent years, Career Ser­vices has been bring­ing stu­dents into the office—this time behind the desk. Stu­dent work­ers greet you at the front and make sure the office’s busy sched­ule runs smoothly. Stu­dent interns help take care of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and graphic design for fly­ers and pro­mo­tions. Career Peer Advi­sors help under­class­men with the job search and help plan and run infor­ma­tional events in res­i­den­tial col­leges. Stu­dent vol­un­teers lend a hand at major events as well. And blog­gers (like me) research and report the lat­est buzz in Career News.

“Stu­dent feed­back and input is essen­tial for Career Ser­vices so that we can effec­tively tai­lor our events to meet their career needs,” said Eva Kubu, Man­ager of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Out­reach at Career Services.

On a per­sonal note, work­ing at Career Ser­vices has pro­vided me the unique oppor­tu­nity to com­mu­ni­cate between the office and my peers. I can cer­tainly vouch for the resources that Career Ser­vices offers, but most often I find myself per­suad­ing my friends to go see a career counselor–“So and so is really great with this par­tic­u­lar field–and she’s a great per­son, too!” It’s reward­ing to know that my work is help­ing keep my friends and class­mates informed and up-to-date on the many pro­fes­sional oppor­tu­ni­ties that await them. It’s espe­cially inspir­ing to me as I watch friends come in for inter­views in Career Ser­vices, find their dream intern­ships, head toward ful­fill­ing, mean­ing­ful jobs, or go to a great grad school after grad­u­a­tion. I just think, all their hard work paid off–if they can do it, the rest of us can, too!

Come cel­e­brate Career Ser­vices’ birth­day by tak­ing advan­tage of sev­eral impor­tant com­mem­o­ra­tive events this year.

Alumni Con­nec­tions Stu­dent Net­work­ing Event
6 p.m. March 4, 2013, at Prospect House.
All stu­dents are invited to reg­is­ter for a chance to speak with over 40 alumni across many dif­fer­ent industries.

Sum­mer Intern­ship and Non­profit Career Fairs
11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fri­day, Feb. 15, 2013, at Dil­lon Gym
Come learn about the many job and intern­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to you—and speak directly to employers.

Upcom­ing: A recep­tion is planned for April, in which Career Ser­vices will host alumni par­tic­i­pants in the “Princetern­ship” pro­gram. In addi­tion to hon­or­ing the Class of 2013 as the 100th grad­u­at­ing class that Career Ser­vices has assisted, the office will host an open house for alumni dur­ing reunions.

Still curi­ous about Career Ser­vices his­tory at Prince­ton? Check out this super cool info­graphic as well as the Uni­ver­sity home­page arti­cle to learn some rather sur­pris­ing anec­dotes from your university’s job search his­tory! And most of all—keep that stu­dent feed­back com­ing in! You can e-mail me at .

Princeton Alumni are a Great Resource

Posted on by

Last Fri­day, Danny Steiner ’10 spoke about Careers in Hol­ly­wood. It is great to meet alumni who can pro­vide insight into the oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to stu­dents. Career Ser­vices offers sev­eral options for con­nect­ing with alumni in your field. Here are your choices:

  1. Net­work­ing events. Career Ser­vices hosts sev­eral events specif­i­cally designed for stu­dents to net­work with alumni. Last Friday’s Careers in Social Entre­pre­neur­ship, for exam­ple, was part panel and part net­work­ing. Every fall they host an “Alumni Con­nec­tions” event and net­work­ing recep­tions are held at regional alumni clubs every sum­mer. Stu­dents have the oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with sev­eral alumni at all of these events–not just one given speaker. These events are great ways to meet many peo­ple in your cho­sen field.
  2. Solo speak­ers. I’ve yet to go to a Career Ser­vices “Careers-in” event where the speaker didn’t spend a few extra min­utes after­wards to talk to indi­vid­ual atten­dees. While it’s not the spe­cific pur­pose of an event like Careers in Hol­ly­wood, ask­ing ques­tions of the speaker is a way to show inter­est in his field. Worst-case sce­nario, you learn more about a career that inter­ests you; best case–you get a busi­ness card with an email address.
  3. Find­ing alumni on your own. The Alumni Careers Net­work is a great place to start. It’s a search­able data­base of nearly 5000 Prince­ton alumni who have vol­un­teered to help stu­dents that’s run by Tiger­Net, another great resource. With the ACN, you can search by degree, employer, or job title. Some alumni make them­selves avail­able just to give gen­eral infor­ma­tion, but oth­ers offer assis­tance on find­ing jobs or intern­ships. All you have to do is send that first email.

While Career Ser­vices pro­vides many ways to get to know alumni, all of them have one thing in common–the stu­dent has to take the ini­tia­tive. For more tips on exactly what to say and where to look, visit the Career Ser­vices’ page on devel­op­ing con­tacts here.