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Our musings on alumni and donor engagement…

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Going from Good to Great in Alumni Engagement
Going from Good to Great in Alumni Engagement

The problem is that there are few volunteer opportunities at most colleges and universities. The existing ones are often different types of boards or councils with few spots available. Most of these boards exist almost exclusively to create more events! I firmly believe that more events aren’t the answer.

Alumless with Howard Heevner, Cal Berkeley
Alumless with Howard Heevner, Cal Berkeley

Check out this Alumless episode from Friday, July 19th, 2024, where we dive into annual giving strategies. We're thrilled to feature Howard Heevner, Executive Director of Annual Programs at UC Berkeley. We'll discuss systemic challenges in annual giving, innovative approaches to connecting with rising generations, and the findings from a major alumni giving study. Plus, hear about Howard's insights on providing personalized giving opportunities and the impact of giving days on universities

Alumless with Charlie Melichar, Foster Avenue
Alumless with Charlie Melichar, Foster Avenue

We've got a great show for our Alumless community this week. Join us for a conversation with Charlie Melichar, Principal at Foster Avenue. In the episode, we'll discuss best practices for campaign communications and how advancement leaders connect mar/com work with engagement.

A Warm CMAC Welcome to Melissa Schipke!
A Warm CMAC Welcome to Melissa Schipke!

If you caught last week's episode of Alumless, you heard the big news: Melissa Schipke is joining our team to help roll out a new practice area for CMAC offering managed services for engagement analytics.

Alumless with Melissa Schipke and Jenny Cooke Smith
Alumless with Melissa Schipke and Jenny Cooke Smith

Join us for a special edition of Alumless, where we delve into the world of alumni and donor engagement metrics. Our esteemed guests, Jenny Cooke Smith, Senior Director, CASE Insights Solutions, and Melissa Schipke, Founder and CEO of Tassl, bring their extensive expertise to the table. On the show, we’ll explore what the CASE Insights survey on Alumni engagement has taught us about the field and what we've learned about metrics.

Alumless with Sallie Sistare, Denison University
Alumless with Sallie Sistare, Denison University

On this episode of Alumless, we're featuring special guest Sallie Sistare, Executive Director for Alumni and Family Engagement at Denison University. We'll chat with Sallie about the school's unique value proposition and how they've worked to develop and strengthen approaches to providing students and alumni involvement opportunities in the career space.

Going from Good to Great in Alumni Engagement
Going from Good to Great in Alumni Engagement

Although we’re routinely hired when a team is going through a total rebuilding phase, advancement vice presidents, more often than not, look to us for help going from good to great.

Alumless with Andrew Gossen, Cornell University
Alumless with Andrew Gossen, Cornell University

Don't miss this must-watch episode of Alumless with special guest Andrew Gossen, Executive Director for Communications, Marketing, and Participation in the Office of Alumni Affairs & Development at Cornell University.

Alumni leaders should engage hiring-minded grads and build a university talent network

What’s the most significant opportunity available for new strategic initiatives in alumni engagement and career services? What existing technology solution is poised to make the most impact?

Alumni, career services, and employer relations professionals have a not new, but recently enhanced opportunity to collaborate and work together to engage hiring-minded graduates hoping to recruit at their alma mater. If the energy of these already highly engaged alumni is harnessed successfully, engagement teams can begin building the set of constructs that bring to life what could be a robust and active university talent network.   

Who are hiring-minded alumni? It's an overly-simplistic term I've created to refer to alumni that are:

1) Professional recruiters and talent managers

2) Hiring managers representing their organizations

3) Small business owners looking for early career talent

Until now, it’s always been difficult for universities to wrap their arms around this group of alumni and develop a unique strategy to engage them. There's never been a single digital access point to reach and engage all of the individuals in these three segments of the hiring-minded group.

Handshake is poised now to successfully fill this void and provide an access point for alumni and career teams to connect with all hiring-minded alumni. 

Alumni network platforms like Graduway and PeopleGrove have attempted to fill this gap by adding to their solutions a module alumni can use to post jobs and internships. But career services teams, employer relations, and virtually the entire hiring-minded world are now using and building around Handshake. Top companies all use Handshake in an official recruiting capacity and we're seeing vast adoption across SMEs and other organizations.

Handshake has a new feature too. They did the smart thing and asked hiring professionals to share their alma mater during the sign-up process.

For their part, this fall, Handshake created a new Alumni finder tool. The feature was added prominently to the navigation bar at participating schools. Once selected, the tool allows users to view a rich data set containing alumni who are actively or were recently engaged in recruiting activity with the university. Alumni with active accounts in Handshake can post jobs, internships, conduct interviews, attend career fairs, and produce recruitment events once their organization is approved by administrators. Users can see who all these individuals are and reach out.

This group of alumni are either using Handshake for their current role or did so previously for a prior one. Hiring-minded alumni are highly engaged with the university, but they're not likely not to be tracked in the advancement CRM. At most colleges and universities, there's an incomplete picture of this activity due to the siloed nature of the units and the systems they use.

Now alumni and career professionals have at their fingertips with Handshake a new and dynamic data set of engaged graduates that are actively working to hire early-career talent. Engaging this group seems like it should be a priority for alumni career pros because of the impact they can make on the life of the institution.

Building a formal talent network

It’s easy to imagine a scenario where working with hiring-minded alumni could lead to building something of a university talent network. I'm thinking about a set of formal program structures with thought leadership for talent and hr practitioners, career education for job seekers, enhanced access and coordination around recruiting, mentoring, and a strong digital community for ongoing conversation.

I've been tough on Handshake in the past, but it's a solution that's ubiquitous across college campuses in the United States, and at this moment seems poised to help shape the landscape in a profound way if higher ed teams can collaborate effectively.

Ryan is an engagement strategist and consultant with Chris Marshall Advancement Consulting  Washburn & McGoldrick, and Network Catalyst with Protopia. Follow Ryan on twitter @RyanCatherwood or on Instagram @rcatherwood. Listen to the web show Alum-Less live on LinkedIn, every-other-Friday at 11:30 am ET, or check out the podcast edition.

Ryan Catherwood