Colleges expand career counseling to alumni

Graduates ask for career services
When the University of Texas at Austin surveyed members of its “Texas Exes” alumni association recently, career services was the No. 1 thing graduates said the school could help with.

“Most of my clients are getting jobs by networking, and how better to network than go back to your alma mater?” said Jennifer Duncan, the association’s director of career services, citing research that finds more than half of job hires come from internal referrals. “You have an automatic rapport with someone. It’s a way of getting your foot in the door, and maybe the back door.”

On campus, colleges are also increasingly interested in nurturing lifelong relationships with alumni. Graduates with good jobs will have more money to donate, and they will be more likely to do so if they have an ongoing relationship with the school.

Career services are just one way schools are building those relationships, in addition to offering travel programs, credit cards, life insurance and alumni courses taught by professors.

Still, the number of schools with full-time staff for alumni remains fairly small. One reason is colleges are supposed to serve students first, and that’s prompted some debate about how such programs should be funded. Many colleges are still experimenting with how to support them.

Houston, for instance, offers some free services but charges $35 for services including on-campus interviews and $75 for more extensive help. Associate Vice President for Student Services David Small points out that’s still far cheaper than private career counselors. About 1,800 alumni have signed up for the $35 plan and 400 for the deluxe service.

Service limited at some schools
Duke University doesn’t charge but is evaluating whether to limit the service to members of the alumni association, as a way to encourage membership. That’s how it works at UT-Austin. Willamette doesn’t charge but is considering some kind of tiered system like Houston’s.

Penn State, with 500,000 alumni, used to offer some services to alumni informally, but as a state-supported school concluded it could not use general budget funds. It got a corporate grant to set up an alumni careers office. When that grant ran out, the alumni association agreed to fund it.

Nizar Ali, who has two degrees from Houston, including an MBA he earned in 1998, said he took advantage of the counseling service after feeling like his career in retail management was stagnating. A shift to health care management was suggested, and he’s looking into some options.

“The No. 1 reason I went back to the same university I graduated from is they know what’s out there,” he said. “They keep in touch with the job market. I knew that they would know what’s going on, what kind of fields are hot.”

But nostalgia was also a factor.

“I was missing the school,” he said. “There is a tendency to go back where you started from. Just go back to square one and see what’s out there.”

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