Reconnecting with Your Alma Mater

Thinking about going back for the summer reunion at your college or high school? This may be a great time!

Career centers at colleges and high schools are ramping up their services for alumni. Some are offering free seminars and groups on career issues that are specially designed for alumni. At Baruch College, two free alumni groups are being offered, one for recent alumni and another for more experienced alum.

Also, connecting back to your alma mater allows you to tap into alumni connections that may be looking to hire an alum from your school or meet with you for an informational interview which can help you build your network.

You should also ask when you speak with your school's career center if there is a specialized job database for the alumni that you can obtain access to. This will allow you to be privy to jobs specifically targeted to graduates of your school.

Utilize the alumni groups on LinkedIn. This may allow you to reconnect with friends or learn about alumni group meetings in your area. In addition, think about using Facebook to reconnect with old friends from school and see what they are up. It's a great way to be social and network in a less high stakes fashion.

Readers, any new or innovative career-related services at your alma mater?

Welcome

With the constantly changing landscape of job search and career mobility in this tumultuous and difficult economic time, I wanted to create a blog where we could discuss career issues in a open and honest way and still motivate job searchers to try innovative methods (as well as tried and true ones) and to ride the wave of job search in the most uplifting way possible. I hope you will join us for this wild ride in job search that will hopefully bring you a new set of opportunities to advance your life goals.

I am a psychologist with training in career development and many years working with individuals assisting them in choosing more rewarding careers, finding jobs and advancing themselves professionally to the next step. To me, career issues provide so many opportunities that can be framed in positive ways that can allow you to go to new exciting places in life, but they are often not without their trials and tribulations of which you must also manage.

I hope this blog can be a place where we can dialog about the process of job search and you hopefully find some tidbit that will help get you to that new place.