Even older alum can get job search help through their alma maters

Parent Cafe
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<p>"For the unemployed, the standing advice about how to find work involves doggedly attending job fairs and reaching out to everyone in your e-mail address book. But increasingly, a lesser-known avenue with the potential to be effective, thanks to the emotional bonds formed during undergraduate years, turns out to be the alma mater.</p>

<p>In the last year, as the recession and a 9.5 percent unemployment rate have slowed the economy, schools have been amending their pitches to older graduates. Typically, undergraduate institutions offer standard-fare golf tournaments and wine-tasting reunions — hoping to tap nostalgia and shake loose donations. Now, they are providing an expanding array of career services, including panels of alumni experts, professional affinity networks, personal coaching and job listings, support that is becoming a fixture of business and law programs. Old school ties, they suggest, can have new currency, even urgency.</p>

<p>Magnanimous, yes; selfless, no. Career guidance for older alumni can benefit schools as well. It freshens loyalties that may have been mothballed for decades.</p>

<p>“If we’re understanding toward alumni, they’ll be grateful and invest in their alma mater,” said Laura Denbow, executive director of Bucknell’s alumni relations and career services office. “Alumni support is not only financial in nature. It’s providing access to their organizations and their expertise. Sometimes, that can be more valuable.”
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/fashion/02alumni.html?ref=education[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/fashion/02alumni.html?ref=education&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I realize that this was posted several months ago. My little office is finally looking to hire and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s not easy contacting alumni organizations or universities. I’ve been shunted to “monster” type expensive websites when really all I want to do is post a listing.</p>

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<p>In the current recession many schools have amped up this type of help after graduation.</p>

<p>[Wisconsin</a> Alumni Association  - Career Resources](<a href=“http://www.uwalumni.com/home/alumniandfriends/careerresources/careerresources.aspx]Wisconsin”>http://www.uwalumni.com/home/alumniandfriends/careerresources/careerresources.aspx)</p>

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<p>Thanks Barrons, I’m working my way through universities’ websites now. As well as professional organizations.</p>