,

Switchboard Joins the National Association of Colleges and Employers

,

We're excited to announce that Switchboard is a newly minted member of the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

As career services expert Chaim Shapiro can testify, NACE is at the forefront of career services innovation in higher ed. Since 1956, NACE has set a high bar for career services professionals that has driven the profession forward and helped the field adapt even as it has rapidly transformed.

Our NACE membership will help us better serve our customers, just as it helps our customers better serve their constituents.

We'll be attending the 2016 NACE Conference & Expo in Chicago from June 7–10. If you'll be there too and want to say hi, drop me a line! We'd love to chat.

 

Learn more about Switchboard's alumni platform.

,

Melanie Buford at the University of Cincinnati on Coaching Students and Alumni to Career Success

,

Life after graduation is full of opportunity, but many students have trouble seeing past their fears about starting a career. It's the job of career services offices to help students see possibility in the unknown and find the courage to embrace it.

University of Cincinnati Career Counselor & Instructor Melanie Buford empowers students to take risks rather than fear them.

We asked her to share her thoughts on coaching students and young alumni through career uncertainty, teaching them to network, and getting them in the door in the first place.

Trends in Engagement: An Alumni Relations Roundtable with Andy Shaindlin

Alumni communities around the world face an engagement landscape that is changing ever more rapidly. This means understanding and responding to trends within their institutions, and in society at large.  At Switchboard, we wrestle with the same issues, and are curious about how alumni communities are responding to a number of key changes happening around them.

To explore some of these topics, we’ve invited Andy Shaindlin, founder of Alumni Futures, Vice President at the international consulting firm Grenzebach Glier & Associates, and recently Associate Vice President at Carnegie Mellon University, to lead a roundtable discussion with our partner schools tomorrow (Tuesday, May 10) at our Portland offices. 

Key topics Andy will discuss with participants include:

  •  The impact of consolidation of alumni and development programs under the "integrated advancement model”;
  •  The effect of changing digital engagement on alumni relations – not just social media, but all electronic interactions; and
  • Trends in data collection, analysis and reporting: are we drowning in data? Do we have the skill set and personnel to learn from it and to use it for improving alumni outreach?

We’re excited about the discussion and will share some takeaways in blog post later this week.

,

The 6 Most Common Complaints about Alumni Relations and Career Services Platforms

,

There are dozens of platforms that cater to the needs of alumni relations and career services offices. In talking with schools who use these platforms, I’ve learned that most of them share the same set of flaws. If you’re considering signing on with a company that sells one of these platforms, make sure that they don’t receive these six common complaints.

,

Marlene Scheel of the University of Guelph-Humber on Planning Beyond Young Alumni

,

"Young alumni" is a buzzphrase in higher ed right now, and for good reason. Young alumni represent the future of their alma maters, and reaching and engaging them requires new programming and new strategies.

But what happens when our young alumni aren't so young anymore? What kind of programming and strategy do we have then?

At the University of Guelph-Humber, Marlene Scheel is already looking ahead to the transition from young to established alumna. We asked her to share how she and her team think about the issue.

,

Chaim Shapiro of Touro College on Networking, LinkedIn, and the Future of Career Services

,

Chaim Shapiro is a lot of things. Assistant Director of Career Services at Touro College. An award-winning speaker and writer. Highly regarded consultant.

We had the good fortune to get to interview him about networking online, recent changes to LinkedIn, and the future of career services.

"It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are." —Wendell Berry