Football games, open houses, booths selling swag—it’s fall homecoming season on college campuses, and your alma mater is eager to show off its athletic accomplishments, its new energy-efficient buildings, and its innovative academic programs. A goal of these perennial pep rallies, of course, is to raise money—the hope being that alums will be sufficiently moved by the old school spirit to open their wallets wide.
Yet as vital as alumni giving is, it’s just one of the ways that alums can support their university and its mission, and perhaps not even the most important. Just as meaningful is the act of directly engaging with students in ways that open doors to opportunity and encourage their academic and professional success. That means serving as mentors during students’ time on campus and as crucial connectors to internships and jobs.
Much has been written recently about the importance of “social capital”—the networks, backgrounds, and shared norms that connect people in ways that often determine career success. These relationships matter: Studies have consistently shown that the vast majority of jobs come through personal connections.
For college students, social capital can be as important to academic success and career opportunities as skills and knowledge. But first-generation students and those from low-income families often lack the social ties, made and cultivated through family and friends, that more privileged students routinely tap into to start and advance careers.
College alumni can help fill that gap.
Yet too few do. Just 9 percent of college graduates responding to a Strada-Gallup survey said that their alumni network was “helpful” or “very helpful” in their job searches. The study’s authors suggested that colleges aren’t doing a good job touting the value of their alumni networks. And colleges may actually be discouraging deeper engagement among alums by overemphasizing fundraising. (When you see your college’s name on the caller ID, do you really want to pick up the phone?)
In addition to helping students connect to jobs, internships, and other opportunities, alumni make natural mentors, immediately sharing a built-in bond. By supplementing the work of academic and professional advisors, alums can help students overcome barriers to completion, connect classroom learning to the real world, offer career and other advice or just a friendly ear. Very recent alumni—so-called near-peers—can be particularly effective mentors for younger students.
On a practical level, alumni can help design career-connected research projects, serve as guest speakers, help students develop soft skills and generally add relevance to classroom work. And of course, they do all of this for free.
Plenty of colleges are leveraging the power of their alumni to boost student success and employment.
The Illinois Institute of Technology has a longstanding, formalized alumni mentor program through which alums conduct mock interviews and salary negotiations with students, help students write resumés, and provide job shadowing opportunities. Students are required to meet with mentors every two to four weeks.
At Bates College in southern Maine, the Center for Purposeful Work connects students to job shadows hosted by Bates alumni. Fairfield University in Connecticut hosts an alumni job-shadow program for juniors and seniors and a career exploration for first- and second-year students. And in the nation’s capital, American University’s School of Communications connects students with AU’s many alums in the media business.
The SUMMIT Career Connect Network at Agnes Scott College near Atlanta boasts 400 alums who volunteer for career panels, resumé reviews, job shadowing, and more. Eighty percent of the college’s seniors reported that Agnes Scott alumnae helped them achieve their post-graduation goals.
Also in Maine, Colby College’s “Pay It Northward” initiative taps alums to help guarantee internships, jobs, fellowships and other post-grad experiences for seniors.
Under a different model, the University of Colorado’s “Forever Buffs” Networking Program links new graduates with older alums, offering services to help them transition to life after college. All participants receive online training in mentoring and can even earn a credential for their work.
All of these institutions are encouraging their alums to do much more than boost the college’s bottom line. By embracing new roles, alumni are contributing directly to student success.
This homecoming season in their remarks before campus tours and cocktail parties, administrators would do well to remind their alums of these important roles, and of how rewarding they can be—for everyone.
This article was originally published in Forbes.