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The Boston Globe
Career counseling draws alumni back to campus
By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff | June 4, 2009
WALTHAM - When Brandeis University alumni arrive from across the country for reunions this weekend, the most popular event may not be the academic lecture on President Barack Obama's first 135 days, or even a luncheon with the university's president, Jehuda Reinharz.
The hottest ticket of the weekend looks to be the first-ever Alumni Day at the Hiatt Career Center, with one-on-one counseling sessions, career management lectures, and full access to the center's career development resources.
College career offices aren't just for directionless seniors anymore.
These days, a degree from many prestigious schools in the area comes with free job counseling for life, a perk that has been drawing back graduates who have hit a bump in their career paths, in some cases decades after leaving campus.
It's a sea change from recent years, when the most common alumni sightings - if they were seen at all - were within five years of graduation, said Joseph DuPont, director of the Hiatt Center, which serves 30,000 Brandeis alumni.
"We have seen a great upsurge in people who are 10 to 20 years out, if not beyond," he said, noting that 50 to 60 alumni had already registered for this weekend's career sessions, and dozens of others have attended college-sponsored networking events in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago in recent months.
Wendy Morris Berliner, a 1995 Brandeis graduate who calls herself a "recovering lawyer," is contemplating her next career move. She's also president of the school's Boston-area alumni chapter, and says more people are turning out for events.
"They are coming for the networking, no question." said Berliner.
People being squeezed by the recession often feel safer in a peer gathering, she said.
"It's fun, it's social, and it's a group you already have something in common with," Berliner said. "I've had friends who are going through a tough job search tell me they feel less conspicuous and less like a failure when they come to one of our events."
A group exclusively for job-seeking alumni from Brandeis was launched on the LinkedIn professional networking site in January. It is already topping 600 members and is the second-most popular Brandeis group on LinkedIn, DuPont said.
"I think people are becoming much more savvy about using all of their resources, and that includes the place where they received their education," he said.
Career counselors at another Waltham school, Bentley University, as well as Babson College in Wellesley, Wellesley College, and Boston College in Chestnut Hill all said they have seen a boom in alumni interest in career services and requests for passwords to college Internet sites and job boards during the past six months.
Officials at several schools, speaking anecdotally because they had not gathered statistics on contacts from laid-off alumni, said they noticed the first wave of calls and e-mails last fall after a series of cuts at several high-profile financial services companies.
But now it seems as if just about all career fields are affected by the troubled economy, said Andrea Dine, associate director of career development at the Hiatt Center.
The most challenging alumni are the ones who felt most at home in their careers and are reeling after being laid off.
"They may need to do some grieving," Dine said. "They may need to rethink whether to do something that maybe they have never done before."
At Wellesley College, the motto for the career center is "Translating the Liberal Arts Into Action." There is a lively job board, with 250 listings at any one time, and the W Network of alumnae willing to help out other Wellesley women, said Irma Tryon, director of recruiting at the college's Center for Work and Service.
Wellesley has also planned a special career program during its June 12-14 reunion weekend. The two-day "Shifting Gears" session is aimed at alumnae in transition, and features several authors and consultants, including Carol Fishman Cohen, author of "Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work," and Pam Lassiter, author of "The New Job Security." All of the regional Wellesley alumnae clubs have additional one-night career programs planned this spring as well.
Theresa Harrigan, director of Boston College's career center, said her office is also busier than in past years with requests for phone interviews and Internet counseling resources from alumni, but recent grads continue to make up the bulk of its business.
Sometimes what is most needed by alumni is a quick catch-up tutorial on social networking services, such as Twitter, or some clues on how to leverage alumni connections, said Megan Houlker, director of undergraduate career development at Babson College.
She said calls and e-mails to her office are now as likely to be from someone who graduated in the 1980s, when career services were a few resource books and personality surveys.
Older grads are happy to find so much job-help material and networking forums available through the college website, but sometimes are a little hesitant to use them.
"Many of them are looking or needing to make a transition and they need some reassurance that it's OK to reach out. People want to ask, 'Am I doing it right?' " Houlker said.
Business-oriented programs like Babson's have for years offered fairly sophisticated and popular networking and affinity groups for graduates focused on such careers as marketing, real estate, and consulting. Many grads don't need to come back because they never left, said Effie Parpos, Babson's director of MBA alumni relations.
But participation at recent networking breakfasts is booming, she said, adding, "Folks are finding these programs even more valuable." The school launched a new site May 1, and its Immediate Hire Job Networking Board, for people needing a new position right away, has had hundreds of postings this year.
Bentley, too, has long offered lifelong career services, including a free, five-week refresher course on networking, resume writing, and interviewing that currently has close to 40 participants, far more than last year, said Len Morrison, executive director of corporate relations, which oversees the school's Miller Career Center.
A more advanced five-week course on reinventing careers, offered for alumni who want a major change, is nearly filled, and is so popular that nonalumni are willing to pay $150 to join. The Bentley Success Network, launched just last month, has attracted 70 midcareer job-seeking alumni who meet monthly to help each other, said Morrison. He'll even roll up his sleeves and make calls to a company to offer support or references for an alumni applicant, if appropriate.
The current demand for alumni services may be a result of the recession, but it may have the long-term effect of shifting the traditional relationship between an institution and its graduates, administrators said, with the old notion of alumni-as-perpetual-donor seemingly giving way to more of a partnership in the career paths of its graduates.
"We ask so much from them, this is one of the ways we can give back," said DuPont.
Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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