Contacting Employers - there's so many of them!!
I recently came into the position of Placement Director of a medium-sized trade school. Prior to my arrival, the Placement Dept. was not kept up with very well. Now there are 10 years worth of alumni, many with employment history, many without employment history, many without employment history tracked in our database, etc. It seems like too large of a task to try and contact EVERY employer of graduates, especially if I don't even know that they are current positions.
I have been sending out surveys to graduates to try to update as much info as possible, and of the 600 surveys I've sent, only 70 have come back. Does anyone have any suggestions for where to begin?
Thanks,
Josh
Hi Josh
Suggest you not spend a lot of time on the past. When you get a student helper you might want to send a snail mailing to your grads. Something really simple to get their addresses and emails. You'll probably get a ton of returns but the few contacts you do get can be really worth while. Then focus on putting in plans for today that will meet the needs of tomorrow. Best wishes, Susan
Susan is correct. Don't dwell on the massive assignment of connecting with all past alumni. However if you need to get ahold of someone, your Director of Finance might be of some help. Usually that department will have current information on the whereabouts of graduates who still have outstanding loans.
I have that challenge also! There was not a placement department at all before I took over in March 08. I have had to go back to 2006 and try to contact these long lost students. Susan made a great suggestion to send snail mail. That is what I have done with the students from 2006. As expected, a lot of their information was no longer valid. So far I have received a few responses. Even though I sent out quite a bit, the few responses I have gotten have made it worth while!
Thanks for the update, Faith. With snail mail you can expect over 25% return. But that means you have a good list to use when you sort out the bad addresses. If you mail regularly you'll get address updates many times. Now the goal is to focus on getting all the contact info from current students when they graduate. And build a great database. And start at least a once a month emailing campaign to stay in touch. Be sure that information you send is relevant and interesting. Focus on being a resource so grads want to receive your info. They will likely recommend your school and return for advanced training. Best wishes, Susan
When we are working to contact past students and we realize we have bad info we have relied on our admission team to see what numbers or e-mails they have on the enrollment docs as well as checking with the instructor to see what info they had on the student. We have even relie on info searches online where you can run a search for recent address info and try again. We did manage to catch up with some students we had lost track of through those methods. Now we make sure that we keep contact at least several times per month to let them know we are there to help and prevent losing them.
Thanks, Lisa, good ideas, have you tried your financial aid department as a potential resource for contact information?
Jay Hollowell, MaxKnowledge
Guest Facilitator
Yes our financial aid team has gotten us in contact with a few students we couldn't reach otherwise. They have often had infomation on students or thier primary family members which have led us to students. We find that it is just a challending area that we have to keep on top of the students so we know about them mvoing or changing phones as its happening.
Thanks for your response, Lisa! It is frustrating and commonplace that many students do not contact us with updates; it's also odd in some cases that graduates, who have moved on and may have secured employment on their own, don't contact us to let us know they are working.
Jay, MaxKnowledge
Guest Facilitator
Hi Josh,
I would recommend starting with the most recent grads then moving back. Those more recent graduates will hopefully have the more up to date contact information and if your school is accredited those will be the group who will be on your upcoming reports. They also may have friends or aquaintances who are presently at the school so you can try to connect through those people.
Best of Luck!
Corey
Corey,
This is a really good idea. Of course the goal is to be able to easily reach all grads. That requires providing a great learning experience and staying in touch often before and after graduation. This points to one of the many reasons to set up an active Alumni Community. Keep grads engaged so you can always reach them about their job status. They can tell you about job openings where they work, increasing job opportunities for your grads. MaxKnowedge offers online training to set up and develop an alumni organization. Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
