With the unveiling of the new and improved Indiana University Alumni Association webpage, a few of our IU alumni have noticed a missing service or two from the Career and Professional Development page – specifically the IU Alumni Job Board and the IUVisors alumni mentoring platform. This is not an oversight; rather it is a purposeful decision, and we’d like to share with you our challenge, and how we are continuing to service alumni today and in the future.

In the digital age we live in, online tools are certainly appealing, and conceptually, they sound like an effective way to scale services to meet the needs of our 600,000+ alumni base. In reality, we faced a giant hurdle with both our job board and alumni mentoring platform. Both platforms were generalist in nature, servicing mentors, employers, and job seekers from diverse and varied industries, experience levels, and locations.

Therefore, providing a particular employer with an opportunity to find an IU alum with the right academic background, the right experience, and matching the desired location on the job board proved difficult. Our job board became cluttered with high-turnover roles that were not specifically geared toward IU alumni. Slightly different in nature, the IUVisors platform was well-stocked with IU alumni who were ready and willing to offer advice, but unfortunately the platform did not entice mentees, and so many willing mentors were left untapped.

Does this mean CPD is out of the business of servicing employers who want to hire IU alumni? Absolutely not! Here is what CPD can do today to assist organizations in hiring IU alumni.

• LinkedIn – The CPD team actively contributes to the IU Bloomington and IUPUI LinkedIn pages, which reach 374,889 followers – growing daily. We will continue to post on these sites information and job listings that we believe will benefit our IU alumni.
• Referrals – When employers reach out with unique needs, the CPD team immediately taps into its existing network to provide referrals. This includes coaching clients and the IU alumni involved in the IU alumni communities across the country and beyond.
• Boutique Employer Recruiting Events – Employers located in heavily populated IU alumni destinations, such as Chicago, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C., can host a boutique recruiting event that will bring talented alumni, quite literally, into their door. We’re eager to tell you more about these offerings!

What’s coming in the future? The CPD team values mentorship, connections, and promoting IU, and we haven’t given up on a digital solution. A task force, led by Lisa Koontz, is vetting comprehensive alumni engagement platforms that will allow our alumni to connect in meaningful ways, through mentorship, job opportunities, information and resource sharing, and beyond. We hope to unveil this new resource in the coming months.

Have questions? We’d love to talk. Reach out to us at careers@alumni.iu.edu.