Alumni Tips & Guidelines

General Reminders and Suggestions

• Students may ask you anything, but they are most likely to ask you the kinds of questions on the attached page. Take time to review them ahead of time so that you'll be prepared for your conversation.
  
• As much as you feel comfortable, share "lessons learned" stories from your own experience. If there's something that you did (i.e., an internship, class, extracurricular activity) that you feel was especially beneficial to you in developing your career, share that with the student. Give the student titles of any books that you read that you felt were helpful or any Web resources that would be good for the student to use.
  
• Don't feel obligated to answer questions that make you feel uncomfortable. If you would prefer not to answer a question, tell the student. You may also want to answer by offering a more generic response (i.e., a salary range as opposed to your actual salary) or offering experiences that you have heard from others (i.e., "I have heard co-workers say")
  
• Keep in mind that this may be the first time many students have contact with an employer or the professional arena. Therefore, they may be nervous or seem unprepared. Do what you can to make the student feel comfortable. Begin your conversation by chatting about Eastern ("When I was in school everyone hung out at the Wooden Nickel. Is that still the place to be?" or "How do you think the football team is going to look this year?) or about common background ("So, you're from Colorado. I went on vacation there last summer.") before delving into a career-related discussion.
  
• Since this program is open to recent EMU graduates as well as current students, ask the person which they are so that you can adjust your conversation and advice accordingly.
  
• If the student is trying to only find out about current job opportunities in your office or whether or not you can get him or her a job, kindly remind the student that the Alumni Career Connection is an information gathering resource, not a job placement service. Also be sure to indicate on your evaluation form that the student was trying to job hunt through Alumni Career Connection.
  
• Speak honestly to the student about your profession but try not to let negative personal feelings control too much of what you share with the student. Although we know this is common sense for most of you, if you happen to be mad at your boss at the moment, try to separate that from your feelings for the profession overall.
  
• Please fill out an Alumni Evaluation of Student Contact form and return it promptly to the Office for Alumni Relations. This information is vital to tracking the usage of the program and to growing and improving it in the future.

If you would like to download the information above as a Word document (.doc), please click here.