How to Utilize Alumni as a Medical Professional Candidate

September 25th, 2015

When building your professional network, don’t forget to reach out to any of your college classmates working in the same industry as yours. This rule especially holds true in the world of healthcare. Fellow alumni — even if you didn’t attend school at the same time — are a great resource for finding out about open positions or new innovations potentially affecting your career.

Interested in finding an alumnus willing to serve as your professional mentor? Let’s take a closer look at how to use alumni to take your career to the next level.

Professional Insight through a Shared School History

Alumni working in the medical history are especially useful in a mentorship role since they probably went through a similar experience in college as you — maybe even the same classes and professors. A shared scholastic connection definitely helps them feel a measure of empathy for your career efforts. The bottom line is alumni can make up a vital part of your professional network.

Finding Alumni for your Professional Network

It is easy to reach out to any college classmates for professional networking purposes, assuming you’ve stayed in contact with them over the years. Reaching out on a social network like LinkedIn or Facebook usually works. On the other hand, finding alumni who didn’t attend college at the same time as you takes a little more legwork.

Check with your college’s career center to see if they maintain a database of previous graduates. It definitely helps if the data is searchable by degree, current industry, and location. This gives you a great starting point for finding potential candidates to help your career prospects.

Additionally, your school’s alumni association probably maintains a similar database of graduates if the career center wasn’t helpful. Maybe the information is hosted online for convenient searching? Check to see if the alumni association has any chapters located close to you, and attend a meeting to do some face-to-face networking.

Finally, check LinkedIn to see if there are any Groups for alumni from your college. Once you’ve made the right connections, use these alumni as sources for career advice or even news about medical companies hiring in your location or elsewhere if you are willing to relocate.

If you need any advice on career development in the healthcare industry, talk with the knowledgeable recruiters at Pinnacle Workforce. As one of the top medical staffing agencies in the country, we can help you grow as a professional. Meet with us today!

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