By Brett Bardsley
According to the book “What Color is Your Parachute,” some of the worst ways to find a job include mailing out resumes, answering newspaper ads and going to private employment agencies for help.
The most successful ways to find jobs are searching through the Yellow Pages, personally contacting employers, joining groups of job hunters and, of course, networking.
“Sixty to 80 percent of jobs come from networking,” said Scott Greenhalgh, BYU alumni placement manager. “But no one knows how to do it or who to network to.”
The Alumni Association created a network of thousands of alumni throughout the country to help BYU students and alumni locate potential internships and jobs.
“Students can tap into the alumni network and contact people all throughout the United States,” said Keith Lue, alumni services administrator. “You are not that far distant from knowing a lot of people.”
Greenhalgh got permission from the administration to move the network from piles of paper to the Internet five or six years ago. He said having the network available online has helped facilitate the job-searching process.
Students can search for specific jobs by industry, job title, degree or state on the BYU alumni career network Web page, alumni.byu.edu/Sections/Services/careernet. The alumni names, their degree, current job description, job title and contact information are listed.
Training is also provided for students who need extra help. The site teaches what career networking is, how to prepare for a network interview, how to contact individuals and how to conduct an interview and follow it up.
“We have resources that you can tap into to help you with your networking,” Lue said.
An eight-question readiness test must be taken before using the program to verify that the student does not abuse the service and understands how to network successfully.
“If used appropriately, it can be very advantageous for students to connect with our alumni community,” Lue said.
