This is the time of year when many business students become concerned about their chances in the job/internship market. Indeed, the prognosis for full-time opportunities continues to appear bleak. The staff of Mason Career Services (MCS) is working hard to uncover as many full-time and internship opportunities as possible, and I’m pleased to say that our efforts are beginning to pay off.  More about that later.

Many students that meet with us (naturally) ask for two things: (a) advice on how to connect with Mason and College alumni for job information purposes; and (b) alumni names that we can recommend for contacting. The key to opening the door to these people is to become familiar and comfortable with the numerous online resources available via the MCS web pages. Here are four examples:

• my1693 is an online directory of alumni not only of the Mason School but as well the College.  Administered by the William & Mary Alumni Association, my1693 contains contact information of alums who are interested in getting connected and/or re-connected with fellow graduates and soon-to-be-graduated students. Alumni can be identified by location, employer, or profession. To set up a single sign-on account, go to www.wmalumni.com, then click on my1693 and follow the instruction for establishing an account.
• LinkedIn is equally helpful as an alumni connection source. There are innumerable opportunities for you to connect with alumni by joining LinkedIn Groups (e.g , the William & Mary and Mason Alumni groups) volunteer organizations, and professional associations that you may already belong to. Go to www.grads.linkedin.com to learn more about maximizing your professional network.
• The MASONlink system, used primarily by graduate students at the Mason School, features job postings from both employing organizations and W&M alumni as well as a database of MBA alumni who have agreed to serve as mentors to current MBA students. Go to mba-wm-symplicity.com/students/ to access this storehouse of information.
• Experience/Alumni Career Network offers alumni mentor connections representing all disciplines of the College. Accessed via my1693, you will need to register as an alumnus/a. Go to www.wmalumni.com and click on ”Alumni Career Network” to learn more about accessing this helpful database.

Of course, all of the databases available to us do not take the place of actually reaching out to people by phone and through your network. But the more comfortable you become with the these alumni connection tools, the more “in control” you will feel with respect to your job search prospects. Please feel free to contact us in MCS if you would like additional information on building your professional networks.