Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals

Students increasingly look to alumni as a job-search resource, according to results of NACE’s survey of 2015 graduates.

Nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors taking part in NACE’s Class of 2015 Student Survey indicated that they tap alumni as part of their job search, up from less than 60 percent just a few years ago. Moreover, the majority view alumni as very or extremely effective as a job-search resource. (See Figure 1.)

For employers, this provides empirical evidence to support the long-held opinion that alumni can play a significant role in recruiting. Involving alumni in on-campus recruiting efforts, social media, and employee referral programs are among the ways employers can tap into the alumni-candidate connection.

The Class of 2015 Student Survey was conducted February 11, 2015, to April 30, 2015, and garnered responses from 9,184 bachelor's degree students from the Class of 2015. The Class of 2015 Student Survey was sponsored by Enterprise.

Figure 1: Student use, rating of alumni in the job search