Have you heard about LinkedIn's Alumni Tool?

The LinkedIn Alumni Tool is a hidden gem on the world’s No.1 professional social networking site.  Currently, over 81,000 UK students and alumni have a LinkedIn profile, and this number is rapidly growing. Whether you’re job searching, looking to expand your network, relocating or exploring career paths, I suspect you will find the LinkedIn Alumni Tool to be an invaluable resource.  Through this website, you can research UK (or any institution for that matter) alumni who are on LinkedIn, personalizing your search based on preferred geographic location, industry, company, college major and skill set. 

If you’ve never visited this site before, www.linkedin.com/alumni, take a few minutes to check it out. If you don’t yet have a LinkedIn account, consider creating one so that you can reap the benefits of this feature.

When you initially access the site, be sure to expand the “Attended” dates to broaden your search. Personally, I have my dates set as broad as allowed to ensure that all of my fellow Wildcats on LinkedIn are captured in my search. (Note: You can also change schools if you have additional alma maters or want to research professionals who graduated from a grad program or institution you are considering to attend.)

Let’s say you are planning to relocate to Chicago, you are in the marketing field and you are in the process of researching viable companies in the Chicago area.  You will want to select “Greater Chicago Area” from the “Where they live” column. Then select “Marketing” from the “What they do” column.  Just by two clicks of your mouse, you will see that there are 105 UK alumni on LinkedIn who live in the Chicago area and are in the marketing industry. If you look under the “Where they work column" you can view a list of companies where these alumni work. Better yet, their LinkedIn profiles are generated for you and voilà! Not only will you gain insight on possible companies to consider, but you also have a list of Wildcats to network with!

Your UK alumni network is an exceptionally valuable resource of professionals. The LinkedIn Alumni Tool helps you learn ways to strategically tap into that network and connect with Wildcats across the globe. 

- Posted by Kelly Allgeier