This spring, David Crowley, Lehigh ’12, was like many of his fellow seniors, engrossed in a search for employment after graduation. Inspired partly by his role as Pennsylvania Epsilon’s vice president of communications, Crowley decided to turn to his chapter’s alumni network.
Crowley put together a listing of all graduating seniors who were still looking for jobs and included it in the AVC’s alumni newsletter. Each brother shared his name, major, contact information, industry of choice, preferred company type, preferred job type, ideal locations and sample companies of interest.

“I was going to send out an email to our alumni Google group with my own profile,” Crowley explained. “Then I thought, ‘I’m sure if I tell other brothers, they’ll probably do the same thing, so I might as well make it easy and write a letter.’”

Crowley’s letter, also sent as an email, encouraged alumni to spend 10-15 minutes scanning the document, looking for brothers to hire or at least conduct informational interviews with. Many alumni took the time to respond to specific brothers with career interests that matched. Brothers connected with alumni who graduated as long ago as 1965 and as recently as 2008.

Crowley said he would have liked more responses, but considered the idea a success for its first year. “In my transition document, I’m saying to definitely do this again,” he said. “Part of the initiative of our alumni relations chair could be to help seniors get jobs. I hope we can improve, and find better ways to get out there.” He added that sending a similar letter in the fall semester will offer more time for seniors to establish connections, and likely yield greater results.

The e-mail and newsletter also included a list of juniors looking for internship opportunities. Continuing this practice can help juniors find summer work, and help them build relationships with potential future employers earlier in their college careers.

Networking and career development training are vital services that chapters can provide to upperclassmen, and every chapter should look for ways to connect brothers to the vast and powerful SigEp network.

SigEp has more than 12,000 members in its official LinkedIn group.

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