When thinking about content that will engage your corporate alumni, keep in mind why you have an alumni programme in the first place. It’s about more than just effective employee offboarding.
You could be looking for top job referrals or potential rehires (also known as boomerang employees!). Perhaps your organisation is more focussed on business development opportunities and sales leads that you’ll be able to win new work through. Maybe you want your ex-employees to be your brand ambassadors for life or create a strong ongoing relationship.
You also need to think about what your alumni network is interested in. Would they like to get updates on industry news, career information or mentoring opportunities? You’ll get higher levels of engagement when your business goals and the alumni community’s interests intersect. Employee Offboarding itself is a massive field, but your corporate alumni network is one area that you can easily navigate using content to boost engagement.
Here’s some alumni content ideas to get you started.
1. Employee Referral Scheme
Thought about extending your employee referral scheme to your alumni? It’s a huge benefit that can really boost your talent pool and save on recruitment costs. In every alumni newsletter you produce, include a few lines about your employee referral scheme and let ex-staff know what the reward is. Make it easy for past employees to refer others. Keep track of how many referred employees you get through your alumni network to show the value of alumni to your organisation.
Find out how Talivest can help you build an engaged online corporate alumni community
2. Spotlight alumni members
Collect some alumni stories before you launch your community or newsletter and actively seek them out once your community is active. Consider doing a spotlight news article on your members and always include a photo. You could do a short “60 seconds with…” style interview, or a video interview with your alumni member. Maybe one of your alumni has been on Masterchef, climbed Mount Everest for charity, crowdfunded a side project or founded their own business. Allow members to submit their stories easily by including a button or link in your newsletter.
3. Company news and insights
Alumni frequently still want an insight into the companies they were highly engaged with before moving on. Share non commercially sensitive company updates to keep them in the loop and in return utilise the community to gather honest feedback, beta test products, and take research surveys. Check your data to see if your ex employees have stayed in the same industry or type of role. Consider sharing some news that’s relevant to their industry and may help them in their role.
4. Job opportunities
Actively seeking re-hires? Let your ex employees know that you’re looking for top talent to return to the organisation as boomerang employees. If you have a corporate alumni community, give your members opportunities to advertise their own positions too to show them you trust and empower them to advertise. Flag employees who’ve left that you’d like to rehire. Post job opportunities regularly and make sure your corporate alumni network knows when graduate programmes, internships, etc, open and close.
4. Exclusive events
If you have a budget, host events for your corporate alumni and record a video and post photos of the event as engaging content in your newsletter or within your community. Don’t have an event budget? Host an online event or jam instead. It can be cheap and easy to provide compelling webcasts for your corporate alumni community. Subjects might include: Professional development; Industry research and news or Executive Interviews. You can embed live feeds from services such as Youtube to create an instant free webinar.
5. Career support
This can range from providing practical resources such as who to contact about getting a reference right through to mentoring programmes and webinars. Consider offering special support to ex-interns as it offers an opportunity to form a lifelong connection with your company. Remember, yesterday’s accounting intern is tomorrow’s CFO! Keep all intern or summer work experience records on file and treat these corporate alumni as well as you would someone who’s been in the organisation for several years.
How Talivest can help you build an engaged alumni community
Talivest is an online platform that helps global companies stay in touch with their corporate alumni and manage events. We help organisations stay connected with alumni and help re-hire high performing alumni as boomerang workers. This results in reduced recruitment costs, boosted productivity, improved brand culture and a rich talent pool for referrals and boomerangs.