{"id":637,"date":"2026-07-20T07:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T07:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/?p=637"},"modified":"2026-07-20T07:04:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T07:04:50","slug":"how-alumni-networks-influence-career-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/2026\/07\/20\/how-alumni-networks-influence-career-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"How Alumni Networks Influence Career Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Rajini Venkatadri
Associate Dean and IBSAF Coordinator, IBS Mumbai<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Management education has become a very popular destination of choice for many future management aspirants. Before getting into the two-year journey, it is but natural that any candidate would do their due diligence. It could be in terms of faculty strength, infrastructure, campus, curriculum, industry interface, or anything else. But there’s an important backbone that actually shapes their decision on whether or not to join a management programme, and that is the alumni network.<\/p>

Most people are under the perception that once they’re awarded their degree during convocation, their journey is over. Nothing could be a bigger myth than that. In fact, the awarding of the degree is just the beginning of their career path. A management degree helps them acquire two years of learning and secure their first job. Once they are out of the institute, this is their chance to connect with a community that becomes their own. This community is made up of alumni who’ve already been there and gone through the same two years of rigour, secured their first jobs, and are now well established in their fields of expertise.<\/p>

Our alumni community embodies the true spirit of the phrase, ‘our network is our net worth’. The biggest driver of professional success lies in bridging the gap between technical competence and what’s actually required for employability in the corporate world. One of the things that helps bridge that gap is professional relationships. This is where the alumni of an institute come into the picture. Having been there, done it, made mistakes and learnt from them, they are now in a position to come back and tell students, who are eagerly waiting to listen to them, how a management journey shaped and transformed their lives and careers.<\/p>

Management institutes proactively leverage this powerful network through structured alumni engagements while students are still pursuing their management education. During the two years, institutes invite alumni back to campus to help answer the confusions, doubts, and dilemmas students face. Things like which specialisation to choose, the choice between two job roles, what the corporate world could actually look like, and what realities they need to be prepared for\u2014these are questions alumni are in a far better position to answer. Students can relate to them too, because, as mentioned, these are people who’ve already walked this path and can speak from the heart.<\/p>

One initiative in this regard is an ‘Alumni Buddy’ programme. A buddy, as the name suggests, is like a friend or a close mentor. This concept is put to good use, where every section or class has an alumnus associated with them, and students can reach out to that alumnus at a mutually convenient time. This way, students feel safe asking questions that might be plaguing their minds and which otherwise they may not feel free to ask in a classroom environment.<\/p>

The Alumni Buddy programme is one way students can be closely associated with someone who’s already walked a similar path. Beyond this, there could be other initiatives like panel discussions or knowledge-sharing sessions, which management institutes can hold by inviting alumni to speak on niche topics that are actively transforming the business and industry landscape. These could be topics like AI and digital transformation, a specific technological trend within a field such as Marketing, Finance, HR, or Operations, corporate culture, what job roles look like nowadays, or expectations from recruiters. The fact that these alumni are current and actively working in the industry helps bridge the gap between textbook and classroom learning and gives a real-time understanding of what the corporate world genuinely requires.<\/p>

Other than lectures, buddying, or knowledge sharing, one other form of alumni engagement could be inviting alumni for assessments. While day-to-day assessments are handled by faculty members and subject in-charges, special assessments like the quality of summer internships call for industry experts like our alumni. Take, for example, a group of sixty alumni who are part of smaller panels to assess students on their internship projects. These are alumni with at least seven to twelve years of experience. As they assess these students, they often reflect on their own days when they were on the other side of the table, delivering similar presentations. Today, they come back with a sharper eye for detail, shaped by years in the industry, and are able to assess students accurately and in line with industry requirements. Their real-time feedback also gives students real-time exposure to industry expectations.<\/p>

Every student\u2019s primary goal is to get placed in a job and career of their choice. Here is where the alumni can be a great support. In the real world of corporates, there are a lot of jobs and job postings that are not advertised openly. These jobs move more often through referrals or internal job postings. The persons who are actually aware of these openings are our own alumni, who are already placed in good roles within these companies. Once they know there are openings, they can come back to their alma mater by tapping into the captive pool of talent they’d want to hire for internships and full-time roles. This is a very healthy way to bring about reciprocal engagement between the campus and its alumni.<\/p>

Alumni are the best brand ambassadors for any management institute. As mentioned earlier, they’ve been part of the two-year journey, and their real, honest stories can shape and influence the minds of prospective management students, who often look up to these alumni as role models. The kind of portfolios they hold, the brands they’re associated with, all of this shapes the minds of future aspirants who themselves aspire to be in such roles. An alumni story will always be positively received.<\/p>

The core of these engagements rests on a reciprocal understanding between the alumni and the institute. Alumni who are acutely aware that the college has shaped them and brought them to where they are today, and who are eager and willing to give back, are the ones worth tapping into. A credible voice, someone speaking from the heart, is always far more effective than someone being made to say something out of obligation.<\/p>

A management journey doesn’t stop just because the two years are over. In fact, that door never closes. It opens another one\u2014the door of industry contacts, best represented by our own alumni working within these industries. Management learning isn’t just about models, frameworks, assignments, and case studies. Those are an integral part, of course, but beneath all of this lies the strength of a strong reservoir, the alumni who have been part of this journey and who can help pave the way for careers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Rajini VenkatadriAssociate Dean and IBSAF Coordinator, IBS Mumbai Management education has become a very popular destination of choice for many future management aspirants. Before getting into the two-year journey, it is but natural that any candidate would do their due diligence. It could be in terms of faculty strength, infrastructure, campus, curriculum, industry interface, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-school-career","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibsnew.ibsindia.org\/ibsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}