Interview at Your Future Fair: Datalumni Serving Alumni Networks of Schools
Last November, Datalumni had the privilege of partnering with an iconic event for student guidance, the Your Future Fair in Lyon. On this occasion, Clémentine Pollet, Customer Relations Director at Datalumni, addressed a topic that is becoming increasingly crucial for higher education institutions: alumni networks.
What strategic advantages can a school gain from developing its alumni community? How does Datalumni support institutions engaged in this process?
9 minutes flat to get to the heart of the matter!
Clémentine, you are now the Customer Relations Director and partner at Datalumni. How did this project come about?
Datalumni is a startup from Annecy, founded in 2019 by Laura Lizé, who is now the company’s Sales Director. I joined the team a little later, along with Valentin Decoux, our Technical Director. The three of us are partners, all coming from the academic world, having witnessed lecture halls emptying year after year, a sad reality in both public and private sectors.
Datalumni was born from two observations:
20% of students entering higher education will not obtain a diploma.
Among graduates, 30% struggle to find long-term employment.
This is how the company was created, with the goal of acting on student guidance and professional integration. Today, we support 90 schools on this topic.
What levers can students currently pull to improve their guidance and professional integration?
For me, the network is a major asset, an extra string to a student’s bow. Of course, having a network at eighteen is not obvious, but one in three jobs is found through networking. That’s undeniable. Fortunately, schools can offer this first professional network to every student by bringing together all their graduates from the past five, ten, or even fifteen years on a platform called the alumni network.
This allows students to connect with alumni via a directory, discover job opportunities, post internships, apprenticeships, and first job offers. Additionally, we offer a mentoring program, where 30% of alumni wish to act as dedicated mentors, providing voluntary support on various issues.
One key point in our discussion is the importance of alumni networks for schools. Why is it crucial for schools to develop and maintain these networks?
For a school, having an alumni network is essential. It boosts student guidance and professional integration, contributing to a strong brand image. Moreover, the network enables the school to source potential speakers and teachers, offer continuing education to alumni who have become employees, collect professional integration statistics (a legal requirement), and attract apprenticeship tax from companies.
Alumni play a major role in enriching their current schools. What motivates them to get involved?
Young people today change careers on average fourteen times during their working life. Maintaining a professional network, such as their former school’s, is therefore crucial. Additionally, the need to belong to a community motivates alumni to stay in touch with their school.
How do schools animate the alumni network, and what results have they seen?
Animating the alumni network requires community management work. By dedicating around ten hours a week to this, schools can reconnect with alumni, create profiles, organize quarterly events, and after about a year, roughly one-third of the community registers on the platform. This dynamism can even double the number of internship and apprenticeship contracts.
Do you have advice for students who want to network?
Be patient; networking is like gardening, it takes cultivation. Be proactive: talk to guest speakers after class, add them on LinkedIn.
Plant seeds today to harvest them in five or ten years. And don’t forget to be active on LinkedIn and check out our blog, where you’ll find articles on student guidance and professional integration.
