Your Secret Weapon

By Will Swarts ’92

Reedies make great additions to the workplace, and no one knows this better than other Reedies. The Reed Career Alliance (RCA) is an alumni board initiative created to support alumni and students in the development of meaningful careers post-Reed. The RCA’s alumni volunteers pick up on the work of the Center for Life Beyond Reed, which focuses its on-campus resources on current students and alumni within their first year of graduation. The RCA advocates for career assistance for all alumni, be they just starting out, changing careers, midcareer, or retiring.

Expanding career resources has been a real focus of the college and alumni community alike in the past few years, and there’s plenty to show for our shared efforts. The RCA recognizes that alumni may have struggled with career assistance, especially non-academic-track assistance. Working with college staff, we’re highlighting the growing number of career resources for alumni of all class years, and we’re working to make them more effective.

Reedies may well be other Reedies’ secret weapon in navigating the working world. Reedies’ career paths may feature textbook examples of reaching professional milestones or wonderfully unlikely tales of unconventional routes to professional success. Whatever the career story may be, Reedies can glean lessons, tips and plenty of good advice, thanks to the growing number of volunteers who’ll share their experiences. You can see for yourself when you tap into our professional networks and find other Reedies in fields from tech to teaching, food to finance, lawyers to librarians, nonprofits, the arts, global health, and more.

Visit Reed’s alumni website or sign up with these professional networks on specific Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Job postings, industry news, and prospective contacts are out there, and now they’re easier to find.

Also, check out the Reed Alumni Career Resources web page for other Reed networking resources and how to access them. Post asks and offers on Reed Switchboard (What’s that, you say? Take a look!), stay in the loop with regional alumni chapters on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, locate alumni with the alumni directory in IRIS, and log in to Reed’s newer online job posting system, Griffin Door.

The RCA is currently developing a volunteer alumni pool of career coaches to offer flexible coaching to any alumni who would like help. That could mean providing a welcoming introduction to existing professional networks and career resources that our great Reed community offers, reviewing a resume, or brainstorming a career question. Want to be an alumni career coach? Or are you looking for some help as you transition into a new job or change career paths entirely? Email an alumni coach.