Searching for alumni on LinkedIn can be a great way to connect with former classmates, colleagues, and acquaintances from your school, university, or past jobs. LinkedIn has search tools that allow you to easily look up other members by school, company, location, skills, interests, and more. Here are some tips on how to best utilize LinkedIn’s search features to find fellow alumni.
Searching by School
One of the easiest ways to find alumni on LinkedIn is to search by the school you attended together. On LinkedIn’s main search bar, start typing in the name of your university or college. As you type, a dropdown menu will appear with suggested schools that match your search. Select your school from the list when it pops up.
This will take you to a page showing LinkedIn members who have listed that school in their profile’s education section. You can then filter the results by time period, location, where they currently work, and their field of study. For example, you could filter for classmates who studied the same major as you during your graduation year. The filters make it easy to narrow in on the alumni you want to connect with most.
Using Alumni Tools
Many schools have created custom alumni pages and tools within LinkedIn to help their former students network with each other. To find your school’s alumni page, search for the school name and click on the top result. This will be an official company page created by the school.
On the page, look for tabs or links labeled “Alumni”, “Students & Alumni”, or something similar. This will take you to a hub where you can search through fellow graduates, join alumni groups, view alumni stories, and find information on upcoming events. The alumni directories here go beyond just basic profile information, giving you details like current employer, academic focus, graduation year, and location.
Connecting with University Alumni Groups
Most colleges and universities have official alumni LinkedIn groups you can join to connect with fellow graduates. These are managed by alumni associations and provide an easy way to reach hundreds or thousands of alumni in one place. To find groups for your alma mater, go to the school’s alumni page on LinkedIn.
Look for a section on the page listing the school’s LinkedIn groups. Click “See all” to be taken to a full directory. Groups may be separated by graduation year, academic major, geographic region, professional industries, extracurricular activities, and more. Join the relevant groups that align with your background and interests to start engaging with the right alumni crowd.
Searching by Company to Find Alumni Coworkers
If you’re looking to connect with alumni who worked at the same companies or organizations as you, you can search LinkedIn by company name. On the main search bar, type in the name of a company you worked for in the past. The search results will pull up current and former employees of that company who are on LinkedIn.
From there, use the filters to narrow down the list to alumni who overlapped with you. Filter by time period to see alumni from your same years at the company. You can also filter by department, title, or location to further target the alumni coworkers you want to get back in touch with.
Using LinkedIn’s “Find Alumni” Tool
LinkedIn has a specialized tool called “Find Alumni” that makes searching for fellow graduates even easier. To access it, go to your LinkedIn profile and click on “My Network” in the top toolbar. In the dropdown menu, click on the “Find Alumni” link.
This will open a new page where you can enter the name of a school or company. Similar to the main search, it will pull up a list of LinkedIn members associated with that institution or organization. Use the filters or search within results to narrow down the list of alumni.
Tips for Reaching Out to Alumni on LinkedIn
Once you’ve used LinkedIn’s search tools to find fellow alumni, you can start reaching out to reconnect. Here are some tips for making your outreach more effective:
- Personalize connection requests by mentioning how you know each other in the note section.
- Comment on alumni posts and articles to spark conversation organically.
- Join alumni groups and participate in discussions within the group.
- Proactively message alumni you want to get to know better.
- Suggest meeting up in person for coffee or drinks if you’re local.
- Share interesting news, articles, or resources relevant to their industry.
The great thing about connecting with alumni is you already have your shared school or company in common. Use this to break the ice, reminisce about shared experiences, and build rapport. With the power of LinkedIn’s search capabilities, you can easily expand your alumni network today.
Conclusion
LinkedIn provides a wealth of tools to help you search for and connect with fellow alumni from your schools, universities, companies, and organizations. Take advantage of alumni pages, groups, networks, and LinkedIn’s powerful search filters to find and reach out to alumni in a targeted way. Reconnecting with alumni can lead to career opportunities, knowledge sharing, expanded networks, and bringing old friends back into your life. With a personalized approach, you can use LinkedIn to tap into your alumni circles and strengthen bonds with the people you went through past experiences with.
