Did you know that as a Bath graduate you’re part of a community of more than 120,000 alumni, spread across the globe? Our mentoring site, Bath Connection, enables you to build your network of contacts, tap into their wealth of expertise and share your own careers experience from wherever you are in the world.
Once you’ve created an account, you can activate your profile as an ‘Expert’ to indicate you’re happy to be contacted for advice by other graduates and students. This could range from offering advice over email, through to reviewing CVs and job applications, or meeting a mentee face-to-face over coffee. You can even just answer the occasional quick query online: what you offer is entirely up to you.
As well as engaging with fellow graduates, the platform also provides the opportunity to give back to our students, who benefit greatly from being able to learn about a wide range of industries from those who’ve experienced them first-hand.
“Every interaction I’ve had on Bath Connection has been positive,” says Gold Scholar Tianna Reeve, who is currently a second-year BSc Sociology and Social Policy student. “I can’t praise the alumni volunteers enough for all the advice, answers and thoughtful comments they’ve given to help me make some important decisions about my future.”
Currently, Bath Connection boasts experts across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Oceania – in fact, we’ve got 45% of the world’s countries covered! You can search for contacts by location, as well as by industry, job title or company. Tianna found this particularly useful when narrowing down her placement search, as she knew she wanted to spend a year abroad.
“I reached out to a few alumni currently working in Canada and Germany,” she explains. “They gave me some ideas regarding the job market for graduates in my area in their country, as well as some interesting graduate opportunities that were currently available.
“I've spoken to an alumnus who viewed my CV, gave me advice for applying for opportunities in Canada and suggested alterations to make it more targeted towards the roles I was looking into,” she continues. “Another alumnus gave me advice for acing interviews and gave me some useful links to the kinds of examples I should use to demonstrate my skills.”
But it’s not just guidance on career paths, applications and interviews on offer – the benefits of an international network also include practical advice around locations, logistics and local culture, all of which Tianna found helpful thanks to Bath Connection.
Tianna’s top tips for networking on Bath Connection:
- Talk to a wide range of people. Everyone has different experiences and advice, so the more people you talk to, the more complete your answer will be.
- Be clear in your questions – people can’t help you if they’re not sure what you want to know.
- Don’t be discouraged if you can’t find an alumnus who’s in the career you want or who studied your degree – there are so many graduates who have a different path, and there’s much more that they can give you advice on.
Responses
Happy to mentor on Dissertation construction, cv's, interview processes and issues to address. Learning what you really want as a future
Hi Neil, that's great to hear! Are you already registered on Bath Connection? If not, you can sign up here: https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/bath-connection/