Aarhus BSS Career & Alumni: Building bridges to the business community
Preparing students for the job market, creating life-long relations between alumni and Aarhus BSS and ensuring close collaboration between the business community and the departments. These are the core tasks of Aarhus BSS Career & Alumni, and with the new strategy, they have become even more important - both on strategic and department level.
Aarhus BSS Career & Alumni is Aarhus BSS’ career and alumni centre centrally located in the S building at Fuglesangs Allé - one of the school’s busiest study environments. The department also has a satellite office at BTECH in Herning. Career & Alumni is thus located close to one of their most important target groups; the students. Every day, the department’s 10 employees work to prepare the students for the job market through various career offers, courses and events - and in close collaboration with the business community.
Another important target group is Aarhus BSS’ alumni. Every year, Career & Alumni arranges a number of events targeted at alumni with the aim of ensuring a life-long relation between former students and Aarhus BSS. Right now, the school’s alumni network consists of no less than 18,000 members, and the goal is to attract 2,000 new members this year. And the reason is clear, says Thomas Hvergel Jensen, head of Aarhus BSS Career & Alumni:
“One of our most important tasks is to make sure that our students join our alumni network after they graduate. This way, we can ensure that our graduates maintain a life-long relation to Aarhus BSS, and that our events and activities can continue to draw on an extensive alumni network in the business community for the benefit for our students and the academic environments at Aarhus BSS.”
Link between departments and business community
Indeed, students and alumni are not the only ones who benefit from the many services offered by Career & Alumni. The department also has a number of services targeted at the school’s academic departments, which are also increasingly expected to contribute to building the bridge between the students and the world that awaits them.
Two key focus areas in Aarhus BSS’ 2017-2020 strategy are in fact employability and external relations, and the academic departments are increasingly required to include these two aspects in their degree programmes and teaching. One way to do so is to make classes more practical and case oriented - and here, Career & Alumni is more than happy to help, says Thomas Hvergel Jensen:
“We collaborate closely with the business community, not least with our 40 partner companies such as Grundfos, Mærsk and Arla. Many of our partners would like to contribute to the teaching with cases. Some also offer to hold guest lectures. At Career & Alumni, we are very happy to establish contact between the lecturers and the business community. So just give us a call if you are interested in collaborating with a company, or if you just want to know more.”
Helping arrange external events
Career & Alumni also helps the departments arrange externally targeted professional events e.g. where students, employees and alumni are all invited.
“In 2016, we arranged approximately 18 large external events with almost 5,000 participants. Many of these events were arranged together with the academic environments,” Thomas Hvergel Jensen explains.”In external events, we make use of our CRM system, which is an extensive database comprising alumni, current students and other business relations. This ensures that each event is targeted effectively.”
Career & Alumni also offers a series of activities in which employees at Aarhus BSS are able to participate. As an employee, you can join the Mentor100 programme and become a student mentor. Or you can sign up for the JobShadow programme and let a student follow you around at work for one day. And you are always welcome to encourage the students to take part in some of the many career-oriented courses and events.
For further information, please contact:
Thomas Hvergel Jensen
E-mail: thj@au.dk
Direct tel.: 87152487
Mobile: 30595768