COMMUNITY I Jesus College Annual Report 2022
37
Linking alumni and students through our Careers Programme Sarah Richey, Careers Mentor Digital platform We launched Jesus Connect in October 2021 to create opportunities for more students to research careers and make useful connections with alumni in their area of interest. It is an online mentoring and networking platform that matches students and alumni, and it is part of the career development programme, running alongside other initiatives. The platform works by allowing alumni to complete a profile about their experience and how they can help current students. This feeds into a searchable database, which allows students to filter by profession and type of support on offer. Sometimes alumni offer a one-off coaching session and sometimes the relationship develops into a long-term partnership. We offer guidance for the initial conversation, then allow people to agree on how to continue. Students often want to be certain of their career choice before signing up, but that isn’t necessary. Our alumni are happy to answer questions about whether their own career is a good fit and not. They can also help students to develop soft skills, such as CV writing or delivering presentations. We work closely with the University of Cambridge Careers Service, who provide excellent resources and careers advisors. Our added benefit is that we can tailor support by offering one-to one introductions.
In the Business of... Our programme of events includes internships workshops, CV clinics and regular “In the Business of...” talks, which introduce expert speakers from different industries. One recent visiting speaker was Kemal Shaheen (1995), Director of Paper Boat, a UK-based charity
Jesus Connect in numbers
1965 members
59 countries
73 matriculation years
813 mentors available
45 internships/work experience available
313 student members
116 mentoring requests
394 connection requests
21 career groups established
