EDHEC Alumni from Day 1: a wide range of benefits
EDHEC Alumni network is powerful. No wonder The Economist ranked it #2 in the world. We talked to Martin Barbier, Executive Director of EDHEC Alumni about the networking opportunities for International students.
When do international students become part of the worldwide EDHEC Alumni network?
All students become full members of the EDHEC Alumni network from their first day at EDHEC and will remain so for the rest of their lives. We just ask them to activate their account on the website to access EDHEC Alumni services.
What are the benefits of being an EDHEC Alumni during and after studying?
In general, EDHEC Alumni offers the same services to all its members. We advise students to start with 3 parts of our offer that will allow them to start their career path on the right foot.
Our students first need a professional network. The online directory allows them to identify the contacts they will need among our 50,000 members while the networking platform "Alumni Connect" allows them to easily get in touch for informal and remote exchanges. Our professional clubs also organise conferences and exchanges by sector of activity to meet graduates who operate in the professions or companies that interest them.
They also need to understand the job market. In addition to the EDHEC Career Centre services, EDHEC Alumni provides them with tools to discover the countries, companies, and sectors that recruit EDHEC graduates. We also offer them access to different mentoring programs and to 4,500 graduates, the "EDHEC Resources", who have volunteered to answer their questions concerning their choice of career path, sectors, companies, regions, countries, etc.
If they have a start-up project, they can join the Entrepreneurs club, take part in their meetings, and benefit from the advice of experienced entrepreneurs.
Finally, the EDHEC Alumni network will facilitate the students’ international mobility. We encourage them to get in touch with one of our 80 local and international EDHEC Alumni clubs in 40 countries. The ambassadors of the country or region they are interested in will be happy to provide them with advice and support for their installation and put them in touch with the local EDHEC network as soon as they arrive!
Are there “perks” for International students?
First of all, we have a dedicated member on our team. Géraldine Simon, Global Alumni Relations Manager is THE international students’ touchpoint.
Students will be able to benefit from a mentoring program. From January until June, Master 2 and MSc students can have three one-hour calls with an EDHEC graduate to finetune their professional projects. We also have a fast mentoring tool on EDHEC Alumni website called “meet and share”. Students and graduates can chat or do a video call.
During our Alumni Voices online events, we invite EDHEC graduates to present their companies, the job opportunities followed by a Q&A session. We also organise an annual online networking session.
In addition to the access to our website, international students and graduates have a dedicated Facebook group, including a buddy program (mentoring between M1 and M2 students).
And of course, with 80 international clubs and 175 volunteers ambassadors, they always have the opportunity to enrich their network wherever they are or wherever they are from. And they can always count on their country managers, to help them along their journey at EDHEC and beyond.
