If you use Alumni Pathways, then you know that there are a lot of different reports and tools that you can use to analyze data on your alumni—which is why it could be easy for new features to slip under the radar. But these two new tools are too useful to miss out on. You can read about them below, or skip right to the two minute tutorial.
View Next Step and Feeder Outcomes in the Career & Education Pathways Report
If you work in Alumni Pathways, you’re most likely familiar with the Career & Education Pathways report, which shows you what your alumni’s learning and career journeys look like over time. Now, this report has a new feature that allows you to see the most common “Next Step Outcomes” and “Feeder Outcomes” for any given educational program or job. (Watch the video below to see it in action!)
For example, you can select your accounting program to see how many grads go on to work as accountants and auditors as their “next step outcome” vs. how many immediately go on to pursue additional education in accounting or business administration.
Or, you can flip your perspective by looking at a specific outcome (e.g. alumni currently employed as accountants and auditors) and then checking to see the “feeder outcomes” that helped your alumni get there—whether that was an accounting program, or a previous job in bookkeeping, financial management, etc.
Being able to assess how alumni are moving into and out of roles can be incredibly helpful for understanding how to better prepare students for success after graduation. For example:
In Career Services or Student Advising, this data can help inform students of how previous alumni have achieved certain roles. Did they go on to further schooling before entering the field? What kinds of jobs are good stepping stones? What are adjacent careers that grads from this program often pursue?
In Program Review, it can be helpful to see if and when students are being placed into careers that the program is designed to train them for. For example, if many are unexpectedly pursuing more education before entering the workforce (or entering the workforce in jobs that don’t require their degree), this might indicate a need to provide more career-relevant skills before graduation.
For Program Development, it can be very helpful to know if students are pursuing additional education to prepare for certain roles. For example, if many of your psychology majors go on to pursue a master’s in counseling, it could signal an opportunity for you to create your own MA in counseling (and maybe an accelerated 4+1 program to help them fast-track their graduate education).
For Enrollment Marketing, you can use this feature to help you narrow down the right demographic to market to. For instance, if you notice that many students in the graduate accounting program worked in bookkeeping beforehand, it might be a good idea to target your next marketing campaign to bookkeepers in your region—and help them understand the salary boost and career opportunities your program could lead to.
Get a more real-world view of alumni occupations
When viewing your alumni’s career outcomes in Alumni Pathways, you now have the ability to go beyond SOC and O*NET codes by leveraging the Lightcast Occupation Taxonomy (LOT). Why does this matter? The LOT uses more detailed, granular titles that better reflect real-world job roles (e.g. “iOS Developer” vs the more generic “Software Developer” occupation captured in SOC and O*NET). As a result, you get a more realistic, meaningful picture of alumni’s professional pathways and achievements.
💡 Want to learn more of Alumni Pathways’ capabilities? Explore these short (<2 minute) tutorials: