# Alumni Network Plan: [Your name, class of YYYY]

> A plan for building and keeping a professional network after the MBA: a map of your network in tiers, a maintenance
> cadence with a computed yearly time budget, a worksheet for reconnecting with dormant ties, ways of giving back
> (mentoring, admissions interviews, recruiting, speaking), reunion preparation, the alumni services to check, privacy
> and conduct rules, and a timeline from the final term to ten years out. It is for graduating MBA students and alumni
> at any stage who want their network to last beyond the first job.
> Source basis: research on weak ties, dormant ties, brokerage, mentoring and reciprocity (Granovetter 1973; Burt 1992;
> Levin, Walter and Murnighan 2011; Kram 1985; Grant 2013; Casciaro, Gino and Kouchaki 2014), written in our own words.
> Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked *Example*. This is a planning aid, not career or financial
> advice; all people and numbers in the examples are invented.

<!--
Guidance: How to use this template
- Start in the final term of the programme, when classmates, faculty and recruiters are still a message away and contact details are current.
- Begin with the network map (section 4). The tiers decide how often you stay in touch and how much time that costs.
- Compute the yearly time budget (section 5) and put recurring reminders in your calendar; a plan with no calendar entries decays within months.
- Choose one or two ways of giving back (section 7). Networks last when the flow of help goes both ways.
- Review the plan once a year, ideally before a reunion or a career move.
- Related templates: mba/mba-networking-tracker, mba/mba-coffee-chat-notes, mba/mba-post-mba-career-plan, mba/mba-recruiting-plan, mba/mba-internship-plan, mba/mba-offer-negotiation, mba/mba-interview-prep, mba/mba-loan-repayment-plan, career/ninety-day-plan
-->

## Document control

<!-- Guidance: One living plan. Version it once a year. -->

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Document ID | [ALU-2026-01] |
| Alumna or alumnus | [Your name] |
| Programme and class | [Full-time MBA, class of YYYY] |
| Current role and city | [Role, employer, city] |
| Version | [0.1] |
| Last reviewed | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Next review | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Reviewed by | [Mentor or classmate, for feedback only] |
| Classification | Personal, private: contains other people's personal data |

## Contents

1. Purpose and when to use it
2. Why the alumni network matters
3. The network life cycle
4. Map your network
5. Maintenance cadence and time budget
6. Reconnecting with dormant ties
7. Giving back
8. Reunions
9. Alumni services to check
10. Using the network in a career move
11. Privacy, conduct and AI tools
12. Workbook
13. Quality checklist
14. Common mistakes
15. Timeline
16. My notes and next steps

## 1. Purpose and when to use it

<!-- Guidance: Read in the final term. The window when everyone is reachable closes quickly after graduation. -->

During the programme your network grows without effort: you share classes, learning teams, clubs, treks and
recruiting with hundreds of people. After graduation that changes overnight. Classmates scatter across cities,
industries and time zones; their jobs, email addresses and priorities change; and the shared context that made
conversation easy fades. Without a plan, most of these relationships become dormant within a year or two.

This plan helps you do three things deliberately: keep the most important relationships active at a cost you can
sustain, maintain a much wider set of light connections that you can revive when needed, and contribute to the
community that will later help you. It is not about collecting contacts. It is about staying a person others remember
accurately and are glad to hear from.

Use it at four moments: in the final term (map and set up), in the first ninety days of the new role (reconnect
after the move), once a year (review and refresh), and before any career transition (activate the right people).

## 2. Why the alumni network matters

<!-- Guidance: Read once. The research explains the design of the cadence: a few strong ties, many weak ones, and a habit of reconnecting. -->

Four findings shape this plan.

**Weak ties carry new information.** Granovetter (1973) showed that acquaintances, who move in different circles from
yours, often bring information about opportunities that close friends do not, because close friends know much of what
you already know. A large field experiment on a professional networking platform found the relationship is not
linear: moderately weak ties were the most useful for job mobility (Rajkumar et al. 2022). For an alumnus this means
the wide circle of classmates you knew a little is a real asset, as long as you can still reach them.

**Brokerage creates value.** Burt (1992) argued that people whose networks bridge otherwise separate groups ("structural
holes") gain earlier access to diverse information and more opportunities to combine ideas. An MBA class is unusually
diverse in industry, function and country; keeping ties across those groups, not only within your own industry,
preserves this advantage.

**Dormant ties are worth reviving.** Levin, Walter and Murnighan (2011) asked executives to reconnect with contacts
they had not spoken to for years and found that these reconnected ties often gave more novel and useful advice than
current ones, while keeping much of the trust built earlier. The lesson: losing touch is not losing the relationship,
and a reconnection message is less awkward and more valuable than most people expect.

**Networking for your own benefit can feel uncomfortable; reciprocity helps.** Casciaro, Gino and Kouchaki (2014)
reported that networking undertaken purely for professional gain can leave people feeling morally uncomfortable (the
paper carries a 2024 corrigendum, and a 2022 reanalysis questions the strength of its evidence, so treat it as
suggestive). Grant (2013) describes
how people who give help generously, while protecting their own time, often do well over the long run. Giving back
(section 7) is therefore not only good citizenship; it makes the whole network easier to maintain.

A practical limit also matters. You cannot maintain close relationships with everyone; time and attention are finite.
Tiering (section 4) is how you choose where your limited attention goes.

## 3. The network life cycle

<!-- Guidance: Each stage has a different task. Note where you are now and what the next stage requires. -->

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  A["Final term: map and collect contact details"] --> B["First 90 days: reconnect after the move"]
  B --> C["Years 1 to 2: steady cadence, first giving back"]
  C --> D["Reunions and annual review"]
  D --> E["Career transition: activate the network"]
  E --> C
  D --> C
```

| Stage | Main task | Typical risk |
|---|---|---|
| Final term | Map the network, collect personal email addresses and preferred channels, say thank-you to faculty and staff | Assuming school email and group chats will keep working |
| First 90 days | Send a short update from the new role to core and active tiers | Disappearing into the new job |
| Years 1 to 2 | Run the cadence, start one giving-back activity | Contact only when you need something |
| Reunions and annual review | Refresh the map, reconnect dormant ties | Letting the list go stale |
| Career transition | Ask well-chosen people for advice and introductions | Asking cold, after years of silence, for a job |

## 4. Map your network

<!-- Guidance: List people, not companies. Put each person in one tier and note what connects you. Aim for breadth across industries, functions and regions, not only depth in your own field. -->

| Tier | Who | How many | Contact frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core | Closest classmates, learning team, mentors, a few faculty | [10 to 15] | About quarterly |
| Active | Classmates and colleagues you know well, recruiters and managers from the internship | [30 to 50] | About twice a year |
| Wider | The rest of your class and club networks, alumni you met while recruiting | [100 to 200] | About once a year, often light |

Network map:

| ID | Name | Tier | Connection (how we know each other) | Industry and city | Region or group bridged | Last contact | Channel | Next contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALN-001 *Example* | Priya Raman | Core | Learning team, term 1 | Healthcare strategy, Singapore | Asia, healthcare | 2026-09-14 | Messaging app | 2026-12-14 |
| ALN-002 *Example* | Tomás Ruiz | Active | Case competition team | Corporate development, Madrid | Europe, industrial | 2026-11-02 | Email | 2027-05-02 |
| ALN-003 *Example* | Grace Mensah | Wider | Consulting club board | Public sector advisory, Accra | Africa, public sector | 2026-05-20 | Professional network | 2027-05-20 |
| [ALN-nnn] | [Name] | [Tier] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | YYYY-MM-DD | [ ] | [formula] |

Excel, with the tier in C2 and last contact in G2: next contact
`=IF(C2="Core",EDATE(G2,3),IF(C2="Active",EDATE(G2,6),EDATE(G2,12)))`. A due flag: `=I2<=TODAY()`.

Breadth check: count contacts by industry and region with `=COUNTIF(E:E,"*healthcare*")` or a pivot table. If more
than about half of your core and active tiers are in your own industry and city, add bridging contacts.

## 5. Maintenance cadence and time budget

<!-- Guidance: Decide minutes per touch for each tier, compute the yearly hours, and check it fits. A plan that needs more time than you have will be abandoned. -->

A "touch" is any genuine contact: a message with news, congratulations on a move, an article sent with a specific
reason, a call, a meal. Core-tier touches take longer (a call or a meal); wider-tier touches can be a brief,
personal message.

*Example:* Amara Okafor's budget one year after graduation.

| Tier | Contacts | Touches per year | Touches | Minutes per touch | Hours per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core | 12 | 4 | 48 | 30 | 24.00 |
| Active | 40 | 2 | 80 | 15 | 20.00 |
| Wider | 150 | 1 | 150 | 5 | 12.50 |
| **Total** | **202** | | **278** | | **56.50** |

That is about 1.09 hours a week, or 4.71 hours a month. Excel, with contacts in B, touches per contact in C and
minutes in E (rows 2 to 4): touches `=B2*C2`, hours `=D2*E2/60`, total hours `=SUMPRODUCT(B2:B4,C2:C4,E2:E4)/60`,
per week `=F5/52`.

Practical ways to keep this cost low: batch the wider tier around natural moments (the new year, the anniversary of
graduation, a reunion); keep a running list of articles and news to share; and use life events (promotions, moves,
births, launches) as reasons to reach out. Never automate personal messages so that they read as mass mailings.

## 6. Reconnecting with dormant ties

<!-- Guidance: Pick three dormant contacts each quarter. A short, honest message works better than an elaborate excuse for the silence. -->

A good reconnection message has four parts: a reminder of the shared context, a genuine reason for writing now, a
short update, and an easy next step with no pressure.

*Example* (fictional): "Tomás, it has been far too long since the case competition. I saw your firm's announcement on
the new plant in Valencia and thought of our late nights on the operations section. I moved into hospital strategy
last year. If you have 20 minutes in the next month I would love to hear how corporate development has been."

| Contact | Last real contact | Shared context | Reason now | Message sent | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *Example:* ALN-002 | 2025-04 | Case competition team | New plant announcement | 2026-11-02 | Call booked |
| [ALN-nnn] | YYYY-MM | [ ] | [ ] | YYYY-MM-DD | [ ] |

## 7. Giving back

<!-- Guidance: Choose one or two activities you can sustain for at least a year. Record the hours; they belong in the same budget as the cadence. -->

Ways alumni commonly contribute (check what your school offers and its rules for each):

- **Mentoring students.** Answer questions about your industry, review resumes, run mock interviews. Kram (1985)
  distinguishes career functions of mentoring (sponsorship, coaching, exposure, challenging work) from psychosocial
  functions (role modelling, acceptance, friendship); be clear which you can offer.
- **Admissions interviews.** Many schools use alumni interviewers. Follow the school's training and confidentiality
  rules exactly and never discuss a candidate outside the process.
- **Recruiting for your employer.** Attend campus events, hold coffee chats, refer strong candidates through proper
  channels. Separate your employer's interests from your role as an alumnus.
- **Speaking and teaching.** Club panels, guest sessions, case competition judging, field-project sponsorship
  (mba/mba-field-project-sow).
- **Alumni leadership.** Class agent, regional chapter or club board, reunion committee.
- **Financial giving.** Class gifts and scholarships are a personal decision; this plan only records what you choose.
  It is not financial or tax advice.

*Example:* Amara's giving-back hours for one year.

| Activity | Count | Sessions each | Hours per session | Hours per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mentoring two students | 2 | 6 | 1.0 | 12.0 |
| Admissions interviews | 4 | 1 | 1.5 | 6.0 |
| Career panel or club talk | 2 | 1 | 2.0 | 4.0 |
| Reunion (attendance and planning) | 1 | 1 | 10.0 | 10.0 |
| **Total** | | | | **32.0** |

Excel: `=B2*C2*D2` per row, `=SUM(E2:E5)` for the total. With the 56.5 hours of the cadence, the whole plan takes
88.5 hours a year, about 1.7 hours a week (`=(56.5+32)/52`). If that is too much in a demanding first year, cut the
wider-tier minutes or one giving-back activity, not the core tier.

## 8. Reunions

<!-- Guidance: Many schools hold reunions at regular intervals, often around five-year milestones. Check your alumni office for the actual schedule. -->

Reunions are the cheapest moment to refresh a large part of the network: hundreds of classmates arrive with the shared
context restored. Get more from them with a little preparation.

| Before | During | After |
|---|---|---|
| Update the network map and note who is attending | Spend time with the wider tier, not only your core group | Send short follow-ups within a week to everyone you had a real conversation with |
| Prepare a one-minute update on what you do now | Ask questions about their work and life; listen more than you speak | Update the map: tier changes, new cities, new roles |
| Choose three dormant ties to seek out | Offer help where you can (an introduction, an article, advice) | Book the calls you promised |
| Volunteer for the reunion committee if you want a central role | Thank the organisers | Note next reunion date and the people to reconnect with before it |

## 9. Alumni services to check

<!-- Guidance: Services differ widely by school and change over time. Check the alumni office pages and record what you found and the date. -->

| Service | What to check | Found (date checked) |
|---|---|---|
| Alumni directory | Access rules, privacy settings, update your own entry | [ ] |
| Alumni email or forwarding address | Whether it lasts for life | [ ] |
| Career services for alumni | Coaching, job boards, for how many years | [ ] |
| Regional chapters and clubs | Chapters in your city, industry clubs | [ ] |
| Lifelong learning | Executive education discounts, audit options, webinars | [ ] |
| Library and database access | Which databases remain available to alumni | [ ] |
| Volunteer roles | Admissions interviewing, mentoring, class agent | [ ] |

## 10. Using the network in a career move

<!-- Guidance: Ask for advice before you ask for opportunities. Start with the core and active tiers, who already know your work. -->

When you consider a change, use the network in this order:

1. **Clarify the question.** Write down what you are exploring before you contact anyone (mba/mba-post-mba-career-plan).
2. **Advice from the core tier.** Ask people who know you well whether the move fits you.
3. **Information from bridging contacts.** Ask alumni in the target industry or region what the work is like.
   Prepare each conversation with mba/mba-coffee-chat-notes and track them in mba/mba-networking-tracker.
4. **Introductions.** Ask for introductions only to specific people, with a short note the contact can forward.
5. **Close the loop.** Tell everyone who helped what happened, whatever the outcome.

## 11. Privacy, conduct and AI tools

<!-- Guidance: You hold other people's data, and alumni directories come with rules. Follow them exactly. -->

- Use the alumni directory only for the purposes its terms allow; many directories forbid commercial solicitation and
  bulk messaging. Read the terms and note the date.
- Keep your network map private and record only what people have shared with you professionally.
- Do not upload contact lists or personal notes to AI tools or services that store or train on inputs, unless you are
  sure of their data practices and the people concerned would not object.
- Do not send mass messages that pretend to be personal, whether written by you or generated by a tool.
- Respect confidentiality: admissions interview content, a classmate's job search and anything shared in confidence
  stay private.

## 12. Workbook

<!-- Guidance: Answer in full sentences once a year. -->

1. My five core-tier people, and when I last had a real conversation with each.
   [Answer]
2. The industries and regions my network bridges, and the one gap I want to close this year.
   [Answer]
3. My yearly time budget for the cadence and giving back, and whether it fits my calendar.
   [Answer]
4. Three dormant ties to reconnect with this quarter, with a reason for each.
   [Answer]
5. My giving-back commitment for the year, with hours.
   [Answer]
6. The next reunion date and what I want from it.
   [Answer]
7. The career question I may need the network for in the next two years.
   [Answer]

## 13. Quality checklist

<!-- Guidance: Run at each annual review. -->

- [ ] Network map current, with personal contact details and preferred channels.
- [ ] Every contact in exactly one tier, with a next-contact date from the formula.
- [ ] Time budget computed and recurring reminders in the calendar.
- [ ] Breadth check done; at least one bridging contact added this year.
- [ ] Three dormant ties reconnected this quarter.
- [ ] One giving-back activity active, with hours recorded.
- [ ] Alumni services checked and dated.
- [ ] Directory terms and privacy rules followed.

## 14. Common mistakes

<!-- Guidance: Most networks fade from neglect, not from conflict. -->

1. **Relying on school systems.** Student email and class group chats lapse; collect personal details before graduation.
2. **Contacting people only when you need something.** The first message in three years should not be a job request.
3. **Trying to stay close to everyone.** Without tiers, effort spreads thin and even core relationships fade.
4. **Staying inside your own industry and city.** You lose the bridging ties that bring new information.
5. **Generic mass messages.** They are recognised instantly and damage more than silence.
6. **Never giving back.** A network that only takes stops responding.
7. **Forgetting to close the loop.** People who helped want to know what happened.
8. **Skipping reunions** or attending only to see the core group.
9. **Misusing the alumni directory** for sales or bulk outreach against its terms.
10. **Overcommitting to volunteer roles** in a demanding first year and then dropping them.

## 15. Timeline

<!-- Guidance: G is the graduation month. Replace relative dates with your own. -->

| When | Action | Your date |
|---|---|---|
| G-3 months | Build the network map, collect personal contact details, agree channels with core tier | YYYY-MM-DD |
| G-1 month | Thank faculty, staff, recruiters and mentors; update the alumni directory entry | YYYY-MM-DD |
| G+3 months | Send an update from the new role to core and active tiers | YYYY-MM-DD |
| G+6 months | First giving-back commitment | YYYY-MM-DD |
| G+12 months | Annual review, wider-tier touch around the graduation anniversary | YYYY-MM-DD |
| Each quarter | Three dormant reconnections | YYYY-MM-DD |
| First reunion milestone (check school) | Reunion preparation in section 8 | YYYY-MM-DD |
| G+10 years | Review the giving-back role; consider alumni leadership | YYYY-MM-DD |

## 16. My notes and next steps

<!-- Guidance: Three dated next steps. -->

| Next step | Due | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| *Example:* Collect personal emails from learning team | YYYY-MM-DD | All five in the map |
| *Example:* Sign up as an admissions interviewer | YYYY-MM-DD | Training completed |
| [Next step] | YYYY-MM-DD | [ ] |

[Notes]

## Sources and further reading

<!-- Guidance: Primary research behind the plan; your alumni office for local services. -->

- Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. *American Journal of Sociology*, 78(6), 1360-1380.
- Burt, R. S. (1992). *Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition*. Harvard University Press.
- Levin, D. Z., Walter, J., and Murnighan, J. K. (2011). Dormant ties: the value of reconnecting. *Organization
  Science*, 22(4), 923-939.
- Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., and Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of
  weak ties. *Science*, 377(6612), 1304-1310.
- Kram, K. E. (1985). *Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life*. Scott, Foresman.
- Grant, A. (2013). *Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success*. Viking.
- Casciaro, T., Gino, F., and Kouchaki, M. (2014). The contaminating effects of building instrumental ties: how
  networking can make us feel dirty. *Administrative Science Quarterly*, 59(4), 705-735. Corrigendum published 2024.
- Your school's alumni office pages (record the date checked).
- Related templates: mba/mba-networking-tracker, mba/mba-coffee-chat-notes, mba/mba-post-mba-career-plan.

## Revision history

<!-- Guidance: One row per annual review. -->

| Version | Date | Author | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | YYYY-MM-DD | [Name] | First version from template |
| [0.2] | YYYY-MM-DD | [Name] | [Annual review: tiers updated, mentoring added] |

## Standard and licence note

Based on published research on social networks, dormant ties, mentoring and reciprocity, cited above. The text,
worksheets and examples are original and invented; this template is not affiliated with or endorsed by any school or
alumni association. Alumni services and directory rules differ by school and change: check your school's current
pages before you rely on them. Template licence: MIT.