UWM alumni looking to bolster their careers have access to valuable resources, ones that can help land a job, change careers or secure a promotion. And in today’s professional landscape, you can never have too many allies to help you prepare, network and navigate whatever the future may hold.
Panthers Connect is UWM’s exclusive networking platform, a virtual gathering place for students and alumni seeking mentoring and employment opportunities that offers access to job fairs and job boards. It’s also your gateway to PathwayU, an online career assessment tool that helps with things like matching your strengths with promising career paths, evaluating your current role, and helping prepare for job interviews.
These are indispensable tools for UWM alumni, and when combined with the expertise and resources available in UWM’s Center for Student Experience and Talent (SET), they give UWM alumni deep insights into themselves and their career paths.
“The real value of PathwayU is the reflective conversations with a career advisor afterward,” says Laurie Marks, SET’s executive director. “It’s talking through, on a real, practical level, what those PathwayU results mean.”
This is doubly true for mid-career alumni, who require a different type of advising than young graduates taking their new degrees into the workforce.
“They’re often career-changes,” Marks says, “or they’re folks who have been in the same position for three years and wondering what they need to do to advance.”
That’s why, once the PathwayU assessment paints a baseline picture, UWM’s career advisors help color it in with important details. They’ll talk through, for example, what someone wants their daily role to look like or what problems they want to help solve. They’ll try to connect the client to someone already in a company or industry that might be a match.
They become, simply put, partners who walk the path alongside the alumni who come to them for help.
“We really want to harness the feelings that arise from being anxious or unhappy in your job and turn that into productive energy,” Marks says. “We want to get people connected to a life path that’s going to be fulfilling.”
Marks also notes that networking is more important than ever in the job market, because people are gravitating toward hiring those already in their orbit. It emphasizes the importance of a platform like Panthers Connect, and it’s also why SET advisors focus on helping clients learn how to better make connections.
SET’s services are available for all UWM students and alumni. For alumni who are 12 months beyond graduation, there’s a nominal $50 fee for SET’s career services, which includes three advising sessions, PathwayU guidance, a resume review and working toward a practical plan.
Getting started is as easy as making an appointment through SET’s website.
“It sounds kind of lofty, but we all can do anything in life, and many people put up mental barriers about what they’re capable of,” Marks says. “But every day, people make career changes. It’s really just being coached about how you still do it with the barriers.”