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LinkedIn is the best place to easily find alumni. Simply use the LinkedIn alumni tool, LinkedIn groups or LinkedIn search and you will get access to hundreds of alumni profiles in minutes.
Let’s see how you can leverage your alumni network to get leads from LinkedIn.
How to Find Alumni on LinkedIn?
3 ways to find alumni on LinkedIn:
- The LinkedIn Alumni tool
- Search for Alumni LinkedIn groups
- Search for Alumni on LinkedIn Sales Navigator
1. The LinkedIn Alumni Tool
LinkedIn Alumni Tool is a feature that gives you insight on school alumni and let you search for alumni using filters like job titles, companies, or functions.
To use the LinkedIn alumni tool, go to a school page and click on the Alumni Tab
You are going to see a few things:
- The number of alumni
- Search bar
- General insight on alumni (where they live, where they work, what they do, what they studied)
You can search for a specific group of alumni using the search tool:
- look for keywords, title, or companies names
- the time they graduated
For example, I could look for all Harvard alumni who are CEOs.
The results will appear at the bottom of the page.
2. Search for Alumni on LinkedIn groups
There are many alumni LinkedIn groups that already exists on LinkedIn. It’s really easy to find them with LinkedIn Search and Sales Navigator.
Step#1: Go to LinkedIn search and click Groups.
Use LinkedIn Boolean search and write <“School Name”> AND alumni in the search bar.
This will look for the groups with the keyword “Harvard” and “Alumni” inside their name.
Once you get these results, you can join these LinkedIn group to reach out to alumni.
You can also search for groups on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Go to the Groups filter and enter your Boolean search (<School name> AND Alumni”
Select the group you’re interested in and add other filters if necessary.
Export groups members in a CSV with Evaboot.
Here’s a video tutorial to guide you through the process:
3. Search for Alumni on LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is powerful tool that allow to explore the whole LinkedIn database. It makes it really easy to find the alumni of a school or a company.
If you don’t have a Sales Navigator account yet. No problem. There is a free trial you can use:
- Open the lead filters
- Look for the school filter
- Enter the name of the targeted school
Press “Search” and now, you’ll see all the alumni displayed on the search engine .
If you’re looking for alumni in a particular country or who works in a particular company, you just need to top up your search with other filters like this:
Here, I am looking for all the Harvard Business School alumni who lives in the U.S. and works at Google.
If you want to reach out to company alumni, the process is the same.
How to see company alumni on LinkedIn:
- Go to the company filter
- Select Past not current
- Enter the company name
Here, I got all the people that used to work at HubSpot.
If you need to refine your search to find all HubSpot alumni who are now CEOs of their companies, you just need to add a Title filter to this search.
If you want to export your lead list into a CSV, you can use the Evaboot Chrome Extension.
By the way, the option is also available on the free LinkedIn search engine.
Once you get LinkedIn URLs and emails, you can start to reach out to alumni.
How to Reach Out to alumni on LinkedIn?
3 ways to use LinkedIn outreach on alumni:
- Create an Alumni group
- Organize an Alumni event
- Simply ask for a catch-up
1. Create an Alumni group
You can try to gather all the alumni of your school/your company into a LinkedIn group.
Example of Alumni outreach
Hello <first_name>,
I’m trying to gather all the <school_name> alumni into a LinkedIn group so we can stay in touch an network: <link of the group>
I noticed you were in <school_name> from <start date> to <end date>. Would you be interested to connect with other alumni of our school?
Best, JB
Alumni will see value here as everybody like to expand their network.
2. Organizing an Alumni event
You could try to organize a physical or a digital event gathering the alumni of your school/company. Just create a LinkedIn event and then send the link to fellow alumni.
Example of alumni networking message
Hello <first_name>,
I’m organizing an event gathering <school_name> alumni: <link of the event>
Many people are doing great things but I feel we are not connected enough. I’m sure we could easily help each other if we communicate more.
This happens at <location and date>
Are you interested to join us?
Best, JB
3. Simply ask for a catch-up
If you’re not willing to create any LinkedIn group or event, your proposition value is poorer. However, you could still try something like this:
How to reach out to alumni on LinkedIn
Hello <first_name>,
I’m reaching out to <school_name> alumni to see if we could help each other in business.
Our alumni network is really underrated. I think we could all benefits from communicating more.
I’ve noticed that you are working in <your industry> as well. We got few connections in common from school 😉
If you’re willing to talk about the good old time and how we can help each other, you can grab some time in my Calendly here: https://calendly.com/evaboot-meetings/discover-evaboot?month=2021-12
Best, JB
Of course, don’t stop after one message, if your prospects don’t reply make sure to send them LinkedIn follow-up messages.
