In response to a dwindling job market caused by COVID-19, Binghamton University’s Alumni Association has developed the Mentor Match program, which aims to connect BU students with alumni in their prospective career fields.

According to Kimberly Faber, executive director of alumni engagement at BU, the program was established in February of last year in order to help students navigate the complex and challenging job market with the help of alumni.

“Mentor Match accomplishes two very important things for the alumni association,” Faber wrote in an email. “It adds to the value of a [BU] degree by leveraging the power of the alumni network to help students in the job and internship market, and it engages alumni with the University from anywhere in the world.”

The Mentor Match program is available to all BU students through Chronus, a software platform for mentors and students to communicate. Students can apply to join using their PODS student login information to fill out a profile and search for careers they are interested in. Students are responsible for reaching out to alumni, and Faber said they should have little trouble finding mentors to connect with, no matter the career field.

“Currently we have close to 1,700 alumni mentors in the program from over 30 countries,” Faber wrote. “We have alumni available in all seven career clusters and 45 areas of expertise.”

According to Faber, around 1,000 students actively use the program, and students have already made relevant connections on the platform. Dante Carioti, a freshman majoring in accounting, signed up for Mentor Match in March 2021 after hearing the program promoted in one of his classes.

“I got a chance to talk to someone that was actually doing the job that I wanted to do,” Carioti said. “I was able to get a legitimate feel for what it’s like to do the job and to go from one job to another [and] what it would be like to not just have one occupation.”

Daniela Posillico, a sophomore majoring in accounting, did not find the same success. After Posillico signed up for the platform, she said she had some difficulty connecting with alumni.

“I tried to connect with mentors, but I never got responses from any of them,” Posillico said. “I could have tried harder, but I feel that there were other networking opportunities that I utilized, such as attending professional networking events and using LinkedIn to connect with [BU] alumni who worked at the places I was interested in.”

Posillico said she has an optimistic view for the future of the platform, explaining that she thinks Mentor Match needs to be promoted more in order for it to reach its full potential.

Students interested in joining Mentor Match to reach out to alumni can sign up here [binghamton.chronus.com] to set up a profile. Faber said the program allows for flexibility, particularly for recent graduates, who have different needs.

“We have recently made it possible for alumni to become mentees in the system, so a recent [graduate] is still able to use the program once they have graduated as either a mentee or a mentor,” Faber wrote.