Skidmore Business Network broadens scope

Suppose you are a marketing manager looking to fill several key positions, or the founder of an IT startup who needs legal advice. How do you filter the sea of resumes and professional listings flooding your in-box for reliable talent? Perhaps you are changing careers or are a recent graduate looking for that first great opportunity. The Skidmore Business Network can help.

Started in New York City two years ago by a team of Skidmore alumni, SBN is a professional network that hosts regularly scheduled speaker meetings and networking events in New York, Boston, and San Francisco. New chapters are slated for launch in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and South Florida in the near future. Each chapter hosts a list serve where job opportunities can be posted and ideas exchanged anytime. A national/international list serve is also available. To date, SBN?s membership has grown to over 1,100 nationwide and facilitated the placement of dozens of Skidmore alumni in professional positions.

The organization has recently implemented some major new initiatives, including a greatly expanded focus that will significantly broaden its outreach.

• Originally open to alumni working in finance, law, and marketing, SBN is now a resource for alumni in a wide array of business-related professionals, encompassing fields such as entertainment, research science, technology, and journalism, to name a few.
  
  
• To enhance its communications, SBN will leverage the popularity of networking tool LinkedIn to provide a virtual meeting space for alumni, parents, faculty and graduating seniors interested in professional networking. An SBNLinkedIn group is accessible from the SBN site.
  
  
• In addition, SBN members will participate in an ongoing blog series, ?How I Got Started,? to be launched in Scope Online this winter, along with a regular column with up-to-the minute news about the organization.
  
  
• SBN is also helping current students gain access to mentoring, networking skills, internships, and employment opportunities. An on-campus student chapter, SBN-Saratoga, coordinated byChris Gringrich ?08, provides a direct conduit to other chapters. The Fastrack program helps new grads transition to careers by introducing select seniors to monthly SBN meetings in various cities. Information about and applications for Fastrak are available online at Career Services.
  
  
• The organization is also launching a series of small dinner meetings to facilitate dialogue among senior professionals called SBN Gold.

SBN's Coordinating Team:

Frits Abell '94, SBN National
Liz McCann '00, SBN National
Gregg Nicoll '90, Chair, SBN-NYC
Maxwell Dale `94, Chair, SBN-SF
Liz Sidel '93 and Todd Faber '91, Co-Chairs, SBN-Boston

Frits Abell observes , ?We have laid a very strong foundation for SBN over the past two years, from which many SBN members have reaped tangible rewards. The coordinators? primary mission this year is to grow our constituency and to keep SBN top-of-mind among professionals in the Skidmore community for all things professional development, from a job referral to a need for more interaction with other professionals.?

For more information on joining Skidmore Business Network and an online membership form, see www.skidbiz.com.