You don’t need to join a business fraternity to reap the benefits
While I might be considered an elder to some Generation Z college students, I am still young enough to remember the trials and tribulations that I went through during my time as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Irvine (otherwise known as UCI or UC Irvine).
To this day, I have extremely fond memories of my undergraduate career for it was during that brief time period where I found the independence to pursue all of my career interests with the safety net of school right below me. But one of the things that I will always remember is the journey I took to become the digital marketer that I am today.
So before we begin, I want to make the following extremely clear: Going to a non-Top 20 undergraduate business program for digital marketing is not a death sentence. It only means you have to try 100x harder to get the career you want. During the next couple of weeks, I will be breaking down each step I took during my undergrad into a short-form post. So to the folks skimming the headlines while commuting/walking, make sure you sit down or pause for each article.
How to milk business fraternities without paying membership dues
First of all, welcome to college! As a college alumnus, let me be the first to congratulate you for taking the first step in achieving a bachelor’s degree. To get your feet wet, make a mental list of all the business fraternities on your campus, and attend their events during rush week. Now, this is pretty obvious for networking purposes, however, go to their events without the objective of joining their fraternity. Here’s why…
In a nutshell, business fraternities market themselves as organizations with deep alumni networks that you have access to the moment you begin paying their membership dues. They attempt to influence you by emphasizing how they have brothers in big companies along with the feeling of exclusivity to drive FOMO. However, from a theoretical perspective, most people do not use their 2nd-degree or even 3rd-degree contact. For example, when was the last time that you heard someone say “I got referred to a job from a friend who heard from another friend who heard from a coworker”? No right? That’s because let’s say that you wanted that entry-level job that required your classmate Steven to contact an alumnus who needed to reach out to their coworker. Chances of success are low, right? That is because of two reasons:
- Being a 3rd or 4th degree away from a valuable contact basically has the same value as a stranger cold emailing a random person — Each chain that gets introduced into a referral decreases the chances that the additional chain wants to complete your request
- When asking for a referral, people need to feel confident about the person they are referring — That is why it’s important to build a powerful 1st and 2nd-degree network
That’s why when you attend these frat events during rush week, your actual goal should be to build a strong professional network. These peers will most likely be the ones who can potentially refer you to future opportunities, so it is best to make sure they remember your face and professional interests (even the folks who are rushing because you never know).
And here is the thing, you can’t just go to rush week once for your local business frats. You have to rinse and repeat this process every quarter/semester until you feel confident that you’ve solidified a strong network in their communities.
Because let’s face it, fraternities are expensive for many and most people will only keep in touch with a fraction of their 1st-degree connections after college. Processes such as the one I listed above are meant to increase the likelihood that someone you know will remember your name later on in life and refer you to your dream job.
