You thought MiddNet was just for alumni? INCORRECT. MiddNet also helps undergraduates find alumni who can help with career networking. Secret: alumni love current students. They also love to talk about how successful they are and how much they’ve learned about their chosen career. Search MiddNet for alumni in your field, in your region, or even in a specific company if you want an “in.”

Here’s how it works:

First, register for MiddNet. You can’t access it with the normal email username and password because you will continue to access MiddNet after you graduate (at which point you lose access to many handy on-campus resources).

You will be prompted to create your “forever email address,” which is cool for alumni to have but is also kind of stressful. I’m never allowed to change this address? Never? Really? What if I get married and change my last name? What if I adopt a stage name or a nom de plume? Apparently this is a pretty serious decision, so I would suggest skipping this step until you’re closer to graduation and the expiration of your current @middlebury.edu address.

Navigate over to the MiddNet Career Advisory Network page, from which you can search a directory of alumni who’ve chosen to make themselves available to undergrads seeking career advice. Click “Search MiddNet” up at the top and you’ll find a pretty detailed search function. You can search by name (if you’re looking for someone in particular), location (if you’re focusing your job search on a particular state or city), career focus (like international, LGBTQ, law careers, etc.), graduation year (to look for more recent or more experienced alumni), and a bunch of other filters. This is a very powerful tool for focusing your outreach.

Once you’ve got a list of alumni, you can email them through MiddNet itself. For those who remember the previous version of MiddNet, alumni email addresses and phone numbers are no longer made available to you directly. The first contact is now always through MiddNet itself, which protects both your privacy and the alumni’s.

CSO has a lot of tips for outreach emails, which you should definitely read before sending out a hundred or even just a few emails. You want help, but you don’t want to sound like a stalker.

Good luck, and happy spamming! No, just kidding. Kind of.