This is an online "re-print" of the article posted to the USATODAY site (on 08-30-05) ... we didn't want to lose it should that page be renamed or archived in the future.

Company 'alumni' groups take shape

There are now alumni groups for hundreds of companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Ernst & Young and Texas Instruments. Yahoo alone lists more than 500 such ex-employee groups.

Some groups are started by former employees, while others are formally sanctioned by employers as a way to stay in touch, creating a potential pool of boomerang workers that employers can draw from when hiring picks up. For example:

• The Microsoft Alumni Network (MSA) has grown from 2,000 members in 2003 to more than 6,000 today, with a goal of 10,000 in the next two to three years (www.msanet.org). The network provides services such as a membership business directory, where alumni offer their services — from house-cleaning to an acrobatic flight school.

"MSA was formed to keep people connected, to each other and to Microsoft," says Kathi Jones, executive director of the group. She has worked in recruiting and human resources at Microsoft. Membership dues in the USA are $130 a year.

• About 125 former employees of Nabisco have formed an alumni group (www.nabiscoalumni.net) which members use to arrange happy hours and get-togethers at hotels. The group is mostly a way for former employees to celebrate personal milestones and stay in touch; some post news about job changes, new babies or home purchases.

"We've heard from people who left years ago," says Sandee Weiner, of Wayne, N.J., a former Nabisco project manager who runs the Web site. The group was launched in February 2004.

• An alumni group of Arthur Andersen employees (www.andersenalumni.net) was founded in May 2002 after layoffs amid the accounting scandals that brought down the company. It now has about 10,000 members and has organized alumni reunions in Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago. The group created a Web site, which has about 300 job postings, as well as a résumé database.

"We still get people joining every day. Andersen was sort of like a family; they want to stay in touch," says Jonathan Goldsmith, the Chicago-based group president and a former mergers consultant.

The groups can be especially cathartic for employees who have been let go in layoffs, Goldsmith says.

Alumni groups are growing because there is more job turnover and because the Internet makes it easier for former employees to stay in touch across long distances.

When two alums of Boston-based Bain & Co. established a relief fund for refugees after witnessing the tsunami in Sri Lanka, support came from former employees informed through an alumni network.

Employers often support and even spearhead the groups. That's the case at the Bain alumni group, which is now nearly 6,000 members strong. The network has advice for entrepreneurs, news from Bain, career resources and more.