Don Philabaum is CEO of TalentMarks, an online provider of career and professional development programming to career centers and alumni associations. TalentMarks’ Career Speaker Series provides alumni associations with a branded career solutions that feature 31 scheduled career lectures per year. Recently published authors provide tips on managing careers, changing jobs, dealing with workplace issues, soft skills needed for advancement, and even retirement strategies. The firms’ Grad CareerFestival is a four-day online career conference that introduces grads to 72 of the world’s top career authors who share tips, skills, and strategies grads need to launch their careers. Philabaum has built two other education businesses. He founded his first business while in college and by the time he sold it in 2000, his firm photographed 200,000 grads receiving their diplomas at 500 colleges and high schools each year. His other firm founded in 1997, built alumni online communities/directories for over 300 alumni associations before he sold it in 2007. Philabaum has authored ½ a dozen books, including Alumni Online Engagement, Change It! Create a Net-Centered College Culture, The Unemployed Grad, And What Parents Can Do About It, as well as a dozen whitepapers including, The Alumni Career Shop, Moving Athletes from the Playing Field to the Corporate Team, Engaging Boomers with Virtual Content. Philabaum believes parents would be willing to pay for a good, better, and best career services model. He has written extensively that the career center should be a profit center and advocates the concept to college presidents and administrators. don@talentmarks.com.
The colleges that successfully place their graduates in careers are at a distinct advantage in this challenging environment. Marketing that success will significantly help draw new students to their campus.
