Best questions for student survey about alumni networking

Here are some of the best questions for a student survey about alumni networking, along with practical tips for crafting them. You can instantly build your own survey with Specific—our conversational AI survey platform handles the heavy lifting.

Best open-ended questions for alumni networking surveys

Open-ended questions invite students to share detailed thoughts, stories, and feedback you’d never get from simple checkboxes. They’re best for uncovering new themes, surfacing unexpected needs, and learning from students’ own words. These questions work well when you want to improve engagement or identify opportunities in your alumni networking programs.

Here are 10 open-ended questions designed to help you gather meaningful insights for alumni networking among students:

1. How have you interacted with our alumni network so far, and what stood out to you the most?

2. Can you describe a specific experience where a connection with an alumnus/alumna influenced your career or education?

3. What types of alumni events, activities, or resources would you find most valuable?

4. Were there any challenges or barriers you faced in reaching out to alumni?

5. How do you usually learn about alumni networking opportunities here?

6. If you haven’t used our alumni network yet, what has held you back?

7. How could our alumni network better support your personal or professional goals?

8. Can you share any suggestions for improving communication between students and alumni?

9. What information or support would help you feel more confident contacting alumni?

10. Describe your ideal alumni networking experience and who would be involved.

Open-ended questions are key to understanding the “why” behind students’ perceptions and actions. Given that 85% of job openings are filled through networking according to LinkedIn, getting this level of detail can help identify how to bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world outcomes for students. [1]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for alumni networking surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions make data easy to quantify. Use them when you want quick comparisons, spot patterns, or encourage participation with fast, low-effort answers—especially for students who prefer a few options over writing a paragraph.

Here are three single-select multiple-choice questions you can use:

Question: Have you participated in any alumni networking events in the past year?

• Yes, multiple times

• Yes, once

• No, but I wanted to

• No, not interested

Question: What’s the primary reason you would consider joining an alumni networking program?

• Career opportunities

• Mentorship

• Social connection

• Learning from alumni stories

• Other

Question: How helpful do you find our alumni network for your career development?

• Very helpful

• Somewhat helpful

• Neutral

• Not helpful

• Haven’t used it

When to followup with "why?" If a student picks “Not helpful” or “No, not interested,” always ask why. Their reasoning helps you pinpoint obstacles or perceptions—“Why haven’t you participated in alumni events?” gets right to the roadblocks so you know what to improve.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Include “Other” when you’re not confident you’ve listed every possible answer. The “Other” choice, followed by a clarifying question like “Please specify,” lets students surface unique reasons and can uncover needs or motivations you hadn’t anticipated.

NPS for alumni networking surveys: should you use it?

NPS (Net Promoter Score) measures whether students would recommend your alumni networking program to peers. It’s a simple but powerful question: “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend our alumni network to other students?” Students who score 9–10 are promoters, 7–8 are passives, and 0–6 are detractors. It’s the gold standard for quickly benchmarking sentiment and benchmarking changes over time, even for programs where students may not have years of experience yet.

If you want to instantly gauge satisfaction and advocacy, generate a ready-made NPS survey for students in seconds.

The power of follow-up questions

Great surveys aren’t just about asking—the best insights come from automated follow-up questions that adapt in real time. With open-ended responses, students’ first answers can be vague or incomplete. That’s where Specific’s AI shines: it asks smart, conversational follow-ups to clarify, probe, and enrich responses as if you had a skilled researcher behind every conversation.

Follow-ups save you hours compared to chasing people down by email. With instant context, the conversation feels natural—just like you’re chatting with a thoughtful advisor. Let’s see a quick example of why this matters:

• Student reply: “It didn’t help me.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you share more about what you expected from the alumni network and where it fell short?”

That single nudge transforms an unclear response into actionable insight. When students are saying that alumni engagement is minimal (in one survey, only 9% found their college’s alumni network helpful for job hunting, while 69% felt it had no impact [2]), probing deeper with follow-ups is essential for finding out what would drive stronger engagement in the future.

How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 targeted follow-ups are enough to gather full context quickly. With Specific, you can set a cap so conversations don’t drag on—hearing more when there’s more to learn, and moving on when you’ve got the details you need.

This makes it a conversational survey: The result is a naturally flowing, engaging feedback session instead of a static, one-way form.

AI analysis makes results easy: Learn how to instantly analyze alumni networking survey responses with Specific’s powerful AI, even when you have hundreds of open-text replies.

Automated follow-ups aren’t just a novelty—they’re a breakthrough. Try generating a personalized alumni networking survey and see the difference for yourself.

Prompting GPT: how to compose great prompts for survey questions

AI survey builders deliver the best results when you feed them clear, specific prompts. Start with a basic prompt like:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Student survey about Alumni Networking.

You’ll get more thoughtful output if you add extra context about your goals, what you know about your student audience, or your pain points. For example:

We want to improve student engagement with our alumni network. Our students often report struggling to make meaningful connections with graduates, especially those who share their career interests. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that explore these experiences and uncover practical ideas for better networking support.

Once you have a list, refine it. Ask AI to sort your questions into themes for even more structure:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Pick the category or categories you want to dig into, then prompt:

Generate 10 questions for categories "Barriers to Participation" and "Desired Networking Outcomes".

This approach turns AI into your survey co-pilot, helping you generate surveys that cut to the heart of your objectives.

What is a conversational survey? (New way vs. old way)

Conversational surveys are a step change from old-school survey forms. Instead of static lists of questions, respondents engage in a dynamic, back-and-forth chat that flows like a real conversation. AI asks smart follow-ups, interprets nuance, and adapts as it goes—turning every answer into an opening for richer insights.

Why use AI for student surveys? Because it’s as easy as chatting. With an AI survey example you can iterate fast, follow up on-the-fly, and gather feedback that’s richer and more actionable than what you’d get from a static Google Form or SurveyMonkey template. If you want to go deeper, check out detailed instructions for creating alumni networking surveys using an AI survey builder.

Specific stands out with best-in-class conversational survey experiences, empowering your student respondents and making participation feel effortless and engaging for everyone involved.

See this alumni networking survey example now

Start now—see how conversational surveys can instantly upgrade your alumni networking feedback, helping you unlock better insights and drive student engagement.