Choosing where to take an MBA is usually based on a wide range of factors. The quality of faculty, the location of a business school, an opportunity to learn a new language, will all play a major part. But in an increasingly difficult job market, MBA applicants look for, not just at what will happen in the relatively short time spent studying, but at the long-term help and support a school can provide.

Business schools around the world now offer a wide spectrum of services to their alumni, from branded merchandise - including the ubiquitous baseball cap - to advanced learning programs. Some schools work with external partners and suppliers to offer access to discounts on business-orientated products and services. IESE in Spain, for example, offers an American Express account of charge to members of its alumni association. Others have developed ways of giving tailored support to special interest groups. Another Spanish school, Instituto de Empresa, was the initiating partner behind ICEVED, a web-based advice and support forum for entrepreneurs, which now embraces 25 schools around the world.

Gaining an MBA means gaining new expertise and polishing existing skills. An MBA can improve your promotion prospects or help you to change direction in your career. But, perhaps most important, an MBA from a major school gives you an introduction to a well-connected, international club. London Business School, for example, numbers 14,000 graduates in over 100 countries, while California's Stanford Graduate School of Business has more than 22,000 around the world. And schools are devoting increasing resources to enabling graduates to leverage the power and influence of their global networks.

Certain tools for keeping alumni in touch with one another have become commonplace amongst international schools. Many publish alumni directories containing contact and biographical details on graduates and there has been an increasing shift by schools such as EGADE in Mexico, London in the UK and Goizueta in the USA to supplement print-based directories with online searchable databases. Alumni conferences and reunions are also high-profile ways of bringing the community closer and keeping it working for its members.

In the UK, the Cranfield School of Management has tackled the operation of its worldwide network of 9000 graduates by setting up the Cranfield Management Association, which serves as an independent link between the school and its alumni. The CMA manages its multi-national community facilities though a website, CMAWorld. "The site has given us the ability to set up numerous Special Interest Groups, which help to make the whole network much more manageable the Member's point of view," says Vivien Harrington, Director of Alumni Relations. "We now have individual networks for each graduate year, for international groups, for entrepreneurs, investment management and social marketing groups and even networks for alumni interested in skiing and sailing." In Mexico, Monterrey's EGADE fosters alumni groups in several major cities by running personal development workshops on a bi-monthly basis to help graduates acquire business development and networking skills.

In recent years, all major schools have stepped up the level of support that they provide to their MBA students in finding their first job upon graduation. Students are provided with access to both actual and virtual career fairs, on-campus visits by recruiters, libraries of information about potential employers and career counseling from campus-based or external professionals. And for alumni? How does this sophisticated career support structure serve the on-going needs of more senior alumni? Schools are investing time and resources into alumni career services. Over 70 of the world's leading schools are now involved in topmba.com, career management and development platforms for MBAs and other business masters graduates. Accessed through www.topmba.com/careers the service provides an interactive database of job opportunities on five continents, networking events, an on-line Members Directory, and recruiter information and career counseling services delivered by e-mail, telephone and by counselors in person.

One of the schools that has pioneered development of high quality alumni career services is the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration in the USA. "When we created our alumni careers office back in the mid-1990's many schools were treating this area as an adjunct to either their student careers department or to an alumni services department," says Herb Crowder, the school's Director of Alumni Career Services. "We decided that it was a wrong route to take and that the provision of really good career services would be a key part of a life-long partnership with our graduates." To fund the new office the school created a foundation, funded by existing alumni, which to date has raised in excess of $4.5 million. "Our aim was to provide a largely free set of services which would teach our people - currently over 7000 around the world - how to best use the career market." Services are mainly delivered by the office's dedicated website within the school's main site. "The site contains a tremendous amount of resources - sections on networking, on writing a resume and a constantly updated jobs board, as well as access to our partner organisations," says Crowder. "As a result the site is now more than 400 pages deep and we are constantly working to make it as easy to navigate and use as possible. After all, most MBAs are 'Type A' personalities - they like to get a quick answer and then move on. If it takes too much time, they simply won't use it!"

The development of the Internet means that the close community of a campus can now be replicated on a worldwide basis continuing after graduation. The delivery of alumni career services by a business is no longer a 'nice to have' but a 'must do'. With business schools increasingly the centre of an international community of like-minded professionals capable of mutual support and assistance, it seems that the idea of a life-long partnership between educator and graduate is becoming a reality.