UT Graduates Help the Next Generation Find Their Way

There is a particular kind of confidence that comes not from reading about something, but from hearing it from someone who has just been through it themselves. That was the energy in at the DesignLab on 2 June, when Career Services and the Young Alumni Network brought together final-year students and graduates who had, not so long ago, been sitting exactly where the students were sitting.

The afternoon was built around a simple idea: the transition from student to professional. The first time you walk into a job interview. The moment a recruiter asks what salary you expect. The career fair where you don't know how to start a conversation without it feeling awkward. These are the moments that matter.

So the speakers did not lecture. They showed.

Hemanth took the students through what the first steps of a career actually feel like from the inside — how to read a job description, what employers are really looking for beyond the bullet points on a CV, and how to frame a UT education in a way that lands. Sven, in a forty-minute session that the room barely wanted to end, walked through how to present skills and experience with clarity and conviction, how LinkedIn works as a tool rather than a formality, and how recruiting has shifted in ways that catch a lot of graduates off guard. Giorgio added a sharp, focused perspective on one of the most avoided conversations in any early career: negotiating your salary. Not as a confrontation, but as a skill — one that can be practised, prepared for, and done well.

Koen closed the speaker sessions with something students said they had never really been taught: how to network without it feeling transactional. How to walk into a room, start a real conversation, and leave with a connection that actually means something.

The interview simulation

Hemanth sat down across from Sven and the simulation began.

An interview — played out in front of the students who suddenly had a front-row seat at a job interview. Hemanth and Sven paused at each turning point to explain what was happening beneath the surface: why Sven leaned forward, why Hemanth chose that particular way to answer a difficult question, what the handshake at the start actually communicates.

The format and the energy of the people in the room made the workshop energizing. The speakers were not distant success stories. They were recognisable — UT graduates who had navigated the same campus, faced the same uncertainty, and come out the other side with something genuinely useful to share. And the students felt it.

That is what the Young Alumni Network was built for. Not a database of names, but a living community where experience flows in both directions, where graduating means joining something, not leaving it behind.

The Your Future Career workshop was organised by Career Services and the Young Alumni Network of the University of Twente.