Conduct an informational interview with someone who is working in a field that interests you. You may choose to conduct these with Wesleyan alumni or other industry professionals. For tips on getting started, see the Gordon Career Center website or ask your career advisor. Include a reflection on your experience here.
For this informational interview, I talked to Chris Simé who is a Wesleyan Alumni, class of ‘23. He actually interviewed me for my RA position this year and I found out that he was in Psi U which I’m now a part of. He is currently working at L’oreal on a two-year rotational program in human resources. This was an extremely great interview because I was looking at the L’oreal internship for the summer of 2025 and it was great to hear his experience and what the work culture was like at his job.
Chris gave me incredible insight and advice on applying to internships and general life advice; he told me that I shouldn’t be scared of networking and that I’m not behind which was really great to hear because sometimes I get extremely nervous that I’m not doing enough. What I’ve learnt from many people is that I don’t have to create my network from scratch and that it’s important to use the resources you already have because the majority of people are willing to help.
One question I asked him was “what was one thing that you took away from each job” as I noted down that he worked at Bloomberg, CITI and L’oreal. At Bloomberg, he learnt how to apply feedback, learn from mistakes and prepare for harder conversations with people. He learnt this from being upset with his work situation and talking to his manager about it; his main takeaway was that you have to fully express yourself and be able to present an alternative and plan.
At Citi, he learnt that networking is very important to your job and it really matters who advocates for you when you’re not in the room. He advised me to go to coffee chats with people, reach out to alumni and realize that there are professional connections and deeper, less formal connections that you can form. I took a lot from this call; his perspective on his job reaffirmed how great of a company L’oreal was and I’m very excited to apply to this internship next summer. Furthermore, I loved learning about his experiences and what he learnt from them because he gave me really great advice on networking, learning new things and just told me not to worry which was really great to hear.
