Four minutes with an alumnus at the campus tech fest

Intermediate

6 min

An alumnus from your department, now four years into a job at a company that recruits here, has come back for the tech fest. There is a small crowd around them and you have about four minutes. This is the conversation that produces a referral — and the one most students either skip out of shyness or ruin by opening with "can you refer me?".

An intermediate-level session of about 6 minutes.

The person in front of you did the same degree you are doing and then went and did the job you are trying to get, which is not a combination you meet often. Four minutes is enough for a real conversation if you spend it on something only this person can answer. They left your department four years ago, they work somewhere that recruits from your campus, and they hold opinions nobody thinks to ask them for. The awkward stretch is the end, with people waiting and a next step you have to request out loud. The AI alumnus here is generous with answers and genuinely short of time, which is the pressure worth practising under.

Angles worth taking

Ask about a decision they made rather than about the company; the company has a careers page, they do not.
Answer their question back properly, because "doing fine" closes the conversation you just spent a minute opening.
Keep your own project to two sentences and include the part that went wrong; it invites a follow-up.
When someone else edges in, step back and let them, since a paused conversation restarts better than a crowded one.
Make the ask while they are still facing you, not as they turn towards the person behind you.

Who is in the room

You play

A final-year student at the tech fest

You speak with

A friendly alumnus four years into their career, generous with advice, with someone waiting to speak to them next

Phrases to reach for

These are shown to you before the session starts. They are what you are asked to use, not a list the scorer is checking off.

I am in the final year of the same department

I read that your team works on

Could I ask what surprised you most in your first year?

I built something similar for my final-year project

Would it be alright if I sent you a message on LinkedIn?

Ready to speak?

Free to start. You need a TalkDrill account to speak — reading this page does not.

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The format

Modes

Learn (guided) · Mock (exam-real)

How a roleplay session works

Read your brief

Your role, the situation, and what a good outcome looks like. The counterpart has their own brief, and you do not get to read it.

Open the conversation

You speak first in most scenarios. How you open sets what you can ask for later, which is most of the exercise.

Handle the turn

Somewhere in the middle it stops going your way — a refusal, a counter-offer, a rebuttal you did not prepare for. That moment is the scenario.

Read the report

Outcome, the phrases you used and the ones you missed, fluency and clarity, and the specific line worth rewriting.

What you're scored on

Across every roleplay, the report looks at the same four things — because they are what makes a real conversation work or fail.

Your objective

Introduce yourself in one line, ask a question only they can answer, share one specific thing you have built, and leave with a next step you asked for clearly.

Task outcome

Whether you got what the brief asked for: the refund, the extension, the concession, the point conceded.

Appropriacy

Whether the register fits. A complaint that is too soft gets nothing; the same complaint too hard gets a manager and no refund.

Recovery

What you do with the unexpected turn — repair, rephrase, push back, or stall. This is where most of the marks move.

Delivery

Fluency, pronunciation and pace, judged in conversation rather than in a prepared monologue.

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