Student-Hosted Career Conversations
Purpose & Scope
The Graduate Student Association (GSA) supports this initiative solely to reduce financial
barriers to career networking. The intent is to enable informational interviews that help
students navigate pathways to jobs and internships. In this context, informational
interviews are short, informal conversations where you ask someone about their job,
organization, and career path to learn and build connections, not to directly ask for a job.
To know more about such interviews, please visit this resource.
Students are fully responsible for identifying professionals, reaching out to them, and
scheduling and hosting the conversations. The GSA will not source professionals or broker
introductions. However, students are highly encouraged to rely on their respective
school’s professional development center to identify and connect with alumni.
Each student is eligible only once per semester.
Program Concept
Any graduate student may host a short, informal career conversation with a professional
from their field of interest (alumni or non-alumni). Such a conversation must focus on
career pathways and trajectories, hiring insights and expectations, practical advice for
internships, jobs, or sector entry, and related themes only.
Such conversations may be 1:1 or in a group of 2-6 students only.
GSA Support: Reimbursement Model
To keep the program accessible and easy to administer, GSA support is limited to post-
event reimbursements.
Eligible expenses include food, local transportation for the student (public transportation/ride-share), parking, and related expenses. However, costs like alcohol, long-distance travel, and lodging are ineligible to be reimbursed. While the final cap can be adjusted based on total budget availability, the maximum reimbursement can be up to $30 per student (per such conversation). However, if hosted on campus, students will be reimbursed up to $17/person for the buffet at The Faculty Club. The reimbursements must be claimed within the same semester and cannot be carried over to future semester(s).
For more details please refer to this guideline. Email brandeisgsa@brandeis.edu if you have any questions.