My University Student Needed to Interview Someone With a Job—I Had to Let Her Do It Herself
My daughter called from her university dorm on a Tuesday evening, which was unusual because Tuesday is her long lab day and she normally texts short answers. She said, “I have a project due in ten days. I need to interview someone who has a job. Any job. Do you know anyone?”
The assignment wasn’t complicated. She had to talk with a person currently employed, ask about their work, and write a short reflection on what it taught her about her own career ideas. She had left it until now, and the word “interview” had frozen her. She was picturing formal boardrooms and rejection.
I almost said, “You can interview your granddad. He still drives the county bus.” But I stopped myself. Handing her a name and telling her to make the call would have solved the immediate problem, but it wouldn’t have taught her the part she was actually missing. She didn’t need an interview subject. She needed to learn how to ask a relative stranger for something small and real.
I know this because I hire interns at my office. Every year, a handful of students can’t get past the first email. They write long, apologetic messages that explain too much and ask too little. Or they wait for someone to open a door for them. At some point, they were never shown that networking is just asking normal questions of normal people.
So I did what I usually do when my kids get stuck: I made tea, got on video call, and started asking questions.
First, I asked her to make a list of people she already knew who had a job. Not impressive people. Anyone. She laughed and named four: her old summer boss at the café, my friend who’s an electrician, a neighbour who works in a pharmacy, and her great-aunt who’s a retired nurse and still picks up shifts.
“But none of them are in my major,” she said.
“Does the assignment say the person has to be in your major?”
She read the instructions out loud. It said “a person currently employed.” That was all.
This is a common mistake for first- and second-year students. They think they need someone with an impressive title or a direct connection to their dream job. But the assignment is about how work actually operates, not about career mapping. A café manager deals with schedules, supplier problems, and hiring. An electrician deals with unexpected changes, customer communication, and safety rules. A retired nurse deals with pressure and teamwork. Any of those conversations would give her more real material than another article about landing a dream internship.
The next obstacle was the ask. My daughter felt that emailing her old boss would be “using her.”
“We haven’t talked in over a year,” she said.
“What’s the worst that will happen?”
“She won’t reply.”
“Then what?”
“I send it to someone else?”
“Yes. That’s the whole system.”
We worked on a short email together. I didn’t write it for her. I asked questions and she typed. The final version said something like: “Hi Jane, I’m taking a class about work and careers. I need to interview someone who is currently employed. I remembered working at the café and thought you’d have good stories. Could we schedule a 20-minute video chat sometime this week? Here are a few times that work for me. I’d be happy to work around you. Thank you.”
What mattered was that she said why she was writing, what she was asking for, and how much time it would take. No long backstory. No apology for not being in touch. No vague “I’d love to pick your brain.”
She sent it at 9:15 at night. Then she immediately started worrying.
“Should I have explained more?”
“No.”
“What if she thinks I just want a job?”
“She might. And then she’ll read the rest of your email and see that you only want a conversation.”
This is a hard thing for young people to learn: you can’t control what someone thinks about you. You can only make your request clear and respectful. Most people are not sitting around waiting to judge a student who sends a polite note. Many are actually flattered to be asked.
Not everyone replied. She sent four emails that week. One replied the next morning. The friend’s dad said he was too busy with an emergency call-out. The neighbour never answered. The great-aunt said yes but was only free on Sunday. My daughter felt every non-reply personally.
We talked about follow-up. I told her to send one short, friendly follow-up after four or five days to the one she really wanted. She did. The neighbour still didn’t respond. We moved on. That’s also a lesson: no reply is a reply. You don’t keep chasing. You adjust and go to the next person.
The bigger hurdle was the interview itself. She had never conducted a real conversation with an adult where she was the one asking questions. She had a list, but she didn’t know how to move from one question to the next. So we did a practice run. I played the café boss. She sat in her dorm room with her notebook and asked me, “What does a typical day look like?”
I gave her a deliberately boring answer: “I open up, clean the machines, put out the pastries, and start taking orders.” She sat there waiting for something interesting. I didn’t give it to her. Then she had to ask a follow-up. “What’s the most stressful part?” That’s when I started talking about a supplier who didn’t show up on a Saturday morning and how we handled a rush with no croissants.
That’s the practical magic of a practice interview. It gets the nerve-racking moment out of the way before the real one, and it teaches students to expect that people won’t always hand over perfect answers. You have to be a little curious and a little nosy.
The actual interview happened on a Friday. She talked to her old boss for about twenty-five minutes. Her boss told her about how she had started as a waitress, how she hired a teenager who kept quitting, and how she learned not to panic when things went wrong. My daughter kept saying “that’s actually so relevant” under her breath.
Afterwards, she called me. “I can’t believe I was scared. She just talked. I didn’t even ask all my questions.”
“That’s okay. Did you learn anything?”
“She had to do a food safety course and a basic first aid course. She said she uses the first aid stuff more in management than the business stuff. It made me think about how my degree will matter less than I think.”
That was the whole assignment in one sentence. The interview wasn’t about finding the perfect mentor or making a career connection. It was about realising that work is messy and practical and full of things you can’t predict.
I don’t think my daughter will suddenly become a networking pro. She still doesn’t answer emails from her own professors until the second or third reminder. But she did learn that an interview is just a conversation where one person is more prepared than the other. She learned that politely asking for twenty minutes is not an outrageous thing to do. And she learned that people are unexpectedly generous with their time when you make it easy for them to say yes.
A few days later, her assignment came back with a grade that was fine. Not an award-winner, but fine. When I asked if she had any interest in doing another interview for her own curiosity, she said, “Maybe later. I don’t have anyone to interview right now.”
I suspect there is someone. But I’m not going to tell her. She needs to think of them herself.
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