This tutorial guides you through the alumnus interview — but the interview is only the doorway. The real objective is to cultivate a sponsor: someone a little ahead of you who will one day spend their reputation on your behalf. You will learn who to target, how to reach them without friction, how to run the conversation so it activates trust, and how to convert a single interview into a relationship that pays off for years.
This tutorial supports one milestone of your Personal Leadership Report, which is built from six milestones:
This analysis feeds your final Personal Leadership Report.
| Deliverable | A completed alumnus interview + a short reflection on your sponsor-cultivation plan |
| Ideal target | A Tepper alum, ~5 years out, in your role at your target firm |
| Hard rule | There is no “right” person — pick someone who can advantage you |
| Core lever | Homophily (what you share) + their social capital (what they can spend for you) |
| The real goal | Not the interview — the relationship the interview starts |
| Time horizon | A tie you maintain and re-activate across your whole career |
You will:
Most of us can build sideways and downward ties easily — peers, direct reports. Almost everyone struggles to build ties upward, to people with more status or power. That is precisely the tie with the highest return, and it is the one you are least practiced at. This milestone is a low-stakes, structured excuse to build exactly that muscle.
Do not leave money on the table. The whole point is to cultivate the relationship you would otherwise never initiate.
By the end of this analysis, you will be able to:
| Step | Activity | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Reframe | Understand the sponsor vs. mentor distinction | Clear intent |
| 2. Target | Choose person(s) by homophily + social capital | Named target(s) + rationale |
| 3. Reach | Find a direct contact or a warm intro | Outreach sent |
| 4. Interview | Run the conversation, activate shared identity | Completed interview notes |
| 5. Reciprocate | Offer your report/analysis back to them | A returned favor in motion |
| 6. Follow up | Close the loop; share how their advice helped | A live, maintained tie |
Let me be direct about what this milestone is actually for. On the surface it is “interview a Tepper alum.” Underneath, it is the single most valuable relationship move in the entire report.
I am not checking whether your person graduated in a particular year or holds a particular title. I want you to find someone who can advantage you — and then I want you to use this structured, legitimate excuse to start a relationship you would probably never initiate cold.
Think about the mental trap most people fall into: “I can’t build a relationship with someone that senior — why would they talk to me?” This assignment dissolves that. You now have a reason. You are “doing Professor Aven’s project.” That gives you cover, a script, and a norm of reciprocity to lean on. Use it.
The interview is the doorway. The sponsor is the room.
You have probably had a mentor — assigned or informal. A mentor talks to you: they give advice, share what they would do, warn you off a bad move. That is valuable. But it is not what moves careers at scale.
A sponsor talks about you when you are not in the room. A sponsor is willing to spend their social capital and their reputation on you — to put their own name on the line for your ascendancy.
If I stand up in a meeting and say “Give Miguel the promotion — I know he’ll crush it,” and Miguel then fumbles, that reflects on me. That risk is the whole point. A sponsor takes that risk for you.
| Mentor | Sponsor | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction of talk | Talks TO you | Talks ABOUT you |
| What they give | Advice, perspective, guidance | Advocacy — spends reputation for you |
| Risk they take | Low — they advise, you decide | High — your failure reflects on them |
| Where it happens | In the room, with you | In rooms you’re not in |
| Career effect | Helps you learn and navigate | Propels you to the next level |
| How rare / valuable | Common; useful | Rare; disproportionately valuable |
The people with the most valuable networks are not the ones with the most mentors. They are the ones with the most sponsors. This milestone is how you start building that column of your network on purpose.
The single biggest failure point is friction. Senior people say yes to easy, legitimate, low-cost asks. Your job is to make saying yes effortless. There are two paths — try for both.
Subject: Fellow Tepper grad — quick favor for an MBA project
Hi [Name], I’m a current Tepper MBA (and a fellow [shared thread — Pittsburgh native / [Club] member / [Professor]’s student]). For a leadership project I’m analyzing [Firm], and I’d love 20 minutes to hear how you’ve navigated [their path / the culture there]. Happy to work around your calendar, and I’m glad to share the analysis I’m building in return. Would a short call in the next couple of weeks work? Best, [Your name]
Notice what that ask does: it leads with homophily, keeps the cost tiny (20 minutes), gives a legitimate reason (the project), and pre-loads reciprocity (you’ll share your analysis).
The interview has two jobs: get genuinely useful insight, and activate shared identity so the relationship has somewhere to grow.
Early in the conversation, surface what you share — the program, a professor, a hometown, a team, a former employer. You are not being fake; you are signaling we are the same, we should look out for each other. That is the cognitive move that opens trust.
This interview can be conducted in person, over phone, Zoom, or email. Richer communication media are preferable; in person is preferred to phone.
These are prompts to consider, not a required script. Follow the conversation where it leads:
Capture the qualitative, ethnographic richness: management styles, cultural texture, what is rewarded and punished. This directly strengthens your culture and structure milestones.
This is the part most people skip, and it is where the sponsorship actually forms. The mechanism is the norm of reciprocity — one of the oldest drivers of human relationships: we treat others as they treat us. They did you a favor. Now you return one — and in returning it, you demonstrate your competence.
Here is the loop:
Each turn of this loop is you quietly auditioning for sponsorship — not by asking for it, but by being demonstrably worth advocating for.
This is the step that separates a one-off interview from a career-long sponsor. Do not let the relationship end at “thanks, good luck to you.”
After the conversation:
Tie maintenance done right isn’t smarmy or transactional. It’s the ordinary, generous upkeep of a real professional relationship — and it is the difference between a contact and a sponsor.
Your sponsor work does not stand alone — it connects to every other milestone:
Your alum can confirm or complicate your read of who actually holds power and how decisions really get made at the firm. Bring your structure findings to the interview and pressure-test them.
The interview yields ethnographic texture — the unwritten norms, what’s rewarded and punished — that Glassdoor language alone can’t give you. Fold it into your culture analysis.
This milestone is where you deliberately build an upward tie — exactly the kind your network analysis will show you tend to lack. Use it to close a real gap you diagnose in your own network.
A cultivated sponsor is a concrete, demonstrable piece of your leadership plan: proof you can build the hardest, highest-value tie there is.
This is one of the highest-return moves in the entire report. Every year, students turn these interviews into internships, jobs, and lifelong sponsors. Take it seriously — and enjoy it.
Tutorial created by Prof. Brandy Aven, PhD Carnegie Mellon University | Tepper School of Business Course: Managing Networks & Organizations