The Room Where They Told You the Truth: A City Tutors x Landing Point Event Recap

Every mentor in that room had doubted themselves at some point. Had walked out of an interview not knowing if they had it. Had waited by the phone wondering if they had said the right things, hit the right notes, come across the way they needed to.

More than 40 students and recent graduates from across CUNY and the broader New York City community walked into Landing Point's Midtown Manhattan offices that afternoon carrying different versions of the same weight. For some, finals were still weeks away but the anxiety of what came after graduation was already there. For others, the degree was in hand and the question of what to do with it was the only thing left. What they found in that room — across three rotations of small-group conversations with people who spend their days connecting talent to opportunities across finance, private equity, venture capital, and operations — was concrete advice and something equally valuable: the sense that these careers, these industries, these opportunities were genuinely within reach.

The first thing that kept coming up was how to make yourself impossible to ignore before you ever get in the room. John, finishing his master's in finance at Baruch, had heard it laid out in his small group with a clarity that stuck. "There can be five points of contact," he told the room. "You reach out, you provide value. Then you reach out again — a tidbit about their business, their operations. You allow them to see that you have a vested interest in the very things that they're doing. That you're already somewhat involved."

Five touches. Each one building on the last. By the end, you are not a stranger following up: you are someone who has already demonstrated they belong in the conversation.

That idea — showing up prepared before you ever get in the room, kept surfacing, rotation after rotation, from different people. Helen, another Baruch master's student, had heard it pressed down into a single word. Intentional. "Taking the extra step to do research," she said. "Being intentional with your outreach, with the people you're reaching out to." The difference between sending a message and sending the right one.

Brian, a sophomore at BMCC working toward a transfer to Baruch, brought it to the mechanics. Find something real you have in common and build from there. "Hey, I know you went to X school — so did I. How did you get from there to where you are now?" Not a generic message. A specific one, built from something true.

Malique, an accounting and business administration major at Lehman, tied it together. Knowing your stuff and doing your research gets you in the conversation. But it's the personal connection that makes you memorable. "It's not just knowing yourself. You have to differentiate." The research opens the door. The connection is what makes them remember you when it closes.

Sayeda, a digital marketing major at Baruch still finding her footing in finance, added the edge the room needed to hear. "They always say it's not what you know but who you know. But you still have to have that balance of knowledge. Because if you don't, you don't just make yourself look bad. You make the person who vouched for you look bad."

And then Justin, a recent economics graduate from City College, stepped into the center of the room and landed the line that tied it all together. "You want to outperform your resume. You don't want your resume to do the heavy lifting. You want to walk in and be more than the document that got you there."

More than the document that got you there.

Three rotations. Forty people. One truth surfacing over and over in different rooms, in different words, from different people: preparation is the differentiator. Connection is the door. And the person who walks in as something larger than their credentials is the person who gets through.

This is also why mentors come back.

Because there is something that happens when you sit across from someone who has been through it — the uncertainty, the waiting, the not knowing — and they look at you and make it plain: this is doable. You can do this. That is what these learners needed to hear. And the mentors in that room, many of them not far removed from the same crossroads, delivered it without ceremony.

Joe Fromer, two years at Landing Point, said it simply. "Be authentic to who you are. Everyone has their own different types of personality and quirks. Use that to your advantage."

Another mentor offered something quieter and more powerful: one rejection is not the end of the world. Kevin, who had been running the room all afternoon with the kind of steady energy that makes people feel safe enough to speak, stopped there. He told the room he had been carrying something heavy into the building that day. Something that had felt like the floor shifting. "But they're here to tell you it's not the end of the world," he said. "And I needed to hear that too."

Colby Garfinkel, four years in recruiting, one month at Landing Point, brought the number nobody wants to say out loud. "Whatever you think is enough, multiply it by ten. You cannot apply to five jobs. You have to apply to fifty. People have this idea: I applied to three, I should get one. And when they don't, they feel terrible about themselves. Be fearless."

And then Kevin asked Mae Sweeny the question he had been putting to every mentor in the room. When you walked out of your interview — did you know you had it?

She shook her head. A lot of doubt. She had leaned on the people she trusted. She had waited. She had gotten the job.

He had asked all of them. The mentor with fifteen years in the industry, two weeks into her role at Landing Point. The one who had been at her previous company for a decade, interviewing again for the first time in ten years before joining the firm. Not one of them had walked out certain.

All of them were standing in that room.

These learners came in carrying the pressure of a semester almost done and a future not yet certain. They left having sat across from people who had felt all of it — the doubt, the waiting, the not knowing, and had come out the other side with something worth passing on.

The job market is not waiting for finals to end.

These learners are not waiting either.