What to listen for at the panel

The discussion will cover industry trends, hiring expectations for 2027, and advice on preparing for a job search. With three fields represented in one room, you can compare how people in different lines of work think about experience, preparation, and what makes a candidate ready for a role.

If you already know which field you want to pursue, listen for the details that could change how you prepare. You might hear an example that gives you a better way to talk about a class project or a reason to look at recruiting timelines sooner. If you’re still exploring, pay attention to how the panelists describe their work. Hearing what people spend their time doing can tell you more about fit than reading a job title alone.

Meet the host and panelists

Adi Pathak, Babson MBA ’20 and CASA cofounder, will host the conversation. The panel brings together alumni whose roles span partner marketing, financial services, and consulting.

• Amrutha Ananth ’21, Senior Global Partner Marketing Manager at Dell
• Mindy Freedman ’18, Vice President, SMA Enterprise Distribution at Fidelity Investments
• Jason McDonald ’10, Managing Director at Deloitte

Each panelist works in a different part of the market. If you’re weighing more than one career path, listen for where their advice overlaps and where it’s specific to their field. A suggestion about how to describe your work may apply across industries. Advice about when to apply or what to prepare for an interview may depend more on the role.

Questions to bring to the conversation

Pick one thing you’d like to understand better before you arrive. If you’re switching industries, you might want to know how to talk about your previous experience. If you’re preparing for an internship or your first role after graduation, you might be more interested in timing or what an interview typically involves. Here are a few questions you could bring.

• When would you start looking for roles in your field if you were graduating in 2027?
• What would you want to hear from a candidate who is moving into your industry from another field?
• What makes a class project or internship worth discussing in a first interview?
• What do students tend to learn about your line of work only after they start doing it?

If you have a role in mind, bring one detail from a job posting that you’d like to understand better. A posting might ask for experience working across teams without explaining what that looks like on a typical project. You could ask a panelist how those teams work together and what a new hire is expected to handle. That gives the speaker something concrete to respond to and gives you a clearer picture of the job.

As you listen, jot down one thing you can act on and one thing you want to verify with your career center or someone else in the field. That could be as simple as revisiting the example you use to describe a project, checking when a particular employer starts recruiting, or comparing two roles you had assumed were similar. A specific next step makes the conversation easier to put to work after you leave.

Register in the CASA app

Open the CASA app, go to Events, and select Your 2027 Job Search | Babson Alumni Panel to register.