Alumni and Industry Networking Night

By Branngh Rattigan and Andi Arroyo

Director of Career Development and Success Karl Craft, ’10, worked in collaboration with the Rider University Alumni Association to present Gregory Lorjuste, ’04, who shared his experience and the impact his journey had on navigating his career during the Alumni and Industry Networking event on Oct. 22. 

Lorjuste is the director for executive operations and protocol for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, and former deputy assistant to the President supporting Barack Obama. 

Alumni and Industry Networking was an opportunity for students to connect with alumni and to provide career advice to current students. 

Craft explained that the intention behind the night was to encourage students to develop relationships, especially with alumni insight.

“While there are plenty of professionals that are willing to help graduate students, alumni have been in their shoes,” Craft said. “They understand what the Rider experience is like. They understand the leadership opportunities that are available, and they can really utilize that knowledge to fuel the conversations and fuel the support.”

The event featured a panel discussion from Lorjuste that was monitored by Sahmya Smith, a senior political science major. 

Smith asked Lorjuste a variety of questions on the topic of networking in his profession and keeping connections. 

Lorjuste was asked about his time in college and early career, to which he discussed his struggles with insecurity from graduating high school with a low GPA. 

“I knew that the university was taking a risk in accepting me. I didn’t want to mess it up by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing,” Lorjuste said.

Lorjuste explained how he took it upon himself to work on building relationships. In engaging with students, he got more comfortable interacting with others. The practice he got from talking to his peers encouraged him to connect with his professors.

Lorjuste said, “Learning the professor outside of their doctor title, it gave me the courage to continue. These relationships grew over time, and as they grew, my confidence and all insecurities that I had from off campus, they started to break off.”

Lorjuste spoke about his strategies for gaining connections with others, specifically, he was asked about the importance of keeping a relationship nontransactional. 

Lorjuste explained that, throughout politics, some connections that are made will be transactional. He then explained how keeping connections relevant is the key to maintaining sincerity.

“You cannot treat relationships like a fire extinguisher, where you’ll only want to break the glass when there’s an emergency. That’s what makes it somewhat transactional,” Lorjuste said. “Where if it were a sunny day, would you be talking to them?”

Lorjuste added that relationships that are transactional at first are a method that can be a phase of developing a genuine relationship with someone. Connections are emphasized to be valuable to both parties involved.

“When you are reaching out to the person that you met, always ask, ‘Well, how can I help you? Can I come into your office and learn more?’” Lorjuste said. “Then, be the person that congratulates them on their five-year anniversary and on their one-year anniversary. You acknowledge them and do not wait for, ‘Well, I asked you when I was a sophomore, and now I’m a senior, and I want a job here, and that’s the next time they hear from you.’”

Smith selected topics of discussion that emphasized the importance of connections and talking to others in order to focus on what Rider students may need to hear. 

“When we think about [COVID-19], and especially the period where we weren’t normalizing talking to the people, especially professors, how much of these connections really matter,” Smith said. “Especially the people who graduated from the same school, not being able to know those connections, and especially just thinking about what is relevant to the students and what we can learn from, I really focused around those questions and especially looking back at [Lorjuste’s] background and kind of finding an intertwining between those.”

Lorjuste’s goal for the event was to make students feel comfortable during their time at Rider. When answering questions, he wanted to make sure he started with vulnerabilities he had as a student. His method was to make students feel assured about being nervous and to ask the questions they were seeking answers to. 

“I can remember being a student, coming to these events. It’s not like someone tells you, these are the questions that you need to ask, or these are the people you’re going to meet,” Lorjuste said. “You don’t have a syllabus for these types of events. So, I was trying to channel my nervousness, take my nervousness away from folks.”

Craft shared that he wanted students to leave the night with a better understanding of their opportunities, but also the way in which they can be achieved.

“Even if you’re a student in the arts and you talk to somebody that’s working in the sciences, they might know somebody or might have experiences that are still relevant to where you’re going, and that’s valuable information that can inform your choices and your next steps,” Craft said.

Lorjuste also wanted students to know life is “an experience,” and that talking about mistakes and challenges was his way of normalizing the transitional periods where students may be faced with a fear of the unknown. 

“Sometimes that is what makes a person decide, because everyone will know the right things to do, but you’re not challenged until you have that adversity put in front of you,” Lorjuste said. “So when I talked about having to pivot from thinking I was going to be a teacher, I had to realize the traditional classroom was the wrong setting … I needed to find my environment, and that was in the world of nonprofits and eventually politics.” 

Lorjuste’s experience at Rider gave him the courage to talk to others and start networking. Getting connected with the dean of students was an unexpected result of communicating with another person. His conversation had led him to getting support throughout his time at Rider. 

“Because I had the courage to talk to a stranger, that stranger then got ID’d as the dean of students, and he helped me throughout my five years on campus. And if I knew he was a dean of students to start with, I probably wouldn’t have talked to him,” Lorjuste said.

Lorjuste felt as if he would be intimidated knowing who the dean of students was prior to talking to him. “‘He’s very important, and I’m just like this little freshman; I don’t think I belong here,’ and I did it.”

Lorjuste found support, which set a stepping stone for his career. He heard stories from others that helped him overcome insecurities he had and helped him find confidence in himself. He was challenged and would be given constructive criticism from others who knew him and helped him succeed.

Lorjuste said, “I don’t think I would have been able to accept the flaws that come with being a young professional, someone that has to make decisions about what to do as smoothly if I weren’t talking to people who actually knew me.”

Craft shared that the Alumni and Industry Networking event will continue annually, and to look out for more industry-specific events next semester.