Célia Martinez (E23) & Julie Lanier (E23): "Our Interviews Aim to Both Inspire and Showcase the ESSEC Community"

Célia Martinez (E23) and Julie Lanier (E23) have interviewed around a hundred ESSEC graduates worldwide to discover their career paths and glean their advice Their aim is to help inspire fellow students by sharing the video interviews and discussions on YouTube and LinkedIn.  

ESSEC Alumni: Can you present Juice to us? 

Célia Martinez: We contacted around one hundred ESSEC graduates in Europe, Brazil, the USA and Canada and asked them to share memories of their school days (club involvement, specialisations and work placements), describe their career paths and offer us the advice they would like to have had at our age. The video interviews are accessible on our YouTube channel and via ESSEC and ESSEC Alumni social networks.

EA: What prompted you to launch this project?

Julie Lanier: Like the majority of our classmates, we are questioning the meaning and role we want to give to work in our lives. When you don’t want to go into consulting or finance, there is not a lot of information about the rest. Fortunately, we have access to highly diverse profiles among the alumni community. That’s how the idea of asking them to share their experience came about. What is hiding behind the titles on their LinkedIn profiles? What do they actually do on a day-to-day basis? How did they get to this position? The idea is to offer answers to ESSEC members in need of inspiration, whatever their age and life stage, and to showcase the power and plurality of our network.

EA: Why ‘Juice’?  

C. Martinez: ‘Juice’ comes from ‘tell us about your life over a glass of fruit juice’, and is a nod to the informal format of the interviews and the fact that they were carried out during a summer. It’s also the contraction of our first names.

EA: What profiles did you choose? 

J. Lanier: We have a shared interest in entertainment, which led us to call on a lot of alumni in the worlds of sport, e-sport, media, music, film and the performing arts, but we also broadened our scope to meet as many people as possible and discover career paths we would not have spontaneously envisaged.

C. Martinez: In the end, we spoke to people working for companies of all sizes and growth stages, public administrations or charities, in a vast range of sectors, such as mass distribution, urban economy or geopolitics. From the Cirque du Soleil to Riot Games, Universal Music, the PSG Academy, the United Nations, the German Government, NGOs or a charity protecting Amazonian populations, we saw proof that ESSEC is the school of all possibilities!

EA: How did you find the alumni you interviewed? 

J. Lanier: We did a lot of research on LinkedIn, region by region, and hunted through the ESSEC Alumni directory, which we also helped to update at the same time.

C. Martinez: In fact, ESSEC Alumni gave us great support, putting us in contact with lots of graduates, as well as the Chapter Presidents in the countries we travelled to. The Chapter Presidents remained in contact with us, to help us plan our itinerary, find accommodation and stay safe throughout our travels.

J. Lanier: ESSEC Alumni also relays some of our videos via its newsletter and social networks, which enabled us to fund a part of the project and boost our skills in content creation.

EA: What aspects of alumni’s stories impressed or surprised you the most?

C. Martinez: The alumni we met have often landed in their current position thanks to encounters and opportunities they couldn’t have foreseen. I learnt that you mustn’t be afraid of not knowing exactly what the future holds and that it’s better to stay open to whatever life has to offer. The important thing is to learn to listen to yourself, follow your instinct, adapt and bounce back if necessary.

EA: What other advice did you get from alumni?

J. Lanier: Firstly, networking plays a key role. Find out about someone before contacting them, and more generally, gather people around you and call on mentors. The ESSEC community is very open to mutual aid; make the most of this!

C. Martinez: Secondly, it’s vital to find the right balance between your professional and private life; never compromise on this.

J. Lanier: Thirdly, the teams you work with are more important than the company you work for. Don’t aim to have the most prestigious name on your CV, focus instead on having the best workmates.

C. Martinez: Lastly, financial comfort is not everything; thinking beyond the wage barrier is the pre-requisite to fulfilment in an activity that you’re passionate about.

EA: Did these discussions ultimately help you to advance with your own career plans? 

J. Lanier: I’m passionate about music, but I thought this was an impenetrable sector. I discovered that there are many doors, both big and small, to this world, through patronage, digital technology or events organisation, for example. The key is to dare!

C. Martinez: This experience made me realise that hearing and telling the stories of people from all backgrounds really interests me. I therefore joined The French Studio, a communication agency specialised in storytelling, which creates content for a range of companies and local authorities. This offers me the human contact, narrative and international aspect.

J. Lanier: It’s for this reason we would both like to thank all the alumni who so warmly welcomed us despite their busy schedules. These encounters and everything we learnt from them have left a lasting impression on us.

C. Martinez: And we’re sure they will inspire many others!

Watch Juice interviews on YouTube and LinkedIn 

Interview by Louis Armengaud Wurmser (E10), Content Manager at ESSEC Alumni
Do you want more quality content about the ESSEC community? Join us now!