OCS Expands Forum Offerings

Seniors beginning their job searches amid doom-ridden news of bank failures and Wall Street woes found a broader palette of jobs on display at the Office of Career Services’s Career Forum on Friday, an event that saw 1,500 students brave the pouring rain to meet with upwards of 140 employers.

The participation of 38 consulting firms and 37 finance companies represented a strong presence at the event, though notably absent were major banks including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, which have attended the career fair in the past.

OCS’s interim director, Robin E. Mount, explained that many firms have said that the career forum would not be the best use of their recruiting budgets.

Despite the turmoil on Wall Street, most recruiters interviewed said that their hiring numbers have not changed.

E. Ashley Seybould, recruiting coordinator for the Fidelity Consulting Group, a subset of the large Boston-based investment firm, said that the privately-held company is very stable in the market, despite the feeling that the financial industry has become more risky.

“Students are a little hesitant to pursue a career in a market that’s crashing,” Seybould said. “There’s still that stigma that financial services companies are volatile.”

Aaron S. Byrd ’05, a tutor in Dunster House who has spent his three years after graduation as an investment banker, said that many students now question the stability of finance as a career choice.

“No longer are there these big bastions of finance who have been there forever and pay you a lot to work there,” he said.

But despite the financial crisis, OCS staff and most undergraduates said they are still optimistic about the job market.

Deborah A. Carroll, OCS’s assistant director for on-campus recruiting, says that she’s been very happy with the numbers this year, especially given the state of the economy.

OCS has implemented a new system of grouping the career forum by neighborhoods such as government & non-profit, science & technology, and marketing & media. This approach, Carroll said, has made it easier to see the diversity of employers and to make clear that there are recruiters apart from banking and consulting firms.

Similarly, students have realized that their job options are not limited.

Andrew C. Nkumbula ’10 said that while students used to view Wall Street as a place of financial security and opportunity, the “tables turning” has made him look for opportunities in less-traditional sectors.

Kindra L. Mason ’09, a sociology concentrator at the fair, agreed, saying that since the market has “been changing so fast” people have begun “to explore opportunities they might not have initially sought.”

“It’s really forced you to see what your competitive advantage is,” Mason added.

Annie M. Lewis ’07, who was representing Google at the career fair, said that she was impressed by how students and companies alike are dealing with the disruptions in the job market.

“It’s great to be here at the career fair and see all the companies eager to recruit and hire,” Lewis said. “As a counter perspective to the much-feared “sky is falling” mantra about the economy, it’s quite heartening to see confidence in all these talented Harvard students.”