Students Upbeat On E-Recruiting

When the financial crisis hit last year, some seniors who had signed with finance or consulting firms suddenly found themselves in limbo, as several shell-shocked companies rescinded offers.

Despite last year’s disappointing recruiting season, Harvard students have continued to flock to careers in finance and consulting during this recruiting cycle—which will reach its peak in the coming weeks—according to Robin E. Mount, director of the Office of Career Services.

But instead of scaring students away from careers in finance and consulting, last year’s job hunt woes have inspired a degree of creativity among applicants and strengthened their resolve to break into these industries, Mount said.

“Harvard students like a good challenge,” she said, adding that while exact figures are not yet available, she has seen consistent student interest in consulting and finance positions this year, along with a strong return of finance and consulting companies to campus.

Yolande Daeninck, a spokesperson at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, corroborated Mount’s observation.

“The overall number of consultants McKinsey will recruit this year will be higher than last year,” Daeninck said.

Given the uncertainty inspired by last year’s hiring cycle, students have become more entrepreneurial in their job search than in the past, Mount said.

One senior who was hired by the investment banking arm at Goldman Sachs only received his offer only after aggressively pursuing the firm, he told The Crimson. He and other students interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous in order to preserve their relationships with firms and because hiring decisions are a sensitive topic in the student body.

After receiving job offers from a host of other banks, but not from Goldman, the senior called recruiters at the bank and asked that they reconsider his application—an effort that eventually landed him a job at the bank.

One junior who will be interviewing for positions at financial firms next week said that while he has secured several interviews, he has only been successful with firms with which he had networked beforehand by sending follow up e-mails, making phone calls to employees at the firms, and going to firm “meet and greet” information sessions.

According to Mount, the energy seen among Harvard’s applicants is lacking at many peer institutions, where students have been discouraged by last year’s recruiting cycle.

At a job fair hosted by Harvard and MIT, for example, Mount said that recruiters commented on how Harvard students largely outnumbered their peers from MIT.

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.