On-Campus Interview Participation Drops

The On-Campus Interview program, which brings employers on campus for full-time job and summer internship interviews, saw a 13 percent drop in sign-ups compared to last year, according to the Office of Career Services.

In order to apply for job positions through the program, students are required to first register through OCS. As registration for the fall term’s OCI program closed on Wednesday night, a total of 5,076 applications were submitted. The number was 5,714 last year.

Deborah A. Carroll, associate director for employer relations and operations at OCS, said she was “not surprised” by the drop in applications this year.

“We’ve been seeing a huge trend where employers are hiring out of their summer internship class. More students are coming back to campus with an offer, so they will do fewer on-campus interviews,” Carroll said, adding that not all students are interested in the fields represented in OCI.

About 200 companies participate in the OCI program each year. Over the past two weeks, many companies have conducted information and networking sessions on campus, including McKinsey & Company, Google, and Oliver Wyman.

According to a booklet published by OCS and The Crimson, 43 percent of the the Class of 2014 participated in the OCI program last year, and 20 percent accepted a job offer through the program.

Finance and consulting are two of the better represented fields in the OCI program. According to Carroll, this can be explained by the fact that big companies in these two fields tend to have predictable hiring need for entry-level positions. On the other hand, the majority of small companies and not-for-profit organizations tend to hire “just in time," since their hiring needs may not be finalized until later in the year.

According to Carroll, this year’s OCI program saw a 31 percent increase in the number of job postings in the technology sector.

“The tech employers are the new aggressive recruiters,” Carroll said. “They are trying to meet lots of students and…they have budgets that allow them to come to campus a lot.”

“We have also seen a huge interest in startups,” she said, adding that OCS will organize a startup career fair in February.

Carroll said that OCS staff reach out to companies in the summer in an effort to diversify the employers participating in the OCI program.

“The hard part is finding out where there are entry-level jobs,” she said. “For example, there are no clear ways to get entry-level jobs at the United Nations.”

Students who are participating in the program said that it is a stressful experience with a demanding schedule, but OCS offers substantial support to help them navigate the process.

Alejandro Perez '15, a Crimson business editor who applied to 29 jobs this year, said recruitment is "a brutal process."

“Everyone is applying, which makes it competitive, so you want to apply more,” he said.

Amy K. Sparrow ’15 said she spends several hours per day on the OCI program.

“It’s like a class,” she said, adding that she found OCS office hours helpful.

Annie E. Arrighi-Allisan ’15 agreed.

“It’s been a little stressful, but OCS does a pretty good job of making you feel supported along the way,” she said.

—Staff Writer Zara Zhang can be contacted at zara.zhang@thecrimson.com.