How Recruiting Works?

Question

I was talking to a friend that goes to Stern this weekend and he told me that when you show up at various functions like corporate sponsored dinners, guest speakers, club events etc... that your attendance is noted and then when it comes time for interviewing, students are granted interviews partially based on their attendance records at relevant events.

Have you guys heard of this? I always assumed the schools would just hand recruiters a stack of resumes and let the companies choose who to interview, but it sounds like the school may have a say in endorsing some students more than others.

lepium · Answer

I've heard that:

a) You can be invited to interview by the recruiter based on your resume.
b) You can bid for interviews to which you were not invited, pretty much in the same way as you bid for classes.

I did not know about counting functions, etc., but it makes sense to everyone to have interested candidates attending interviews.

Cheers. L.

helg · Answer

My friend from GSB told me about the company sponsored dinners etc. He described it as the first step in the recruiting process: at these informal events you may make usefull connections, sort of stand out in the crowd and attract the attention of the potential employers. He did not mention any "visit counting" though...

johnnyx9 · Answer

Interesting about the bidding system, I hadn't heard of that either.

dukes · Answer

I've heard this too, but what do you do when one of the popular employers do a presentation and half the class shows up? I heard that that happens when Mck or Bain come to campus. How do they do dinners and have informal networking opportunities?

helg · Answer

I had the same question. Well, isn't consulting all about creativity?

But I repeat, it is just the first (and facultative) step in the recruiting process. I guess even if you shake hands and exchange a couple of phrases with a VP of BSG at the reception - it's nice, it may help you later, but it does not give you a direct access there...

aaudetat · Answer

In the interest of consolidating threads, I wanted to ask another recruiting question.

Many of us are interested in working for large companies - finance, consulting, product management, etc. And many of these companies recruit at all the top schools. But do these companies recruit for all functions at all schools? Or might a company recruit for only one function at a particular school?

For example, I am interested in working for Citigroup in their community reinvestment division. Citi recruits at every school I looked at, but would they necessarily be recruiting for the positions I am interested in? Or will it only be the more traditional finance jobs? What if you want to do finance at a consumer products company? Will that company only be recruiting for the marketing positions, or would they also look at finance applicants?

lepium · Answer

Citi is a huge group, so I'm pretty confident they would not be focusing each search on a particular job. I assume they would try to recruit a pool of MBAs from all over the place and then work on who gets to go where, etc. (based on candidates interests and their assessments of candidates fit to each position).

When "corporate" (I mean not consulting, not Finance) companies recruit MBAs, they are usually thinking on recruiting future managers, and not so much people to fill in a particular position right away. Most companies will place MBAs in some sort of development program, probably with some pre-scheduled rotations, etc. I'm not sure whether it's this way with Citi, though, or if you'd just head to a division and work your way up from there.

Hope it helps. L.

Mark4124 · Answer

They are not going to recruit everywhere. I know for example Fidelity Investments for equities analyst will take a resume from pretty much any MBA but they have a select list of schools they "regularly recruit from" and they interview and host functions only at those schools. Duke, Chicago, MIT, Harvard, UNC, UCLA, UT, and a few others. I would imagine that Citigroup draws from a larger pool of schools, but still I am sure they don't go absolutely everywhere for every job.

dukes · Answer

Do you know if recruiters do recruiting events by cluster? I've heard that happens at HBS, but I wonder if thats a common way for people to network even with the most popular employers.

How Recruiting Works?

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