Whether you overheard finance-related conversations in FoCo or watched flocks of suited students walking toward Career Services this week, it was hard to miss signs that corporate recruiting has taken hold of dozens of students' summers.
For students who have always wanted to pursue careers in finance, corporate recruiting offers a convenient opportunity to secure an internship for an off-term. The recruiting process has several steps. The first step, known as "resume drop," allows students to apply to internships by uploading resumes and cover letters to the Dartboard website. Companies that recruit through Career Services, such as Bridgewater Associates and Morgan Stanley, will then select students to interview on campus or over the phone. Some companies may have multiple rounds of interviews, such as Bridgewater, which conducts a first round of group interviews before selecting students for a second round of individual interviews.
Lucy Xie '14 decided to go through the process as a way to meet her future career goals.
"I know I want to go into finance, so corporate recruiting on campus was an easy and organized way to interview with a lot of companies at once," she said.
Peter Spradling '14 said that on-campus recruiting offered the chance to measure his interest in finance, while Alex Olesen '14 said he chose to go through the process to step outside of his comfort zone while also hopefully ending up with a competitive internship.
"I learned a lot about myself and met some really interesting people along the way," Olesen said.
Applicants gain several advantages from on-campus recruiting, according to students interviewed by The Mirror.
While some students must travel to New York or Boston for internship interviews, many of the positions posted through resume drop hold in-person interviews at the Career Services office.
"I think [my interviews] went OK," Xie said. "It's hard to tell most of the time, but I definitely think it was a lot easier than normal because we were mostly interviewing with Dartmouth alums."
To prepare for her interviews, Xie said she read interview guides, practiced case interviews with her friends and kept up-to-date on current news.
Although Spradling said he believes an unusually high number of Dartmouth students participate in recruiting, Olesen said he was not surprised to see so many students involved.
"I don't think it's unusually high," Olesen said. "I figured it was a pretty normal turnout based on how motivated Dartmouth students are. I think when you are in such a high-achieving, competitive environment, it is expected to see a high turnout of candidates at any of the recruiting events."
Not every student who goes through the recruiting process may be completely dedicated to his or her choice. While some of our classmates have been sure of their career goals since they matriculated, others might see recruiting as a convenient opportunity, Xie said.
"A lot of people end up going to finance because they don't know what else to do and all of their friends are doing it," Xie said.
Despite stereotypes that only certain students participate in recruiting, Olesen believes that such students are hard to define.
"I don't think there is [a specific type of student who goes through recruiting]," Olesen said. "The firms all stress that they do not consider any majors over others, and a few of my friends who have worked at some large firms knew nothing about the industry before arriving at their internships."
Whether you're recruiting's biggest fan or you believe that consulting and banking are nothing more than soul-sucking enterprises, one thing's for sure: As long as Career Services continues to hand us a relatively simple way to apply to dozens of jobs at well-paying firms at once, recruiting at Dartmouth is here to stay.
