Fewer students participated in corporate recruiting this winter than the prior year, according to figures released by the Center for Professional Development. A total of 665 students submitted 8,256 applications for the 189 positions advertised through the CPD by 121 employers.
Last winter, over 700 students applied for positions, submitting over 8,200 individual applications.
Of the students who applied for jobs through corporate recruiting this winter, 413 were offered at least one interview. In total, 1,650 interviews were offered, of which roughly equal numbers were on campus or remote. The number of interviews offered increased from last winter, when around 1,000 interviews were held, CPD senior associate director Monica Wilson told The Dartmouth at the time.
The CPD was unable to provide statistics on how many students received offers.
The slight dip in winter corporate recruiting participation was not reflected in the summer, during which a growing number of students have participated for the past several years. In 2009, 154 students participated in summer recruitment, and that number has been steadily rising, reaching 244 in 2014.
The corporate recruiting process involves a large time commitment on the part of participating students, several participants told The Dartmouth.
“I would go for an interview, miss classes, then have to work extra hard to catch up on classes, then not be fully prepared for the next interview, and that continued until I eventually got a job,” Kartik Menon ’16 said.
While Menon eventually secured a position, it was not one advertised through the CPD, he said, but rather a position in a different department in the same firm.
Many students do not find a job at the end of recruiting. With only 189 advertised positions and almost 700 applicants, many end up disappointed. Emily Tregidgo ’16, who found a job through the process, said that knowing that many applicants will not receive job offers can be stressful.
“No matter how many interviews you get, you may not end up with a job at the end of it,” she said.
Preparation for corporate recruiting requires a substantial time commitment for writing cover letters and drafting resumes, students said. Tregidgo said that she devoted much of her winter break to drafting cover letters and preparing for the recruiting process.
Jacob Savos ’16 said that he found drafting resumes and cover letters to be valuable since it could be constructive even if he had not eventually received a job offer.
“No matter what happens in the process itself, those are skills I’ll use the rest of my life,” Mariel Wallace ’16 said.
Students go through corporate recruiting for various reasons.Tregidgo said that she had a long-term ambition to work in the finance sector and believed that corporate recruiting was the best way to fulfill that ambition. Wallace said that she wanted an experience in the private sector after having worked exclusively in public sector internships.
Members of certain organizations may gain an additional leg up from connections with alumni interviewers, Menon said.
“I know that a lot of the interviews are conducted by alums who come back, and maybe give special preferences when they see familiar Greek letters or something like that,” he said.
The first step in the corporate recruiting process is an information session in the beginning of the term in which students learn about the different companies that will advertise positions, Savos said. Applicants can find out what companies and positions appeal to them at the session.
Next, students complete online applications through DartBoard in which they submit cover letters and resumes for the positions they want. After a week or two, Savos said, the applicants find out if they will be asked back for a first-round interview, either by phone or in person.
Final interviews often occur at companies’ headquarters or a branch office, Menon said.
Final interviews could last for as much as a day, Tregidgo said, and usually include a more involved look at the company to which a student applied.
While the official CPD corporate recruiting process is not the only way to obtain jobs in the corporate sector, it can be useful to go through the CPD program as future job applications will require the same skill sets the applicants used for this process, Tregidgo said.
“It’s really kind of a pain because most people will tell you that recruiting is like doing another class because you have to spend so much time preparing for interviews,” said Menon.
Wilson wrote in an email that the CPD has introduced other programs in addition to the corporate recruiting program in order to provide students a broader range of options, citing the addition of a graduate school fair in October 2014 and two virtual career fairs for the West Coast and the East Coast, in December and January respectively.
The CPD also hosted a virtual career fair for careers in biotech, health and life sciences this February and plans to host an April 21 event featuring alumni who now work in marketing.
