Campus Recruiting Rebound Observed

Harvard’s on-campus recruiting program, formerly known as e-recruiting, is reflecting signs of stabilization in the financial sector, according to Robin Mount, director of the Office of Career, Research, and International Opportunities.

Now that the recession is receding, on-campus recruiting has regained some of the banks and consulting firms that fled last year. The total number of interviews conducted through the program increased by 13 percent from last year, with an additional 42 job positions posted and 17 more companies visiting.

“This year, companies feel like the economy is stabilizing,” Mount said. “We definitely see that in the finance sector the work is coming back.”

While on-campus recruiting rates have improved this year, company participation in on-campus recruiting has not yet returned to 2007-2008 levels, according to Mount.

It has also taken employers longer to respond to students with offers this year ,due to increasingly challenging second-round interviews and the snowstorms that recently hit the East Coast, she said.

Mount added she heard from students that second-round interviews were particularly grueling. Employers also told her that students did not perform up to par during round two.

Mount said she believes that employers “upped the ante” because the economic stakes are higher.

Romance Languages and Literatures concentrator Marco Chan ’11 said that although the format of second-round interviews was well-publicized, he found the time crunch between the first and second round to be challenging. For one firm he interviewed with, the first-round interview was on Monday and the next round was on Friday.

“Considering you have to travel for some, the big challenge is dealing with an extra set of activities,” he said.

Harvard’s calendar changes made the recruiting season more condensed this year, according to Deborah Carroll, assistant director of career services for on-campus recruiting and employer relations. But she added that some students found it beneficial to be able to work on applications during J-Term.

Carroll said that OCS is still posting a number of new job offers online. The office will host a workshop on April 1 called “Second Shot at Summer” for students who did not receive funding for summer programs or did not receive offers through on-campus recruiting.

—Staff writer Jillian K. Kushner can be reached at kushner@fas.harvard.edu