Last Thursday, dividing 140 by 0.7 was no easy task for me. Sitting in a windowless room in Career Services for my last interview as part of corporate recruiting, simple math escaped me. Staring blankly at the notepad in front of me, I had no idea how to go about finding the answer, even after writing the problem down. Unsympathetic to my lapse, my interviewer begrudgingly walked me through the long division as a third grade teacher would: Move the decimal, divide 14 by 7, add two zeros, and viola 200. At that point, he put his pen down and stopped taking notes for the rest of the interview. Needless to say, I didn't get called back for a second-round interview, and with that, my corporate recruiting experience was over.
The high-stress environment of interviews does funny things to people. The stress of corporate recruiting not only took its toll on my ability to do math, but on my coursework as well. For the past two weeks, preparing for interviews and attending both pre-interview meetings and the interviews themselves took precedent over courses. I missed classes, avoided readings and handed in assignments late. It has only been in the past couple days that I have realized how far behind in my work corporate recruiting has put me.
Having finally emerged from the process, I have realized how unnecessarily stressful the entire process was. To be sure, any interview process is bound to be inherently stressful. What makes corporate recruiting distinctly more arduous, however, is the intensity and length of the entire process, which for most students starts before the beginning of Winter term. Whether it is creating resumes, writing cover letters, preparing for interviews or actually doing interviews, corporate recruiting is a huge time commitment for most students. Furthermore, most students apply for many positions on average, students submitted resumes for nine jobs this term ("Winter resume drop numbers rise," Jan. 14). Managing multiple cover letters and interview schedules is no easy task, and for students who get called back for a second round interview it is even harder, as they often have to travel to the company's main office. Thus, it is not surprising that many people have compared corporate recruiting to a fourth course and a hard one at that.
Given the high amount of stress that corporate recruiting inflicts on students, there should be some sort of benefit for students that develops throughout the process. As with any other course at Dartmouth, students should emerge from corporate recruiting feeling like they learned something. This was not my experience with corporate recruiting, however. Unlike a normal fourth course, there was no grade inflation and most people failed. Looking at the numbers from this year, a record-high 615 students applied for a mere 103 positions. Thus, most students like myself end the process completely drained of energy and empty-handed, with little to show for their effort.
If the chances of getting a job are slim, is there anything else to be gained by going through corporate recruiting? Perhaps the process provides students with experience, making it more bearable for them if they decide to go through it again in the future. Or maybe students learn important interview skills that they can apply while job searching later on. Students should realize that corporate recruiting is not the only way to learn these skills. Indeed, while the biggest benefit of going through the process for me was gaining practical interview experience, there are many other ways to do this besides corporate recruiting (e.g. mock interviews). Thus, rather than entering the corporate recruiting process blindly like I did, students should weigh the benefits and costs of going through the process. Career Services should also help students become more aware of these different tradeoffs. Failing to do this will undoubtedly lead to little added benefit and much unrewarded stress for students.
Looking back, I would not go through the process again. I now realize that there are many other options for summer internships available outside of corporate recruiting that do not entail the same amount of stress. Nonetheless, I've been working on my long division in the shower every morning.
