With temperatures often in the balmy 40s, it's sometimes hard to tell when spring has come to Cambridge.

But, as any undergraduate can tell you, there's one sure-fire way to mark the rites of spring.

You just look for the suits.

In what long ago became a popular springtime ritual, Harvard students play dress-up and head over to the Office of Career Services (OCS) to vie for jobs as consultants and investment bankers.

Although OCS does not keep hard figures on the number of students who go through the recruiting process, Assistant Director Marc P. Cosentino says "traditionally it's been about 45 percent of the class."

Cosentino, who specializes in business counseling, says that, as a rule of thumb, approximately one-third of those students will be offered jobs.

This year's bumper crop netted a 40 to 45 percent acceptance rate, however.

"This year has been probably the best year I've seen," he says.

Recruiting is generally broken down into consulting, investment banking and technology.

While these three fields account for 60 percent of the firms that recruit at Harvard, they provide 80 percent of the jobs, according to Cosentino.

This fall's recruiting season brought 85 firms to Harvard, and 475 companies showed up in the spring.

Find Me a Perfect Match

Despite growth in technology fields, Harvard's true recruiting love affair is with consulting and investment banking.

In the '95-'96 academic year, 85 percent of those who went through the recruiting process applied to at least one consulting firm. 54 percent applied to at least one investment bank, a figure which has probably risen to 60 percent this year, Cosentino says.

These formidable figures raise the question of why recruiting and Harvard seem to make such a perfect match.