Recent graduates who are looking for work say they notice a subtle shift in the attitudes of prospective employers.

"Everybody's still hiring, but it seems that people think more," says Harry B. Kargman '98, who has been feeling out offers since graduation.

"I don't think that the job market has been hurt yet, but there's more time spent interviewing for the right people. Even though they're looking for a ton of people, they're more cautious," he says.

He isn't worried--yet.

"I still feel confident now, [but] who knows what I'll feel six months from now....There seems to be less security today," he says.

The difference in hiring attitudes between small and large firms centers in employer expectations.

The New York investment bank "machines," with thousands of analysts, have a very high rate of turnover. Recent graduates accept positions as a way to gain work experience before business school, and they aren't expected to stick around.

"A lot of the positions that [investment firms] recruit for are two-to three-year analyst positions. They provide them with the work experience to get into a top-tier business school," Murray says.

Often recruiting for those firms focuses on the immediate impact that new recruits offer. Hiring them for a few years is a low-risk proposition because companies can respond quickly to economic difficulties by cutting back on hiring.

Smaller firms are looking for the company's future leadership, and hiring is a long-term commitment, which makes adjusting to a downturn more difficult.

Main Street, Not Wall Street

Moving away from finance puts distance between a job-seeker and Wall Street's unpredictability. Firms whose success is less tied to the market say the dance of the Dow isn't cause for alarm.

Executives for Proctor & Gamble, the Cincinnati, Ohio-consumer products corporation, say their plans for recruiting are unchanged.

Although Proctor & Gamble's stock price has declined some 30 percent from a year-long high in July, the company is expressing nothing but optimism.

"We continue to believe that the company is growing," says Chuck P. Moore '73, a company executive and recruiter, who is also a former Crimson business manager. "We still intend to be a $70 billion company by 2005."