“The investment banks and consulting firms spend an enormous amount of money and have a process that is really kind of conducive to the academic schedule,” he says.

Applying for jobs in investment banking and consulting is often an attractive short-term post-graduation option for a student population where 70 to 75 percent of students say they hope to go to graduate or professional school, according to senior survey data.

“I think the world of work is such now that no one is looking for a career [the] first time out of school,” says Susan Vacca, assistant director of OCS. “For many students, they’re looking for something to try for a year or two.”

Some companies’ promotion schedules are disrupted when new employees only stay for a few years, Wright-Swadel says. But he adds that if enough Harvard students who are recruited by a company out of college return after receiving a graduate or professional degree, the company will become comfortable enough with that pattern to continue recruiting from Harvard.

In addition to its compatibility with students’ schedules and eventual educational goals, the recruiting process itself is very accessible to students—registering for the on-campus recruiting program involves submitting a resume and scheduling interviews entirely online.

OCS maintains a four-person office expressly for recruiting in addition to its 18 counselors.

In that office, two people focus on coordinating the on-campus recruiters while the other two handle all of OCS’s technology. OCS also has one full-time and one part-time business counselor.

And the long-standing connections between OCS and recruiters make it easier for students to find and match themselves up with potential employers in industries like finance and consulting.

“I was very satisfied with the extent of the support and the quality of services [OCS] provides,” says Timur Akazhanov ’05, an economics concentrator who participated in the on-campus recruiting program.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

The scale of the recruiting process, OCS counselors say, may lead students to perceive it as the road most traveled to careers.

“On-campus recruiting is very visible,” says Gail Gilmore, the OCS counselor for careers in the arts and public service. “Not only seniors see that, but incoming freshmen see that.”

Wright-Swadel says that this visibility perpetuates the idea of recruiting as a trendy career option.

“The kind of buzz that goes on around an on-campus recruiting program creates a perspective that that’s the dominant thing that’s going on in an environment like this,” he says.

Akazhanov says that he although he planned to go to graduate school in economics, he changed his mind during his junior year after seeing his friends go through the recruitment process for summer jobs in consulting.