Students learned about job opportunities at the Office of Career Services’ introductory meeting for e-recruiting in the Science Center last Wednesday.

Hundreds of Harvard students—about to compete against each other for some of the most coveted, highest-paying jobs given to college graduates in the nation—are queued up in Science Center B to nab a guide to e-recruiting. When a new line forms across the room, already packed to capacity, students rush through the aisles to claim their spot at the head of the pack.

Let recruiting season begin.

This fall, as undergraduates perfect their resumes, hone interview skills, and compete for posts in the financial world, students in suits, ties, and heels will be as ubiquitous as trick-or-treaters.

“It’s an indication of the different attitudes that people take,” says Britton R. Tullo ’06, a veteran of the recruiting process who says she laughed with her friends as some students sprinted to get in line at the event last Wednesday, sponsored by the Office of Career Services (OCS). “There are certainly a lot of people who take it as like a personal competition.”

And with about 1,000 Harvard students registered to vie for jobs offered by over 135 consulting firms, banks, and other employers, a competitive, often tense atmosphere simply comes with the territory.

“The most intimidating people are the kids who did the internships their junior summer and recruiting worked out for them,” says Ranim M. Elborai ’06. Elborai started doing e-recruiting as a junior but dropped out when she got a job through other channels. Now, after deciding not to go to law school, Elborai says she is ready to go through the recruiting process.

She knows it won’t be easy, but remains circumspect. “I feel like since I’m a senior now I have to suck it up and do it,” she says.

“Honestly, most kids do this to be rolling in the dough,” she adds.

Although students may already be showing their competitive streak at the orientation meetings, it is the interviews—which run October 14 to December 9—which students say are the most fierce.

“There’s like a glass box where everyone waits for the interviews and you can definitely feel the competition in the air,” says Namrata Patel ’06, who snagged an internship with Merrill Lynch last year through e-recruiting. “You’ll be in 1414 Mass. Ave. for days.”

First-round interviews take place at the Harvard-owned building on Mass. Ave., and scare stories from the waiting room and the interviews abound among recruits. Finance recruiters frequently ask students to recall financial data, such as what the market closed at the day before, and consulting recruiters might throw a curve-ball case-study question that could stump even the most prepared senior.

“Last year I got asked some really random math questions in the middle of the interview,” says Tullo, a History and Science concentrator. “That’s probably the trickiest part for me: ‘So tell me a little about yourself and uh, eight cubed.’”

Students say that the threat of the curve-ball question makes waiting room tensions even worse.

“Nasty things do happen,” says Elborai. Elborai says that her friend was thrown off by a question after a student left his interview and told the whole waiting room the wrong number for the market closing.

“They were asked the same question after and it turned out that he gave them the wrong number just to throw them off,” Elborai says.