Recruiting: Week One

Welcome back everyone! We all know that syllabus week does not mark the beginning of the semester. It’s the second week of classes now, so school is officially back in session! Being in my second semester of MPA, I already hit the ground running by finishing up my syllabus week with two important recruiting events last Thursday and Friday. The two events were Meet the Firms, which took place on Thursday evening, followed the next morning by Career Day.

MPA Meet the Firms: Not just your normal job fair.

Meet the Firms

This event was basically a career fair exclusively for MPAs. I know that we all fear the term “career fair” but let me just tell you that Meet the Firms is NOTHING like your average career fair. For one, this event is located on the top floor of the DKR Stadium with glass walls overlooking the stadium and downtown Austin at night. There is catered food and drinks and the set up as a whole is extremely nice. That is all fine and dandy, but let’s be honest, what we are all more concerned about is the actual recruiting and networking aspect of the career fair. Meet the Firms goes beyond  your normal expectations in this area as well. You know when you go to the normal career fairs and you feel like there are a million students and only a handful of firms? Well flip that scenario and that’s what Meet the Firms is like. The student to recruiter ratio is great, so you are not nervously waiting in line for your turn to talk next. You can browse tables and find an open recruiter to talk to in the mean time until another becomes available. When you are going to the tables of each firm, you already feel welcomed. The recruiters are very inviting and friendly. Also, most of the time they lead the conversation for you. This does not mean you do not need to prepare, it just means you can feel relaxed in your conversation!

Career Day

On Friday morning, the Big Four firms (PwC, Deloitte, EY, KPMG) host Career Day. The day consists of each firm giving a small info session about their company followed by a short networking opportunity. These sessions are actually helpful in getting to know the culture of each firm by listening to what each has to say and by talking with their recruiters after the presentations. The environment was very relaxed and each firm had a gift for you! What career event have you attended where each company brought you a gift bag?! Exactly! This event was not only extremely helpful in getting you acclimated with the Big Four firms, it was also really fun!

Don’t skip any recruiting events in your recruiting semester as an MPA because you will be missing out on a lot of great times, nice people, and solid opportunities!

Read more about the MPA recruiting experience in the Recruiting: Week Two.

One thought on “Recruiting: Week One”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *