Inside Resources and Recruitment | The Courting Game: Employment recruiting

How student career opportunities come to campus.

Acacia O'Connor Senior Editor

Lauren Sutherland Life Editor

In some ways, the Career Development Office (CDO) is like a dating service. The CDO advisers consider your wants and needs as well as those of your potential employer and then they bring you together with your mate in what is intended to be a blissful union.

“We see ourselves as a go-between for employers and students,” said Director of Career Development Mary Raymond. “We really like it to be a dialogue [between students and potential employers].”

But like any give-and-take interchange, there are rules and guidelines that the CDO, as well as the employers and students who use it, must follow. These guidelines help strike a balance between students’ current lives at Vassar and their potential future lives in the work world.

Following a standard of ethics
When establishing connections with employers who use recruiters, the CDO follows the Principles for Professional Conduct set forth by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Using these guidelines is a common practice among college career services across the country, according to Associate Director of Career Development Fred Burke. With these principles in mind, the CDO restricts employers’ visists to campus to only once per semester.

These regulations also promote the CDO’s policy of upholding the Vassar experience throughout a student’s career, even during their senior year. “We worry about students getting too caught up. We want them to savor their senior year,” said Raymond. “They are going to be in the working world for the rest of their lives. This is the last opportunity to take advantage of what there is to be enjoyed [at the College].”

In the past, students have complained when recruiters contacted them excessively. If students do complain, employers are held accountable based on the NACE principles and warned against pestering students.

The potential detriment of limitting the number of times competitive companies can contact students or visit the campus is that students may lose out when employers go elsewhere. While Raymond acknowledged the gravity of this concern, she also encouraged students to shop around.

The CDO permits any employer that wants to contact students via on-campus recruiting to do so, regardless of whether they are from large corporations such as JP Morgan or from non-profit groups like the Peace Corps.

“We don’t discriminate between employers,” said Burke. “If an employer approaches us and is interested in setting up an appointment with students, then we give them that opportunity.”

Burke and Raymond added that they invite employers in fields that they believe are aligned with the interests of students.

For example, Vassar students have recently expressed increased interest in careers in social outreach programs and non-profit organizations, and, as a result, the CDO has sought out more employers in those fields.

The CDO sends out mailings twice a year to companies interested in Vassar graduates and also alerts these companies by e-mail through e-Recruiting.

But in most cases, Burke said, employers approach the College if they are interested in setting up a time to meet with students. Many of the employer visits are coordinated through the interest of alumni/ae working for those companies. The CDO also encourages potential employers to hold information sessions or to participate in career fairs on campus.

The federal recruitment question
All employers are permitted to recruit on campus, which includes federal employers and the military—a fact that has caused controversy in the student body in past years.

In 1985 and March of 2005, students held “die-ins” to protest the presence of a military recruiter on campus. Students objected to the arrival of the recruiters on the grounds that the military violates the Equal Opportunity Act (Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII) with its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

At the die-in in 2005, approximately a dozen students attended the protest. Other students attended the recruitment session with genuine interest in the military as a career option.

A few months before the 2005 die-in, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came to Vassar in October 2004, and the general interest meeting was disrupted a number of times by irate students who insisted that the recruiter address accusations of human rights abuses by the CIA. But not all students attended the information session in order to protest. Instead, several students found the information session informative for their own job searches, and more than 70 students attended the event.

Since Vassar receives federal funding, the College cannot deny the government the opportunity to recruit on campus.

According to the Offices of Financial Aid and Finance, those federal funds account for nearly $10 million in student financial aid and $750,000 for faculty research. However, funding reasons aside, Burke said it is important to ensure that all students get the opportunity to look into a wide variety of options.

“Even though there is not a large number of students who may be interested in military recruitment, we have to welcome those employers like anyone else,” said Burke.

Though the CDO ensures that employers utilize a standard of ethics when courting Vassar students, they do not pass judgment on the businesses or organizations’ philosophies themselves.

“If someone does animal testing for products, and that’s something you don’t believe in, you would choose not to work for them,” said Burke. “But just as students have the right to protest it, [employers] have a right to come here to Vassar.”

Student recruiters take active roles
Along with CDO advisors and professional recruiters, a handful of students work to forge relationships between employers and the College. Haniya Mir ’07 (a Campus Campaign Manager for Teach For America) and Erika Scovill ’07 (a New York Teaching Fellows college ambassador) are also doing their part. These student recruiters pick up where employers, who are only allowed to visit the campus twice a year, leave off.

Student recruiters from organizations like Teach For America and the New York City Teaching Fellows are taking on a more visible role in the post-graduate employment scene. This is largely because they can establish initial contacts with peers that full-time recruiters would be otherwise unable to make.

One of Mir’s primary tasks is to compile lists of prospective applicants, which requires discretion because of CDO guidelines. Campus Campaign Managers look to prominent student leaders—such as members of the Vassar Student Association Council—and encourage them to look into the program.

“Much of my work involves tapping into people I know, but we can only use limited networks. There are a lot of people we’d like to contact, but can’t,” said Mir.

Mir, who has been under contract with Teach for America since August, said that the policies regarding “cold calls” pose the biggest challenge for her work as a recruiter. The CDO bars Mir from directly contacting students by phone or e-mail. “Because we can’t cold call students, the important thing is being very visual and putting ourselves out there, which can be difficult,” said Mir.

Unlike Teach For America’s Campus Campaign Managers, Scovill is not expected to seek out individual students for the New York Teaching Fellows; she instead directs her promotional efforts through specific departments.

“Many public schools really need teachers of math, Spanish and science, so I try to contact the chairs of those departments, as well as get in contact with major committees,” said Scovill. “I try to find a diverse group of candidates to teach a diverse body of students.”

Burke called the student recruiters “a great resource” for seniors considering their post-graduation options.

Some students may be concerned about their timeline for their job search when recruiters start visiting, but Raymond emphasized that students should not feel rushed. “The other thing that students need to realize is that the Vassar Career Services are there forever,” said Raymond.