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As you can see from my response, I got my first job out of college starting with an on-campus interview. "XYZ Corporation will be visiting on March 1 to interview potential candidates. Interested students can drop off their resumes with the department secretary, etc., etc." I hesitate to say that I aced the interview, just that I didn't throw up on my shoes. One on-site interview later, I had my first chemistry job out of college. It was pretty great, I thought.
It must be terribly difficult for companies to come up with an initial screening process to find candidates for on-site interviews. On-campus interviews rely on the thought that surely, there must be a student here that 1) meets our criteria and 2) has free time to come and visit us. Presumably, phone interviews are somewhat less picky; the thought process is 1) here are people who have expressed the desire to work for us and 2) most people are available by phone.
I think there's something about face-to-face interviewing that people really like, because it's so time consuming and expensive relative to phone interviews. The average on-campus interview lasts 20 or 30 minutes and the interviewer has already spent quite a bit of money to get to the campus itself (plane ticket + hotel room?) Phone interviews might take as long, but the cost can be quite a bit lower. I suspect that the wealth of non-verbal information that you can derive from face-to-face interviewing is worth the extra cost.*
*Of course, the way to test this is to see if on-campus interviewing is more successful at bringing in on-site interview candidates and future employees than phone interviews.
On a related note, I'm curious how many people were able to secure positions from any of the ACS meetings lately. I know there's been no shortage of qualified applicants.
ReplyDeleteI got my job starting with an on-campus interview. I think the on-campus interview has several purposes: a screening process to get candidates plus reinforces ties between the company and the university.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's a whole human/social animal thing but talking to someone face-to-face is so much better. You get a better feel for the person, I think. Perhaps it's the small talk you have to participate in, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteThat's a business book for someone to write: "Small Talk Your Way To a Job". There can be chapters on Sports Small Talk, Geography Small Talk and I-Worked-For-Your-Hated-Former-Boss Small Talk.
ReplyDeleteI never had an on-campus interview (one of the perils of going to a small school - even if the school has a well-regarded chemistry department, it's not worth the company's time to go there for just a few students). I did quite a few ACS interviews, although surprisingly I never got a job through one. But the trend seems to be going in the other direction. I now work for a government agency, and we actually hired two people who never interviewed in person. They were hired strictly through a phone interview plus webinar. (The government doesn't pay interview costs, at least at my agency, and we were reluctant to ask people to pay for plane tickets from CA to DC in the middle of the recession.) They seem to be just as qualified and talented as people hired through "in person" interviews.
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