By Your Campus Recruiter

Ah, recruiting season. I’ll let you all in on a little secret: this is my favorite time of the year. I know how much students hate recruiting season. But I’ll be honest, it’s just so much fun for a campus recruiter like me. Sure, I had to go through this song and dance once upon a time, but now I get to be the puppet master!

There’s nothing like watching you jump through every hoop I set in front of you. Information and networking session? I know you’ll be there. You’ll sign up for coffee chats, in the hopes that I’ll somehow remember you in the sea of college students eager to impress me. You’ll bring along your leather organizers filled with copies of your resume that enumerates all the useless internships and extracurriculars that you've done up until now. The second you’re out of eyesight, I’ll skim it to see what you’ve screwed up. Let’s be real– I always know within the first 23 seconds of reading it whether you're wasting my time. And you almost always are!

Just looking through the most recent batch, one kid forgot to change a company’s name on his cover letter. I'll look at the kid's name, say a different name out loud, and then toss it into the fire. That's how I have fun!

I always make sure to check the skills section too, as that’s normally good for a laugh. You are proficient in PowerPoint and Excel? Holy shit! Gary, get over here, quick! We got a fucking genius! That was sarcasm, because these are skills that literally everyone has.

Once we find the least terrible candidates, the interviews start. This part can be a chore, but it helps us weed out all of you who look good on paper but lack important characteristics, such as a personality. 

After several agonizing rounds, we’ll narrow the group down. (Note that those thank-you emails you send us after the interviews sound just as insincere as you fear they do.) Eventually, we’ll find a couple of decent candidates who aren’t you, and as you refresh your inbox obsessively, you’ll eventually get an email letting you down gently. I know it probably sucks that you can’t find a job and your entire life-plan has been flushed down the shitter, but think of how much it would suck for us if we hired you.

Isn't it amazing that I can predict all of this down to a T? It almost makes you think all of this is scripted, that you are navigating an impossible maze that I have crafted for you, that you do as I say, and want what I want you to want. 

Uh oh, it appears I've said too much. Dance, monkey, dance!