The running joke on campus was that if you did a bang up job in your mock interview, you might land yourself a mock job offer, which could lead to a mock job. But in all seriousness, after all the practice interviewing I had done with first year classmates and second years employed by our Career Services Office, I felt more than ready for whatever recruiters decided to throw at me. On the first day of interviews, I joined a sea of dark-suited investment banker wannabes milling around, rehearsing for the thirty minute time slots which would determine our fates for the summer. I took my place in line and tried to remember which of the investment banks was first on my schedule. With eight different investment banks on campus the first two days of interview season, confusing the recruiters' names or, even worse, the banks' names, was something I wished to avoid.
Most companies have open and closed interview lists.
If you aren't invited to interview with a firm, you can bid for one of their open interview slots, and the highest bidders get the slots. With a limited number of bid points available, an entire cottage industry has developed to help students use their points most effectively. One caveat - as recently as five years ago, only a handful of top tier financial institutions actively recruited on campus. The strength of the Fuqua-Wall Street relationship was evident this recruiting season, as not even the economic slowdown could stem the tide of Fuqua first years heading to New York for the summer. Most of those who joined me for Fuqua's Week on Wall Street pilgrimage will be working in New York this summer.