February 7, 2005
Career Week Helps McCombs School Undergraduates Build Diverse Networks

With several months to go before the end of the academic year, undergraduate students at the McCombs School of Business are already beginning to get a bead on summer internships and job opportunities. During Career Week, held Jan. 31-Feb. 4, BBAs prepared for the upcoming onslaught of interviews and applications.

Several main events were reprised from previous Career Weeks. In workshops with Ford Career Center advisors, students fine-tuned their resumes and learned how to project a professional image through their dress and bearing.

These skills got a workout during the annual Intern Expo, which featured more than fifty employers from a full cross-section of industries. Students wended their ways through long aisles of booths, manned by recruiters from companies including General Electric, Kimberly-Clark, KPMG, National Instruments, UBS and Wells Fargo.

And in mock interviews with recruiters, students practiced their interviewing abilities in a realistic but low-pressure environment.

Two other events put an emphasis on diversity. The McCombs Diversity Council’s first-ever Interactive Diversity Forum, sponsored by Accenture, UBS and BP, among others, explored diversity in the workplace. After a networking dinner, Diversity Council members presented skits dramatizing workplace situations in which assumptions about culture and gender came into play. After each, students and recruiters discussed the impact on individuals and organizations of making hasty assumptions.

The Scoring Careers minority recruiting fair, held in the San Jacinto ballroom, put a spin on the traditional career fair by emphasizing pleasure as well as business. More than 500 students mingled with recruiters from 30 companies over appetizers and dance demonstrations in a casual, no-ties-allowed atmosphere.

“Last year we held our event at Peter Piper’s, with the central goal of meeting recruiters in a fun environment,” said Stephanie Chen, BBA ’06. Chen is president of the Asian Business Students Association, which co-hosted the event along with the Hispanic Business Students Association. This year, she said, “I wanted a more professional venue, without sacrificing the relaxed atmosphere and the ability for students and recruiters to have fun and learn about cultures while recruiting.”

According to participants, the event handily met both goals. “This was the most entertaining career fair I’ve ever been to! I absolutely loved the cultural environment,” said Teryl Thomson, a recruiter from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who met over 100 students. “I wish every career fair had something fun and interactive.”

Juan Portilla, a current BBA and director of public relations for the Hispanic Business Students Association, confirmed that a good time was had by all. “At the end of the fair we asked the recruiters to come to the stage and we danced merengue with them,” he said.

Portilla said he was looking for a summer internship in finance or marketing, and faces an extra challenge in the process. “Being an international student, I walk around with a certain stigma during recruiting events, and many companies reject me simply because of that status,” he said. Between the Scoring Careers fair and the larger Intern Expo, though, he found several companies that would be able to hire him.

Thomson said that diversity is particularly important to PricewaterhouseCoopers for practical reasons. “In our business of providing solutions to our clients’ complex business problems,” she said, “we must have diverse teams in order to supply our clients with a diverse train of thought.”