OCRs - On Campus Recruitments

I cant believe that it is November so soon. Time has flown and we have only 47 days before the core subjects are done with. It has been an experience I will never forget.

I have been receiving some emails from students admitted to the class of 2011 about the program, my experience and OCRs in particular. I reckoned that I should answer the OCR part of the question in this post.

The OCRs in Queen's began in the last 2 weeks of Module 5. There were a host of companies that did come to campus.

Finance jobs: In the financial side, all the Canadian banks came down. There were a host of roles in the banking side including a couple of investment banking openings too. The most sought after roles were the Leadership Programs. I was interested in the Technology rotational programs that some of the banks had.

Consulting Firms: AT Kearney , Deloitte, Secor, Monitor, PRTM, Capgemini, Accenture and IBM came down from the consulting firms side. The roles were normally for Senior Consultant's position. In fact, I am not too sure if I saw any manager level roles.

Marketing: There were quite a few marketing positions open too, although I was not particularly interested in them. Ofcourse WPP was the biggie in this case. Bank of America also had a marketing role that a few candidates interviewed for.

The placement statistics for this year has not been great so far. This can be attributed to a host of reasons. From what I see, there is a lot of competition out there, and many applicants with significant experience are being hired. My interaction with the clubs and the students is that there has been a fairly focussed preparation for OCR's by many candidate, although unfortunately, the overall placement scenario in school has not skyrocketed. We are optimistic that the scenario will change.

Often, the OCR placement is considered as indicative of a program and the 'quality of students'. This is not really the case, more so when the quality of the class is brought into question. My experience here has been filled with learnings that I didn't expect from the program. There is the academic dimension, but more than that is the overall growth and change in outlook, that stands testimony to the program. The program, being so intensive, there is a chance that students might be slightly under prepared. That said, the big picture, the fairly small Canadian job market and other factors contribute to the placements too. I think, an MBA can land you your next job. After that, career progress depends on your ability to talk to others, extend your contact list to other schools, and then the career changes will follow naturally. So, it is really important to understand what personality of the school before making any decision.

Will get back to my report! :(

Cheers!