By: Mary Rose Tansey, BBA 2020
During our selection process for grants, I have been recruiting for accounting internships. Accounting recruitment is a fairly intense process; it is set in motion by a career fair, after which students submit applications to firms. Firms invite students to dinners, formally interview them, and then have the choice to invite them to further recruiting events and office visits. It is very similar to our class’s selection process. Although we began by conducting our own research instead of digging into an applicant pool, our method of interviewing potential grantees and following-up with site visits is almost identical to my experience in accounting. While it has been a busy semester, I am incredibly thankful for the overlap between my time as an interviewer and as an interviewee. The coinciding processes have granted me a stronger understanding in this role. In this post I am going to outline some of my biggest takeaways from accounting recruitment, as well as how they have influenced my approach to grant-giving.
- Each interaction increases expectation. My group initially wanted to conduct site visits with as many organizations as possible. We thought it would enable us to make a more fair decision. However, we ultimately decided we needed to narrow down our visits to organizations we were seriously considering funding. This choice was based on personal experience, insight from class alum, and our readings. In accounting, students invited to office visits expect to receive an offer. The Bridgespan Group warned against frivolous site visits for the same reason. Site visits are time consuming and disruptive to the everyday functions of a nonprofit. It could damage our class’s reputation in the nonprofit sector if they felt we were being disrespectful of their time by planning visits that often resulted in no tangible benefit.
- Evaluation goes two ways. In an interview, I am “judging” a potential workplace to the same extent they are judging me. I think this may be less true with charitable organizations because they are able to work with multiple grantors, but it is still important to consider. Our goal is to love our community, and being unprofessional or unkind could very quickly unravel that goal. While these organizations are more flexible in who they can work with compared to job-seeking students, their impression of us matters. Evaluating interviewers has heightened my awareness of my interactions as an interviewer.
- As an interviewer, you represent more than yourself. When I walk into an interview, I expect the man or woman across the table to give me an accurate depiction of the firm they are representing. When I am interviewing people, I am no longer viewed as a single student. I certainly would be seen as a representative of our poverty team, and quite likely the class as a whole. I may even be seen as a representative of Baylor as a whole. It seems odd to think someone’s perception of a university with thousands of students could be shaped by a fifteen minute interaction with me. Yet, I allow my perception of less than five people shape my views of firms with anywhere from one hundred to hundreds of thousands of employees. This realization coincides with the second in shaping the value I place on my work in this class.
As we begin site visits the coming week, I hope to bring a mindset of empathy. Going through a similar experience has helped me understand the time and effort these organizations have put into meeting with us. We can best return their effort with our own effort and professionalism – so far I’ve been very proud of what our class has accomplished, and I’m excited to see how that transfers into site visits.