When The School That You Are Attending Is Not On The Recruiters?List For On-Campus Interview

　　Global financial institutions typically only go to select universities or business schools for campus recruitment. These are elite institutions renowned for their stringent admission criteria and high quality education programs. Many of their alumni have been hired by these premier financial institutions and have done well on their jobs.

　　If you are not from these chosen education institutions, how will you get the opportunity to even be considered for an interview?

　　Yes, you have one additional hurdle to overcome. There is no question that you have to work even harder than students from those schools where global financial institutions have established on-campus interview programs.

　　The following are some of the useful approaches that you should consider in your overall career pursuit:

　　1. Establish contact with people attending business schools nearby where your targeted companies conduct regular on-campus interviews.Ask for their help to inform you about the schedule of the various events organized by their placement office or student clubs. The information is usually available at the placement office or extra curriculum activities club such as the investment banking club.

　　2. Attend the career presentation/events organized by these schools.Be resourceful and get yourself invited through your friends from that school. Plan your schedule ahead so that you may attend these events. Other than the actual interview schedule or sit-down dinner, most of these activities do not require RSVP, and generally can be attended quite freely.

　　3. Make personal contact with the company representatives.You should take great effort to engage in a dialogue with company representatives/presenters. Impress them with your personality, poise and up-to-date knowledge of the business. Find an appropriate opportunity during the event and let the company representative know that you are from another university, and have made the extra effort to attend the event. It is advisable to get the conversation going first before coming to the issue job placement. You should avoid irking students from the school hosting the event. A common mistake is to “monopolize?the airtime during the Q & A session or interaction in a small group. The technique is to have social grace, take your turn and ask good questions.

　　4. Write to the global financial institutions and request for an interview first by the company contacts whom you have met, and win them over to recommend your candidacy to the business area that you are interested in.It is obvious that most students attending these events intend to pursue a career in the industry. Everyone would like an opportunity to be interviewed. The key here is not to tell the company representative that you are interested in a job with them, but how you deliver the message. The objective is to let these company representatives feel that you are differentiated from the rest. Interest them enough so that they want to get to know more about you. This is not unattainable because identifying talented students is the primary objective for these recruiters.

　　5. Be very well prepared and make them feel that you are exceptionally outstanding.From the recruiter's standpoint, there are always more students expressing interest than they can possibly handle. So quantity is not the issue for them. What is crucial for them is to be able to “spot?some of the more outstanding students and invite them to get on the interview schedule. In cases where they cannot interfere with the university placement's arrangement as far as the on-campus interview schedule is concerned, they can always invite them (students identified with outstanding potential but could not get on the schedule) for interview in their office.

　　6. Get help from your professors or staff member of the business schools.Even if your school is not on the recruiters' list for their regular on-campus interview program, it does not mean that members of the faculty do not have contact with the global financial industry. You should approach professors who are teaching capital markets, corporate finance, financial engineering courses, etc. Given that the financial markets are evolving constantly, these academics naturally need to have contacts in the industry to keep themselves current on the knowledge. The information in previous “Faculty Members?paragraph of this chapter is similarly applicable.