Understanding Student Dissatisfaction with Campus Recruiting

Abstract

This study examines how students being recruited into public accounting interpret their campus recruiting experiences. Based on open-ended interviews of successful applicants, the findings indicate consequential differences between students' and recruiters' attitudes towards fairness and propriety during recruiting activities. These differences appear rooted in students’ and recruiters’ close ties to their respective institutional cultures (academic and professional), and not in the more serious arena of differing professional ethical standards. The study illustrates how even subtle attitudinal differences between students and recruiters can influence the outcome of the recruiting process and suggests that recruiters might be more effective if they acknowledge and adjust for the highly focused and, at times, exacting sense of right and wrong that students bring to the recruiting process.