It is important to acknowledge the work that Career Services has already done to address this problem. Throughout the year, it hosts numerous panels and other information sessions to acquaint students both with the various industries that often hire Princeton graduates and with the procedures one must follow when applying for jobs in those industries. These efforts are important, and Career Services should be praised for them.
But merely providing this information is not enough. Ultimately, the mission of Career Services is to aid Princetonians in actually finding jobs. Given that job listings on TigerTracks tend to be dominated by consulting and finance firms, there is still much work to be done to achieve this goal for students interested in other fields. To be fair, there are reasons why firms in certain industries are more likely to recruit Princeton students. Many companies only recruit for a position when they actually have an opening, for example, and they lack the luxury of knowing their hiring needs far enough in advance to recruit a new cohort of seniors each fall. Nonetheless, Career Services should strive to correct this imbalance by actively seeking out job opportunities at firms that spend less time recruiting on college campuses and by possibly offering incentives for these companies to post on TigerTracks.
Furthermore, there are a number of smaller steps Career Services could take in order to connect seniors to a broader range of opportunities. The general interest career fair, the biggest of several fairs sponsored by Career Services, is held early in the year, when hiring season for consulting and finance jobs is in full swing but well before much of the rest of the economy has begun to think about hiring for the following summer. Surely Career Services would attract more representatives from other industries were it to hold a job fair in late spring, when many industries — such as publishing, for example — begin to seek out new hires. Additionally, Career Services could play a larger role in guiding the application process for those students interested in pursuing graduate education, outside law or medicine, by working more closely with departments both to publicize opportunities for post-graduate study and to help students craft their applications. For example, Career Services could work with humanities departments to host office hours during which professors — who review graduate school applications — read students’ personal statements.
Career Services already does excellent work connecting students with jobs in consulting and finance — jobs that many students are interesting in pursuing. There are also many other popular, well-publicized post-graduation opportunities such as Princeton in Asia, Project 55 fellowships and numerous jobs in the nonprofit sector. Nonetheless, the board does not believe that the selection of jobs occupied by new Princeton graduates fully reflects the diversity of interests among students on campus. This is largely due to the limited number of industries that have a recruiting presence at Princeton — either on TigerTracks or at career fairs — and Career Services should devote additional resources to solving this problem.
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