Genre and Sub Genre: Customary Folklore: Implicit Etiquette
Language: English
Country where Item is from: United States of America
Informant Data: Angela Cai is a government major in the class of 2017 at Dartmouth. She is from Dover, Massachusetts, where her mom is a professor and her dad works in software engineering. Angela has participated in formal recruiting twice at Dartmouth. She is a member of Kappa Delta sorority, is an undergraduate UGA in McGlaughlin, and she participates in the Women in Business club.
Social/ Cultural Context: Angela was interviewed, one-on-one, in a common space on campus. Angela has gone through the process of formal corporate recruiting at Dartmouth twice, and when interviewed was interviewed just after completing her recruiting this term. Networking is a buzzword surrounding corporate recruiting, and it often consists of conversations following a generic structure in order for prospective hires to evaluate a firm and for recruiters to review potential candidates.
Item: The actual act of going to networking events and having conversations intended to help build your network is guided by lots of implicit etiquette and customary folklore. Networking conversations are not normal every day conversations, they require preparation. Angela prepped for her networking events through her Women in Business network, and when at networking events she found that there are more barriers to conversation because both sides have goals, and you have to be conscious of the recruiter’s time and do your best to be professional, beginning each conversation with a handshake.
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Transcript of Associated File:
What kind of etiquette do you think that you use when you’re networking? I think in general I try ot be conscious of people’s time and also do my best to be professional. So, in terms of reaching out to people just like, first try to make that connection in as professional way as possible.
What were info sessions like for you, if you went? They were rough. It’s kind of overwhelming to get a lot of information thrown at you, and a little bit overwhelming that all of them sound essentially the same thing within the same industry across companies. Having groups of people like surrounding professionals and trying to like get to know them, its kind of hard to have a real, or normal conversation, face to face.
How do you think these kinds of conversations differ from regular conversations? Well I feel like there are more barriers to open conversation in networking conversation because both sides have goals, and from a recruiter’s perspective or from like a professionals perspective, they’re just there to try to find the best people who might be fit for the role or like to try to tell people about the company. But from your perspective, there’s kind of the underlying tensions because you’re probably there because you want an internship or a job.
Informant’s Comments: Corporate recruiting takes up a lot of time and energy, but ultimately it was helpful for her.
Collector’s Comments: Informant is able to give a detailed and experience driven commentary on recruiting after going through the process not once but twice over the part two years at Dartmouth.
Collector’s Name: Bridget Dougherty
Tags/Keywords: Networking, Customary Lore, Implicit Etiquette