“Meet The Firms” – an evening of organized chaos.
When you’re majoring in USC’s Leventhal School of Accounting, “Meet The Firms” becomes a pretty common phrase. USC’s “Meet The Firms” night refers to the major job recruitment event that occurs each semester when you’re a Business or Accounting major at USC. The most recent “Meet The Firms” happened this past Tuesday, February 7th.
Now, I called this event a night of organized chaos. Until you have had the opportunity to experience Meet The Firms yourself, you’ll just have to take my word for it, but I’ll certainly do my best to describe what happens at this event. Between 5 and 6 pm, all of the major Accounting-related firms file in to the California Science Center across the street from USC. Some of the big names in attendance include Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, just to name a few. And these big name firms aren’t there just to take down some general contact information – they truly come to impress. Lead Recruiters, Senior Managers, Directors, Partners – you name it, they’re all there to speak with USC students and to represent their firms. And when the clock strikes six and you’ve packed in all of these professionals with hundreds of job-hungry students, it becomes organized chaos.
As intimidating as it might sound, this night of “organized chaos” is really an amazing part of being at USC! Until you go to your first Meet The Firms event, it doesn’t really hit you how lucky you are to be a student in USC Marshall. In a time when job offers are considered a rare stroke of luck, we actually have professionals from big name firms coming to convince us about why we should go to their firm over another. It is pretty unbelievable!
If you ask anyone who has attended Meet The Firms about the experience, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t throw in the word “exhausting.” When you are in a situation like Meet The Firms in which you are introducing yourself to person after person who is each extremely excited to talk with you, you might be surprised how tiring it becomes! After going to another great Meet The Firms event this past Tuesday, I once again found myself amazed at how tiring it can be to just talk to people for three hours. But the exhaustion happens for one reason only: the firms have over-the-top enthusiasm for meeting USC students. Sometimes, when I go to events like Meet The Firms, I find myself stepping back and just thinking about how incredible of a position USC Marshall has put me in to succeed. With the organized chaos of Meet The Firms and many other events just like it, USC gives you the tools for success – you just have to be willing to take advantage of them!