Is community service necessary for recruitment?

Might be better to re-post on the main board.. This one doesn't get much traffic.

I'm curious about this as well.

i'd do it for the warm fuzzies

It honestly varies depending on the person screening resumes, but in general, you can't go wrong with finance-related experience over non-essential stuff. The reason I say it varies is because when I would review resumes, I looked for candidates who had a really strong interest in IB, but I had another alum on our school's recruiting team who liked people who were really well-rounded. Most people end up studying abroad so it's not a huge differentiator, but there are certainly other things that you can put on your resume in addition to finance stuff that makes you more unique in a good way.

Different schools have different recruiting timelines (and also different types of academic terms - semester vs. quarter vs. everything else) so really the only general rule is don't do it whenever recruiting occurs.

Wow man so you want to help out people who are struggling to stay alive so that you can get into a top business school? Wow does anyone else see something wrong with this? Fact is most people do community service to in fact actually give back and help people, and what effect it has on you whether it be personally or career wise comes second. But sounds like you got things mixed up, makes me sick

Lol, look I've done plenty of community service thru high school/college (I put in 25 hours a week junior year, started my own initiative etc.) with a genuine desire to help people.

A lot of the community work I see professionals do however has nothing with life or death situations, it is clearly self-serving or at the least a low-impact commitment on their career. The people I know in long-hour jobs (consulting, ibanking) will volunteer at a hospital reading to elderly patients or will assistant coach a middle school/high school team for 4-5 hours a week.

As far as I am concerned, someone in my position can't really have that much of "real" impact (save me the rhetoric of we can all do a little, etc. etc.). I am asking for any ideas someone may have where I can do a little good, get some experience and put some time in somewhere. Maybe it came out a little more crassly than I intended but this IS an internet forum where people seem to be tremendously career-focused.

I hate people that say it's "wrong" to do community service for your own benefit. Fuck that shit, it's better to do it to benefit yourself than to not do it at all. People need to get off their high horses and realize that almost no act is selfless, but to act is better to not act at all.

B-Schools, especially Harvard, love that shit. I know a kid who did some crap helping raise money for a Hospital somewhere in Africa, and he got into Harvard primarily based off that. (I say this because he's as dumb as dirt otherwise).

While I'm not suggesting that you pack your malaria medicines and head off to Africa, I recommend partaking in some activity that appears to benefit underpriveleged minorities, maybe Habitat for Humanity, specifically building houses in the hood. Teaching a class or two to ghetto kids or something of that sort will also really impress them.

I think if you can do something charitable that ties in with your hobbies or career, it looks much more genuine. So, if you were a college tennis player or list tennis as your hobby, volunteer at some tennis clinic for low-income kids. Or if there's some way you can provide your finance or MC skills to poor people, that would look appropriate too.

Habitat for Hummanity also is a good idea, as I believe you can assist in building houses, schools, etc. for like 1 day on the weekend and that's it..so you could do a day here and there without a weekly time commitment.

I'm the leader of the SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) team at my university. I'm desperately looking for youn and interesting business professionals to work with my teams as mentors (and advisers). We run our team like a business (i.e. aim to run businesses to re-invest money back into social projects, as opposed to applying for grants and sponsorship), so each project has to be run "properly".

Our example projects are things like helping blind kids run a card-making business, giving people with learning disabilities 1-on-1 CV and interview help, helping homeless people re-build run-down buildings to gain qualifications for themselves. And on and on.

So, you could find your nearest SIFE team at a University and volunteer as a business adviser. I would also like to claim that SIFE students are generally the top students at most Universities, so you could always help your company pick off a few of the best. You'll love it, your company will love it, and a Business School should love the fact that you're a business adviser and helping out hands-on with some amazing social projects.

Would like to, but can't due to my schedule. I do infuse a lot of money into the economy when I binge drink, however. I guess that's me doing my civic duty.