Arthur Andersen explains jobs

The Finance Club sponsored a well-attended forum last week held by Arthur Andersen to inform students of the wide range of opportunities available with the firm after graduation. There is great diversity among Andersen employees in terms of their scholastic backgrounds and fields of interests, Director of Recruiting Doug Dickel said. Around 47 students attended the event, which started with ten-minute presentations by representatives from different departments within the firm and was followed by a brief question and answer session. Jeff Smith from the Litigation Support Services, John Lombardi from Corporate Recovery Services, Rachel Dreyfus and Yoli Toth from Business Consulting Services and William Christopher from Business Systems Consulting spoke about their respective departments. They outlined projects during their presentations to illustrate the scope of Andersen's activities. The emphasis was on the corporation's flexibility. Students were told that Andersen employees are extremely mobile and are encouraged to transfer to the departments in which they feel they can be most productive. In addition, the speakers said that the firm accepts a wide range of projects on which employees have an opportunity to work. "There is no typical project, there is no one thing we do," Dickel said. "We are very responsive to the market. We don't go in with blinders." Dickel also said that one of the most important characteristics the firm seeks in future employees is competence dealing with people. "The work is very people intensive and people skills are very important," Dickel said. "We need to be able to deal with many different kinds of people." In general, students said they found the event both stimulating and informative. "This was really informative," Wharton and College senior Hana Lowy said. "It was really important to find out that Arthur Andersen is doing more than accounting . . . it's a consulting firm, really. You don't have to have an accounting degree."

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