Deselection in the Accounting World

At the end of Wednesday's class we briefly talked about deselection, which is the process where a candidate for a job takes them self out of the recruitment process because after being exposed to the company and its employees.  Some candidates choose to deselect themselves because they feel that they do not fit in with the company culture.  This past month, as I have had second round interviews/office visits with many accounting firms, I realized just how important culture is to accounting firms, and witnessed deselection first-hand.  When I went to PricewaterhouseCooper's Harrisburg office for my second round interview, it was blatantly obvious they were trying to see how well the candidates coincided with the very laid back and social culture of the Harrisburg office.  Each candidate had a "host" that took you on a tour of the office, where the company strategically placed groups of individuals all around the office so while on the tour, you were forced to interact with them.  Also, the firm took us to lunch at a very fancy restaurant across the street.  Here, the candidates dined with several employees, who were seeing how well the candidates engaged in conversation with the employees.  At the end of the office visit, one of the candidates, who appeared to be very shy, told me that he was taking himself out of the recruitment process because he felt that he was not social enough to fit it with the culture of the Harrisburg office.  I did not realize it then, but I now know that individual engaged in the process of deselection.