On-Campus Interviews: How the OCI Recruiting Process Works

What OCI Is

On-campus interviewing, or OCI, is a recruiting process where employers travel to your school, or interview virtually through your school's platform, to meet candidates in a compressed window. Law schools run the most structured version of OCI, and business schools, engineering programs, and accounting programs run similar systems for internship and full-time recruiting.

Your career center manages the whole process: which employers are coming, when bidding opens, and how interviews get scheduled. Everything runs through a portal, commonly Symplicity for law schools or Handshake for undergraduate programs.

The Bidding Process

Before interviews happen, you submit a resume and sometimes a cover letter and transcript to each employer you want to meet. This is called bidding. You rank or select employers within a set window, and the system matches you to interview slots based on employer selections and your bids.

Pre-select vs open interviews

Pre-select employers review every submitted resume and choose who they want to interview, so getting a slot with them is competitive before you ever speak with anyone. Open sign-up employers interview any student who bids on them, on a first-come basis or by lottery. Your career center's OCI schedule usually marks each employer as pre-select or open so you know what to expect going in.

First-Round Interviews

First-round OCI interviews happen on campus, in career center interview rooms or a nearby space reserved for the event, and typically run 20 to 30 minutes. Interviewers ask about your resume, your interest in the firm or industry, and behavioral questions about teamwork, conflict, and past projects. These interviews move fast, since employers often see 15-20 students in a single day.

Callback Interviews and Final Rounds

Students who do well in the first round get invited to a callback, sometimes called a final round or Super Day depending on the industry. This happens at the employer's office, not on campus, and usually includes 3 to 5 separate interviews with different people over a few hours, sometimes including a meal or a case exercise. Callbacks go deeper into your background and how you would fit the team, and they carry much more weight toward an offer than the first round.

OCI Across Different Fields

Law school OCI is the most formal version of this process, often running over a few concentrated days early in the school year, with firms interviewing dozens of students back to back. Business, finance, and accounting OCI tends to spread across a longer recruiting season with rolling interview dates instead of one fixed week. Engineering and tech recruiting sometimes skips formal OCI entirely in favor of career fairs and direct online applications, though some firms still run on-campus interview days for target schools.

If You Do Not Get Bids or Interviews

Not getting a first-round interview with a specific employer does not end your options. Many employers also recruit through direct online applications, career fairs, and referrals outside the formal OCI system. Ask your career center about non-OCI recruiting paths, and reach out to alumni at target employers directly. A significant share of hires at any given firm come through channels outside OCI, especially at firms that recruit at many schools beyond yours.

How to Prepare

• Research every employer you bid on before the deadline, not after you get a slot

• Prepare specific stories using the STAR method for common behavioral questions

• Confirm interview locations and times the day before, since OCI schedules shift often

• Follow up with a short thank you note after both first-round and callback interviews

• Track every bid deadline and result in one place, since OCI moves fast across multiple employers at once