Baker Newman Noyes program gives it a leg up on recruiting

Matt Beach for Baker Newman Noyes Accounting majors volunteered at the YMCA Casco Bay Branch in Freeport as part of their introduction to Baker Newman Noyes via a program called the Three Day Experience.

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By Renee Cordes

After hosting 37 accounting majors in Portland last week for 72 intense hours of learning, volunteering and socializing, Baker Newman Noyes is off to a running start on recruiting its next class of interns.

Students from Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire took part in the accounting firm’s Three Day Experience, part of an effort to reach younger undergraduates before they’ve decided on a career focus. This year’s group was the largest so far, after 16 the first year and 17 the next.

“Four years ago we started to see the real crunch with getting talent and a number of kids coming out of schools taking offers from the Big Four,” Jennifer Harnish, the firm’s human resources director, told Mainebiz. “We started getting worried about our pipeline.”

Out of 100 students who applied this year, 40 were invited and 37 attended.

This year’s volunteer activity involved landscaping and other physical labor at YMCA camps in Freeport and Standish as part of United Way’s annual Day of Giving, coincidentally the day temperatures spiked into the 90s.

“Community service is huge, and if that is not in your value system, you’re not going to be a fit [at the firm],” said Harnish. “It’s really important to us that we want to show that and want people to experience that.”

Students also spent two hours observing accountants at work; listened to auditors speak about the good, the bad and the ugly about their jobs; and put questions to principals, many of whom started as interns themselves. The social part included Bayside Bowling and group dinners at six Portland restaurants.

“We often have seen kids who have been raised in northern Maine … who are hesitant about living in the big city of Portland,” Harnish explained. “We are trying to help them see how cool it is to live in Portland as a young adult.”

A photographer had also been hired to take professional headshots of the students for their LinkedIn profiles.

Next steps

Half an hour after the event wrapped up, thank-you notes went out to all participants along with a post-program survey.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with comments like “this internship has made me have such a great appreciation for BNN, what they do and who they are” and “I think I am better prepared to enter the workforce.”

That’s good news to Harnish and her team, who are following up with the students who impressed them the most.

“When it’s time to interview for an internship, they will bypass the on-campus (interview) and come directly to the office,” Harnish said. “That is one of the benefits to attending this program.”

Baker Newman Noyes has a total workforce of 267, and hires about 20 interns every year. Besides Portland, it has offices in Manchester and Portsmouth, N.H., and Boston and Peabody, Mass.

As for next year’s Three Day Experience, Harnish said the plan is to stay at 40 participants and offer more hands-on tax demonstrations. “You worry you’re going to bore them,” she said, “but they wanted it more technical.”