Seeing throngs of well-dressed students on Grounds doesn't always mean that there is a home football game -- especially since recruiting sessions have started.
On Tuesday, almost 300 students filled the Wilson Hall auditorium to hear speaker Alan G. Lafley, North American president of Global Beauty Care, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble.
Proctor & Gamble, which is ranked 17th in Fortune 500's top revenue- incurring companies, specializes in beauty care, health care, food and beverage and baby care. The company is behind such well-known products as Pringles potato crisps, Tide detergent and Puffs facial tissue. They employ graduating students in positions ranging from financial analysis to marketing and sales and customer business development.
Lafley discussed his personal experiences in his academic and professional endeavors to give students an idea of life in the "real world." "There is not any one path in life to your first job or through education or to any given career ... Life is not a well laid-out plan; life is a series of circumstances and happenings," he said.
Lafley graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y, with bachelor's degrees in romance languages and history. After attending law school, he studied medieval and renaissance history at the University, and served in the U.S. Navy before getting his master's in business administration at Harvard and going to work at P & G.
Using his own career moves within P & G as an example, Lafley showed students how career paths are not always permanent.
Lafley started in the marketing department and moved into the laundry division, spending five years in Asia. Upon returning to the United States, Lafley became the president of global beauty care division.
"At the end of every three-to-five year period, I raise my head up, look around and decide that life's still pretty good [with P & G]. I'm still challenged by the people that I work with," he said.
Staying with the company was easy for Lafley because "P & G is a global company, it's a technology company, it's an innovation company, it's a people company. We will continue to expand into new businesses."
P & G acquired ownership of Iams, a pet food company, Aug. 11. The company also bought Recovery Engineering, which produces the Pur water filtration pitcher, Aug. 22.
P & G is expanding on the Internet, with the creation of what Lafley calls the world's first Internet-born beauty-care site: www.reflect.com.
Lafley noted what some advantages of working at P & G.
"All of the benefits of consulting, the chance to set strategy, the chance to do an in-depth analysis of an industry, I have at P & G, but there's one huge difference -- as soon as you embark on a course of action, you're in the wonderful world of execution. Believe me, it's a lot easier to write the one-page business plan than it is to pull it off in the real world of the marketplace," he said.
Ten University graduates participated in a panel that complemented Lafley's speech on Tuesday.
Many of those on the P&G panel shared their experiences at the company.
Sarah Neher, a 1996 College graduate, stressed the role of her colleagues in her decision to work for P&G.
"They were all energized about their work. They were excited to help me own projects, not just help them with theirs," she said.
Kristin Whisner, a 1999 Commerce School graduate, said she thinks that P & G's employee training program has been the best thing about the company thus far. "I've been back and forth to Cincinnati taking different courses. The company really encourages ongoing extensive training, not just for new hires, but throughout your years at the company." Third-year Commerce student Monique Alvino, president of the McIntire Marketing Association, organized the presentation after P & G representatives contacted the Commerce School. The McIntire Marketing Association sponsored the event.
Alvino said she has been impressed with the recruiting efforts of P & G at the University, and greatly appreciated the presentation.
"I thought it was very motivating and inspirational. I think he hit home by telling us that there are so many paths to arrive where he did," she said.
Fourth-year Commerce student Lauren Hunt also reacted positively after attending the presentation.
"I thought that [Lafley] communicated Proctor and Gamble really well and got a lot of people excited about the company," she said.
P & G continued marketing its name to University students during Commerce Career Day last Friday.
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