Your career counselors and professors always stress how you need to be honest and present yourself as, well, yourself. What about honesty from the recruiters?
The average interview lasts between 30-60 minutes. Most of my offers were secured by the second or third round, so let's say five interviews at the maximum of 60 minutes apiece and you have five hours that a company determined you were right for them. You just went through 16 years of education, and are going to make a decision about what's next in your life in the matter of five hours. How can you possibly know what a job will be like, what it will be like several months after starting when the new smell starts to wear off, and what your job duties will really entail?
You can't, and recruiters and human resource employees even if they were completely honest could not paint you a clear picture about the job and company. Even though they seem to be unaware it's in the recruiters' best interest to be as honest as possible about the position, so that you don't take the job under false pretenses and end up quitting less than a year into the position. I don't know how to get this message through to recruiters, because they go goo-goo for ga-ga when a 3.5 cumulative GPA candidate with internship experience walks through the door. They receive pressure from above to get this candidate to accept an offer, and if clouding the truth is going to help matters then it will certainly be partly to mostly cloudy the day of your interviews.
They know that after graduation you will get an apartment or house, possibly a new car, and have student loans on the side, so even if you are not satisfied with the position several months down the road you have several financial commitments that will hold you back slightly from quitting suddenly.
Go into the interview process with the intentions of being as honest as possible, but at the same time you need to be realistic and know that the person across the table will certainly be selling the good and standing in front of the bad. Don't be afraid to walk away from the table when an offer comes down if you felt that the BS was thicker than usual.
