Wall Street wunderkind Sandy Weill, who also happens to be an alumnus of Cornell University, Class of '55, as well as a trustee emeritus, made a surprise appearance recently on Cornell's campus to recruit for Salomon Smith Barney. The investment group's parent company, Citigroup, is headed by Weill, co-chairman and CEO John Reed and, as of Oct. 27, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin.

Weill built two financial service giants, Shearson Loeb Rhoads, which sold for almost $1 billion in 1984, and Commercial Credit, which acquired Smith Barney and Salomon Brothers, merged with the Travelers, then joined forces with Citicorp last year in one of the most profitable mergers of the century. The combined firm of Citigroup is worth an estimated $150 billion.

"This just proves you don't need a graduate degree," joked Weill to about 60 seniors in a Statler Hotel reception room this Oct. 4. His surprise appearance drew double the usual crowd to the signup event and pulled prospective students away from receptions with competing recruiters.

Weill related well to the students when he confessed that as a job-seeking senior at Cornell, he was turned down by both Merrill Lynch and Harris Upham -- a Smith Barney predecessor. He showed a semi-humorous film clip on the day-to-day struggles and triumphs of a handful of attractive recent hires at Salomon Smith Barney and asserted that his firm has "the best training program, bar none." His colleague at Salomon Smith Barney, Christina Mohr, gave a David Letterman-style top 10 reasons for joining his company -- among them a promise of no stupid interview questions and the claim that "our chairman is cooler than theirs." The audience -- about 70 percent male, all in dark suits and bright ties -- loved Weill's light touch.

"He was relaxed and showed the more human side of the business," said Joshua Castillo, a Cornell School of Hotel Administration senior from Bayard, N.M., who hopes to go into investment banking and corporate finance. Most of the competing firms are "all business," Castillo related. And none send their CEOs on recruiting trips.

Salomon Smith Barney will likely hire 12 Cornell graduates this year, up from eight last year but still highly competitive. "We want to hire as many exceptional Cornell students as we can," said Mohr.

Ayesha Ahmed, a senior government major from Pittsburgh whose parents are Japanese, was heartened to hear Weill relate that Salomon Smith Barney is making inroads in the Far East and "has better opportunities in Japan than any other company." She hoped her course work in the political economy of Japan and comparative economics would give her an advantage when the firm makes its hiring decisions.

Ears seem to perk up when Weill related that all Salomon Smith Barney employees are co-owners of the firm who may purchase its stock at a 25 percent discount. Clearly the students were attracted to the earnings potential that a career in financial services seems to promise.

After hearing Weill, Edwin Arteaga, a senior from Brooklyn, N.Y., majoring in biochemistry, said, "I was initially interested in med school, but I'm now considering a career in investment banking. I was really impressed [by Weill], and I like the idea of expanding my knowledge and ideas in other areas."