I've been on the other side of this as a Wall Street trading intern. As a college senior in 2007, my future employer hosted a party in NYC for all those who had accepted their job offers. Keep in mind, this is for people who had already agreed to take the job -- not for potential candidates. Still, they flew us to NYC from our respective colleges, put us up in a really nice boutique hotel, reserved a very nice restaurant for the night, paid for our drinks, drove us around in limos, served us brunch, and flew us back to NYC the next day. It was totally outlandish.
Potential employers wine and dine their candidates because, well, that's how THEY would want to be treated if they were applying. Wall Streeters are quite status conscious, so of course they'll try to appeal to candidates' materialism and sense of status. Law firms are no different, though they're probably a bit more modest than your average investment bank.
It's the same thing as Google bragging about their massages and catered sushi. Google is just showing that they have what their candidates care about. Your average tech employee probably wouldn't care, and would maybe even be a little put off if their employer took them to an exclusive club. Wall Street banks are big on expensive dinners and bottle service, but many of them don't even have gyms or subsidized cafeterias, much less free food. My firm didn't even have napkins in the pantry!
I published a technical book at the age of 21. While I didn't make much money, the publisher (who has since been bought and sold 3 times I think) certainly wined and dined me at every conference and event that I went to. Great meals and all the free booze I could drink. Not to mention the chance to flirt with the always really attractive editors they sent out to work these things.
It sure made an impression on 21 year old me. There didn't seem to be a lot in it for the publisher (other than keeping their writers happy I suppose). It wasn't like my book was very successful. Hell it wasn't very good at all. At 21 I had the knowledge, but lacked the work-ethic to really put the time into it.
I always wonder if that's all this really is. Folks who have the money looking for an excuse to spend it (and make some kids year). I'm not sure it's a big plot to make them dependent on the job. I really think that people, generally, like to throw money around.
What you are also seeing there is HR departments competing with each other for rankings in "best graduate programme" tables in the press. Which they may be incentivized to do by their own bonus system.
I totally agree about Google - they are basically the same model as a law firm, highly talented fresh graduates working long hours, but with one glaring exception: it's still possible to be made partner in a law firm. Google isn't minting any more millionaires this long after its IPO.
I think it even works to some extent, even among people who don't officially care. Here in academia we're not supposed to care about materialism, and many people actively make an effort not to. But conference organizers still put in things like lavish conference banquets, not because they enjoy wasting money and raising already-high registration fees, but because they've noticed it seems to make a difference in what kind of paper submissions and attendance numbers they get. I'm not sure what part of it is cynical versus subliminal, but it seems to work either way. I imagine some professors actively like the opportunity to spend an extra $100 on "conference registration" if it means they get it back in an off-the-books lavish banquet, while others grumble at the extra $100 of their already-tight grant money being wasted. But either the latter category are outnumbered, or the wining-and-dining subconsciously works on them anyway, by making them remember the conference more positively. Possibly there's just something to lavish entertainment making people well disposed to you, even if they know that's what's going on.
Potential employers wine and dine their candidates because, well, that's how THEY would want to be treated if they were applying. Wall Streeters are quite status conscious, so of course they'll try to appeal to candidates' materialism and sense of status. Law firms are no different, though they're probably a bit more modest than your average investment bank.
It's the same thing as Google bragging about their massages and catered sushi. Google is just showing that they have what their candidates care about. Your average tech employee probably wouldn't care, and would maybe even be a little put off if their employer took them to an exclusive club. Wall Street banks are big on expensive dinners and bottle service, but many of them don't even have gyms or subsidized cafeterias, much less free food. My firm didn't even have napkins in the pantry!