I know it's a bit early to start talking about this, so I'm hoping it doesn't get buried, but I wanted to get started on discussion and strategy for our Summer 2013 job hunts. I'm currently out of state for the summer, in a market I would love to work in ultimately, but my school is also in the other major market I'm considering. Rising 2L, median at CCN.

When is too early to start mass mailing if I want to try to get an offer locked up before OCI? I was thinking of starting to send out in mid-June. If I am attending a job fair here, should I also send a mass mail to the firms/offices I'm bidding on or not? What about local offices for the firms I'm bidding on at OCI? Was hoping to get this market out of the way this summer, and then focus all my OCI bids on my school's market. Is this a good strategy, or not? What if the firm explicitly only lets you bid on one of their offices at OCI?

What are your plans? Anyone going to a promising-looking job fair, thinking about mass mailing already, or have any networking ideas to put into action during the summer?

I think I'm going to start mass mailing around July. I've started making spreadsheets though of all the firms I want to mail with recruiter emails, locations, etc.

I had the same question about mailing OCI firms for other offices. My guess is that it's ok. Just to be safe I'm only doing it if the recruiter for the local office is different from my school's region recruiter (which is usually the case but not always).

OP here, bumping this.

Anyone have thoughts on the mass mail + job fair issue? What about if the same firm will be going to two fairs (that you're also going to)? Does it make sense to bid on them at both in case you happen to get lucky with a different interviewer, or once you don't get a callback once, are you rejected forever? What about then bidding on them at your school's OCI?

What are we thinking about mass mailing in your target market to firms that aren't attending OCI but are doing a resume collect? Is it worth trying to get a jump on all the kids who will be submitting resumes around early August?

Curious about this as well.

Is there any good guide on how to go about mass mailing? When you send a mass mail, what all should you include? Resume, cover letter, transcript, list of references.... anything else?

I ran into this situation a few weeks ago. I emailed the firm and got a response that they will select me for one of the fair, and I don't need to bed on them. I got the email before another fair's deadline, which helped me to free up another bid. My short answer is email the firm if you still have time.

I don't think it will hurt you in anyway, and may even help if you have something attractive on your resume (e.g. good grades, LR, patent background, etc.)

Is it a bad sign if a mass mail firm brings you in for a screener instead of a call back? I know it's a good thing to have any kind of interview, but I wonder if it necessarily means they're not particularly interested, since a screener is a minimal investment on their part.

I've just been attaching a cover letter, resume, and transcript. Anything else is clutter and unnecessary at the mass mail stage. My email body includes who I am, a brief summary of my interest in the firm or experience, and the dates I will be in their market.

How does it work for mailing to a firm that is showing up at OCI but that you either did not bid on or did bid on but didn't get? Is that pointless or worth the effort?

Gotta be worth it - best case, you get an interview and worst case, you end up in the same place you were before (no interview). You don't win the games you don't play or whatever.

if by bring in you mean flying you to their office, then I'll say that's a good sight. Even if that just mean you are in town, and they set up an in-person interview, that's still a good sight since they have to take times to sit down and talk to you.

What's the accepted practice for cover letters? Should I copy and paste the text of my cover letter into the body of the emails I send out OR attach a pdf of the cover letter instead and only have minimal email body?

shameless bump. I'm wondering this as well. Anyone?

I've read some advice that says to copy/paste your CL text into the body of the email, but I personally just put in a couple lines about who I am/which market I want/when I'll be in the area. I figure it cuts to the chase and doesn't waste the recruiter's time, but they can read my CL if they want to. I've scheduled interviews with a few firms already, so I don't think it's a problem to do it that way.

Sorry, ETA that CL should always be attached in a pdf. You don't want to look unprofessional if they have to forward your actual email around for people to read your "cover letter." Formal cover letter is always best, I think.

I have some dumb questions. Feel free to poke fun, chastise, etc.

1) Should I plan a trip to the area I'm mass mailing before I hear back from firms? I'll probably be mass mailing NYC in about a week. I have no travel plans, but I do have a couple of free plane tickets I need to use. Should I mention that I'll be traveling to the area? Or just say that I am available?

2) Am I expected to travel to the market area before OCI to interview? Depending on where I go, OCI may start as early as August 14. With the chaos of transferring and moving to a new place, it'll be difficult to vacation in NYC for a week at the beginning of August. Unless I'll get a job from it...

3) Just to be totally clear, I should not mass mail firms that are coming to my school for OCI, right? But anyone else is fair game?

4) Cover letters are addressed to the hiring attorney, but emailed to the recruiting contact, yes?

5) Is one sentence of customization/practice group focus/make the firm feel special good enough? Realistically, everything is a clusterfuck right now and I don't think I can do much more than that. I'm struggling to just pull together a list.

Thank you!

Oh man, I feel dumb. I've been addressing and sending my stuff to the recruiting contact. It hasn't seemed to hurt that much so far, but now I'm wondering about those firms I really like that haven't responded...

Honestly, I think whether you want to travel to NYC or not before OCI is a personal choice. If you have the free tickets it might give you a bit of a boost to say you're going to be there anyway. It's definitely a win-win for both of you if they can save on a plane ticket and get a little bit of incentive to give you at least a screener where they might not have before.

You have awesome stats too if you're going to transfer, so I think whatever you end up doing will work out for you.

Any advice for someone who wants to get a post 1L summer job? I'd like to get a head start, but don't want to commit any tactical errors...

I'm at at T2 in a major market.

...crap. Did this too. Well, at least I know now!

this is the first time i've heard of this

Last year I just pasted a very abbreviated cover letter into the email (addressed to recruiting) and attached my resume and transcript. That seemed to work just fine.

Not quite a non-OCI question, but what do we think about recruiters who say "and if for some reason you can't get an interview during OCI, be sure to let me know." Do you think they really mean it? Starting to wonder if I should rank the firms I have contacts with at the bottom, thereby getting a better chance at the other firms in the lottery. Then I can legitimately email the recruiter and say "I submitted a bid, but I didn't get it! Can I have an interview anyway?"... or is this a bad idea as then they might assume that I ranked them too low and i.e. wasn't interested enough.

I have had a lot of contact with the recruiters at several firms who are coming to OCI, and one secondary market recruiter has already forwarded my resume to my first choice market. Thoughts on ranking firms low and then going back to the recruiters to ask for an interview?

1) Cover letter / resume / transcript / writing (the app package) should be attached as a single PDF to an email. It's cleaner and it avoids any formatting errors.

2) Cover letters should be addressed to the hiring attorney, if specified on NALP. If not, then to the recruiting contact on NALP. If no NALP info, email the firm and ask who to send things to.

3) If your OCI is preselect, then don't email firms that dinged you unless something changed.

About the writing sample, what is typically used for this? I'm assuming most students use their first year appellate brief? I'm working at a mid-sized firm this summer and just drafted a bad ass motion for summary judgment and incorporated memorandum of law, would a redacted version of this be a good writing sample?