How Firms Hire Forum

[rayiner]

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... firms.html

[ph14]

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... firms.html

Thanks for sharing, an interesting read.

[ben4847]

yeah, I don't know that exactly applies to law firms. Doesn't sound like what I'm familiar with.

[rayiner]

yeah, I don't know that exactly applies to law firms. Doesn't sound like what I'm familiar with.

I examined hiring processes in three types of elite professional service firms: investment banks, law firms, and management consulting firms. These types of firms share important similarities, allowing for a robust comparison.

[ben4847]

yeah, I don't know that exactly applies to law firms. Doesn't sound like what I'm familiar with.

I examined hiring processes in three types of elite professional service firms: investment banks, law firms, and management consulting firms. These types of firms share important similarities, allowing for a robust comparison.

yeah, well I went through the OCI process and got a job, and I say it isn't.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Nice post. I'd say it describes OCI quite nicely, actually, can't imagine how that would be controversial.

[Tiago Splitter]

Are the top four schools the same in all three of these industries?

[mrloblaw]

Are the top four schools the same in all three of these industries?

I'm guessing Harvard and Yale make the cut in all three, at least.

In any case, this is the closest thing to a rational explanation of my hiring season that I've seen.

[paul34]

..

[Aberzombie1892]

I'm guessing Harvard and Yale make the cut in all three, at least.

Assuming we are only looking at JDs, the top four would probably be Harvard, Stanford, Yale and then either Chicago or Columbia (personal preference).

Assuming we are only looking at MBAs, the top four would probably be Harvard, Stanford, Pennsylvania, and then one of: Chicago, Northwestern or Dartmouth (personal preference).

At the bachelors level, HYPS most likely.

[Tiago Splitter]

I'm guessing Harvard and Yale make the cut in all three, at least.

Assuming we are only looking at JDs, the top four would probably be Harvard, Stanford, Yale and then either Chicago or Columbia (personal preference).

Assuming we are only looking at MBAs, the top four would probably be Harvard, Stanford, Pennsylvania, and then one of: Chicago, Northwestern or Dartmouth (personal preference).

At the bachelors level, HYPS most likely.

I'm sure they were talking about HYPS, but that really doesn't apply to law firm hiring.

[keg411]

So-called "public Ivies" such as University of Michigan and Berkeley were not considered elite or even prestigious...

Ouch.

Pretty sure this is in reference to undergrad (HYPS) and not law school.

[Kronk]

Stanford and Harvard are the best schools across the board for all graduate degrees. Yale doesn't hold up as well as the other two.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Yeah, obviously the "top 4" reference doesn't apply to law firm hiring so much, but replace it with T3/T6/T10/T14 and everything else seems pretty directly relevant to me.

[c3pO4]

This study doesn't take geography into account.

A Cal degree goes farther than every east coast school except Harvard or MIT in the Bay Area. And for half the hiring managers in the Bay, who went to Cal, it goes farther than a Stanford degree. And if you want to work at a startup and you went to Columbia or even Harvard humanities and you are up against a Cal Math or CS or Business major, you will be viewed as a carpetbagger and not get the job.

Only Google and Facebook care about ivy prestigiousness, and they still overwhelmingly hire from Cal. The study lost all credibility when it said Cal and Michigan were "tier 2" schools. Cal's EECS program is the best. Lol at people who paid sticker at an Ivy instead of going to a world class public research university.

[Veyron]

Are the top four schools the same in all three of these industries?

For law they used HYS "and to a lesser extent" C.

[foxtrottortxof]

This sounds about right. I didn't look at the article itself, but most of this applies to the screening stage. Once you're past that, interviewing skills seem like a huge factor, at least anecdotally.

[rayiner]

Stanford and Harvard are the best schools across the board for all graduate degrees. Yale doesn't hold up as well as the other two.

Stanford is top-5 in: Medicine, Law, Business, and Engineering.
Harvard is top-5 in: Medicine, Law, Business, way lower in engineering.
Yale is top-5 in: Medicine, Law, way lower in business and engineering.

[rayiner]

Only Google and Facebook care about ivy prestigiousness, and they still overwhelmingly hire from Cal. The study lost all credibility when it said Cal and Michigan were "tier 2" schools.

Now is Google a law firm, investment bank, or consulting company? Not to say that Google isn't right up with those these days since they're paying entry-level engineers $100k+bonus now, but that's not what the study was looking at.

Also, for law, I think it's definitely appropriate to draw the line at the top 3, at least on the east coast and in ITE. At least in the V25, the hiring matrix doesn't even really consider T2/T3/T4 schools. At a place like Cleary you've got like 1/3 HYS, 1/3 CCN, 1/4 T7-14, plus literally 5-7 folks from Fordham, BLS, etc. Kinda hard to call Michigan a "Tier 1" school in that circumstance when there is almost nothing below them.

[c3pO4]

Only Google and Facebook care about ivy prestigiousness, and they still overwhelmingly hire from Cal. The study lost all credibility when it said Cal and Michigan were "tier 2" schools.

Now is Google a law firm, investment bank, or consulting company? Not to say that Google isn't right up with those these days since they're paying entry-level engineers $100k+bonus now, but that's not what the study was looking at.

Also, for law, I think it's definitely appropriate to draw the line at the top 3, at least on the east coast and in ITE. At least in the V25, the hiring matrix doesn't even really consider T2/T3/T4 schools. At a place like Cleary you've got like 1/3 HYS, 1/3 CCN, 1/4 T7-14, plus literally 5-7 folks from Fordham, BLS, etc. Kinda hard to call Michigan a "Tier 1" school in that circumstance when there is almost nothing below them.

OK i am just talking about undergrad degrees -- i thought that was what the study meant about public ivies.

[rayiner]

Only Google and Facebook care about ivy prestigiousness, and they still overwhelmingly hire from Cal. The study lost all credibility when it said Cal and Michigan were "tier 2" schools.

Now is Google a law firm, investment bank, or consulting company? Not to say that Google isn't right up with those these days since they're paying entry-level engineers $100k+bonus now, but that's not what the study was looking at.

Also, for law, I think it's definitely appropriate to draw the line at the top 3, at least on the east coast and in ITE. At least in the V25, the hiring matrix doesn't even really consider T2/T3/T4 schools. At a place like Cleary you've got like 1/3 HYS, 1/3 CCN, 1/4 T7-14, plus literally 5-7 folks from Fordham, BLS, etc. Kinda hard to call Michigan a "Tier 1" school in that circumstance when there is almost nothing below them.

OK i am just talking about undergrad degrees -- i thought that was what the study meant about public ivies.

Even for undergrad, there is a big gap between HYPS and the public ivies for banking and consulting.
For engineering I think prestige is starting to matter more than it used to, though the "top 4" is different (I'd say Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Berkeley). But at places like Google and Facebook going to Berkeley or Stanford versus say going to Michigan really does matter.

[c3pO4]

Only Google and Facebook care about ivy prestigiousness, and they still overwhelmingly hire from Cal. The study lost all credibility when it said Cal and Michigan were "tier 2" schools.

Now is Google a law firm, investment bank, or consulting company? Not to say that Google isn't right up with those these days since they're paying entry-level engineers $100k+bonus now, but that's not what the study was looking at.

Also, for law, I think it's definitely appropriate to draw the line at the top 3, at least on the east coast and in ITE. At least in the V25, the hiring matrix doesn't even really consider T2/T3/T4 schools. At a place like Cleary you've got like 1/3 HYS, 1/3 CCN, 1/4 T7-14, plus literally 5-7 folks from Fordham, BLS, etc. Kinda hard to call Michigan a "Tier 1" school in that circumstance when there is almost nothing below them.

OK i am just talking about undergrad degrees -- i thought that was what the study meant about public ivies.

Even for undergrad, there is a big gap between HYPS and the public ivies for banking and consulting.
For engineering I think prestige is starting to matter more than it used to, though the "top 4" is different (I'd say Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Berkeley). But at places like Google and Facebook going to Berkeley or Stanford versus say going to Michigan really does matter.

yes that is all fine. im just talking shit about east coast ivys. banking can take 'em. that's a trash industry. in 2011, US competitiveness and the most cutting edge work is in technology.

[Kronk]

Stanford and Harvard are the best schools across the board for all graduate degrees. Yale doesn't hold up as well as the other two.

Stanford is top-5 in: Medicine, Law, Business, and Engineering.
Harvard is top-5 in: Medicine, Law, Business, way lower in engineering.
Yale is top-5 in: Medicine, Law, way lower in business and engineering.

So you agree, then.

[ben4847]

Ok, I will now refute this article.

1. Most applications practically go straight in the trash.

Because professionals balanced recruitment responsibilities with full-time client work, they often screened resumes while commuting to and from the office and client sites; in trains, planes, and taxis; frequently late at night and over take out... [E]valuators tended to do so very rapidly, typically bypassing cover letters (only about fifteen percent reported even looking at them) and transcripts and reported spending between 10 s to 4 min per resume.

That is ridiculous. The initial evaluators in law firms are recruiters who have no other job besides this. They don't do it while commuting.

2. Evaluators have a lot of slack. In fact, evaluators explicitly select candidates similar to themselves in school rank, grades, etc. For example:

[R]oughly one-third of evaluators did not use educational prestige as a signal. One of the
primary differences between these two groups was their own educational history, with those who had attended "top" schools being more likely to use educational prestige as a screen than those who had attended other types of selective institutions.

Ok, so this definitely doesn't apply to the recruiters, and among the attorneys, it isn't true either. They absolutely do use educational prestige as a screen. You literally need to go to one of the very best schools in the country, or be at the absolute top of your class.

3. Super-elite credentials matter much more than your academic record:

[E]valuators drew strong distinctions between top four universities, schools that I term the super-elite, and other types of selective colleges and universities. So-called "public Ivies" such as University of Michigan and Berkeley were not considered elite or even prestigious...

As has been pointed out, this cannot be talking about law schools. Does Michigan place worse than NU for being public? Yes, we know how it works- UNNWR ranking for the most part.

6. Grades do matter somewhat, but mostly as a cut-off. They're a signal of work ethic more than IQ:

[M]ost evaluators did not believe that grades were an indicator of intelligence. Rather, they provided a straightforward and "fair" way to rank candidates, particularly those within a given school... [G]rades were used to measure a candidate's moral qualities. An attorney (Asian-American, male), believed that grades were an indication of a candidate's coping skills, "It tells me how they can handle stress; if they'd had their feet to the flames before. If they've gotten good grades at a very competitive school, they're probably pretty sharp and can take care of themselves."

Matters, but only as a cut off? I don't even know what that means. If you look at placement, you will see the top of the class going to more selective firms, the middle going to less selective, and the bottom going to MTal land. You want to call that a cutoff- whatever.

As for the rest of the conclusion, I have no reason to think they are accurate either, in such a sloppy study.

[Veyron]

^ (Didn't read the paper)