Bad Interview Moments Forum

[DJ JD]

Screener interview:

Interviewer: so what kind of practice are you interested in?

Me: I'm interested in transactional IP, but also generally corporate.

Interviewer: but if you had to pick one, which?

Me: well I guess transactional IP.

Interviewer: I'm going to be honest, we pretty much only do that in [other office]

(Well then why did your website say otherwise???)

No offer.

Always go corporate. Alwaysssss.

[star fox]

Confession:

Two CBs in one day, in the 8th or 9th interview of the day my brain shut down. Interview w/ Partner (who btw went on to tell me the "most important characteristic" you can have as a lawyer is to "take your work home with you and think about it constantly").

Ask partner what factors have led them to join the firm, and then what has made them stay w/ the firm. Partner answers. Brain dead me follows up with the EXACT same question.

Response: "You just asked that." Silence.

This all occurred two minutes into the interview. A long 28 minutes followed

Hey interviewers ask that to me (in a "your answer was bullshit" kinda way). Fair game!

[DJ JD]

I actually tried to back my way into an answer, saying that, while I couldn't think of a character, I know what kind of traits the character would have. I said he would be genuine, friendly, patient, enthusiastic, etc. And I kind of made light of whole thing by noting how, given those characteristics, it was essentially impossible to peg them to a particular movie character. Yet the D-bag still was like "if you think of someone, email me."

WTF, why didn't you just BS a random character in the first place. I'm pretty sure the first character you could think of would be a better answer. Either you name someone really good... great; that's a win. Or you name someone whose a piece of shit, and you made a joke. As long as you didn't say Bill Cosby or something, you'd be fine, and he isn't even a movie character.

[El Pollito]

Screener interview:

Interviewer: so what kind of practice are you interested in?

Me: I'm interested in transactional IP, but also generally corporate.

Interviewer: but if you had to pick one, which?

Me: well I guess transactional IP.

Interviewer: I'm going to be honest, we pretty much only do that in [other office]

(Well then why did your website say otherwise???)

No offer.

a lot of firms never update their websites, so they often no longer accurately reflect the practice. i know mine doesn't and there's basically no way to figure out what we do without talking to someone before interviewing. fun, right?

[Anonymous User]

Screener asks behavioral question. I panic internally but manage to embellish a somewhat related story.

"well you seem to have a really great grasp of xyz experience, or you're a really great bullshitter."

me: "the former i hope... but not 100% sure"

--> CB

[iamgeorgebush]

Screener interview:

Interviewer: so what kind of practice are you interested in?

Me: I'm interested in transactional IP, but also generally corporate.

Interviewer: but if you had to pick one, which?

Me: well I guess transactional IP.

Interviewer: I'm going to be honest, we pretty much only do that in [other office]

(Well then why did your website say otherwise???)

No offer.

easy mistake to make (i've made it), and it goes to show you really can't rely on a firm's practice area descriptions on its website website for an accurate depiction of the kind of work the office actually does. firm websites are marketing tools, so of course they will say the firm is expert in everything (regardless of whether this is true). if you want to do a particular type of work like IP transactions, look up the partners at the office and see how many of them specialize in that practice. if the number is low (or worse yet, zero), then do not tell them you want to practice in that area. (one way to tell if the partner specializes in the practice is by looking at her representative matters list on her bio or, better yet, press releases for recent deals.)

[PennBull]

Screener interview:

Interviewer: so what kind of practice are you interested in?

Me: I'm interested in transactional IP, but also generally corporate.

Interviewer: but if you had to pick one, which?

Me: well I guess transactional IP.

Interviewer: I'm going to be honest, we pretty much only do that in [other office]

(Well then why did your website say otherwise???)

No offer.

Always go corporate. Alwaysssss.

this.

[PennBull]

a lot of firms never update their websites, so they often no longer accurately reflect the practice. i know mine doesn't and there's basically no way to figure out what we do without talking to someone before interviewing. fun, right?

I don't know why this isn't common knowledge. The only thing you should rely on firm websites for are their recent news releases for deals/cases

[Anonymous User]

That's crazy. Thankfully my firm does a very good job of keeping their website up to date. They actually rank the attorney's listed practice areas/sub-specialties on the site based on how much of each type of work they do. The bios even go into depth about what an attorney's niche is. Plus you can see a pretty up to date list of representative transactions/representations.

Here, it'd be pretty hard to mess up what someone does, but looking at other sites, I see how that's an easy mistake to make.

[Anonymous User]

I actually tried to back my way into an answer, saying that, while I couldn't think of a character, I know what kind of traits the character would have. I said he would be genuine, friendly, patient, enthusiastic, etc. And I kind of made light of whole thing by noting how, given those characteristics, it was essentially impossible to peg them to a particular movie character. Yet the D-bag still was like "if you think of someone, email me."

WTF, why didn't you just BS a random character in the first place. I'm pretty sure the first character you could think of would be a better answer. Either you name someone really good... great; that's a win. Or you name someone whose a piece of shit, and you made a joke. As long as you didn't say Bill Cosby or something, you'd be fine, and he isn't even a movie character.

I guess I just sort of blanked. I was flipping through all my fav movies in my head, realizing I couldn't possibly say anyone from those movies. Ended up overthinking and just drawing a blank.

[hdunlop]

Screener asks behavioral question. I panic internally but manage to embellish a somewhat related story.

"well you seem to have a really great grasp of xyz experience, or you're a really great bullshitter."

me: "the former i hope... but not 100% sure"

--> CB

TCR: "Both."

[star fox]

Do any movies feature a diligent corporate attorney who chugs away 80 hours a week?

[Anonymous User]

This actually happened to me lol:

Me: I'm so excited to meet you since you're one of the associates who does X.
Interviewer: Oh, we don't really do much of that here anymore since the economy and whatnot. You do keep up with economy trends, right?


No offer

[L’Étranger]

Oh and my friend forgot his padfolio in the hotel room, so he went back to get it. He knocked several times but decided to go in since the door wasn't fully closed. When he picked up his padfolio, he saw that the partner was taking a dump in the bathroom and didn't close the bathroom door. No cb.

Awesome

[Anonymous User]

I did a screener interview for a law prof position. They sent the names of the profs that would be on the call, so I read up on them. During the call, I asked about one professor's work in some subject, and the prof said, "umm, that's actually [the name of a different prof on the call]." Everyone laughed--and not a "we're laughing with you" sort of laugh. I wasn't going to get the job either way, but I was a little bitter about it for a few weeks.

[baal hadad]

Interviewer: What movie character would you say you are most like.

Me: Well, I sort of use movies as an escape, to see the types of characters we can never be. For example, no one could ever be as brave as some of the heroes you see in these movies. So I love movies precisely because I could never do or be like the people I'm watching (I'm thinking that was a good enough brush away to get him to move on).

Interviewer: Nah, I'd like to hear what movie character you are most like.

Me: Um, I'm not really sure.

Interviewer: Ok, well how about you email me once you have an answer.

Me: Uh, ok.

Sgt Barnes from platoon

[rpupkin]

"Do you have any questions for us?"

"I think your website pretty much covered everything."

I prefaced a really in depth question with something like this. The interviewer didn't know the answer to any of my questions. I learned that the conventional advice of "don't ask something you can find on the website" doesn't apply to firms with really detailed websites. No CB

Aside from having to proof my bio page, I have not looked at a single page on my firm's web site since joining the firm. I think the same is true of most attorneys.

Seriously, I often learn things about my own firm when an interviewee asks me a question about something they've read on the firm's web site. Typical conversation:

Interview candidate: "I saw you guys were awarded X firm of the year by Z magazine for your work in Y. Are you guys getting more Y cases these days?"

Me: "Really? Cool! Uh, yeah, our Y practice is going strong."

[PennBull]

so tired of candidates putting "[LANGUAGE]: basic" on their resume like we give a flying actual fuck about your ability to ask someone where the fucking toilet is in indonesian

[WashingtonIrving]

Callback interview:
Me: So what do you do?
Partner: You don't know?
Me: No.
Partner: Did you read my bio?
Me: No.
Partner: You didn't?
Me: No.
Partner: Really.
(awkward silence)

[Companion Cube]

Callback interview:
Me: So what do you do?
Partner: You don't know?
Me: No.
Partner: Did you read my bio?
Me: No.
Partner: You didn't?
Me: No.
Partner: Really.
(awkward silence)

I'm sorry you had a bad interview but just how did you think that would play out?

[NycReturn]

Interviewer: What movie character would you say you are most like.

Me: Well, I sort of use movies as an escape, to see the types of characters we can never be. For example, no one could ever be as brave as some of the heroes you see in these movies. So I love movies precisely because I could never do or be like the people I'm watching (I'm thinking that was a good enough brush away to get him to move on).

Interviewer: Nah, I'd like to hear what movie character you are most like.

Me: Um, I'm not really sure.

Interviewer: Ok, well how about you email me once you have an answer.

Me: Uh, ok.

Brutal.

Should have Harvey Specter, obviously.

Andy Dufresne

[Pneumonia]

"Do you have any questions for us?"

"I think your website pretty much covered everything."

I prefaced a really in depth question with something like this. The interviewer didn't know the answer to any of my questions. I learned that the conventional advice of "don't ask something you can find on the website" doesn't apply to firms with really detailed websites. No CB

Aside from having to proof my bio page, I have not looked at a single page on my firm's web site since joining the firm. I think the same is true of most attorneys.

Seriously, I often learn things about my own firm when an interviewee asks me a question about something they've read on the firm's web site. Typical conversation:

Interview candidate: "I saw you guys were awarded X firm of the year by Z magazine for your work in Y. Are you guys getting more Y cases these days?"

Me: "Really? Cool! Uh, yeah, our Y practice is going strong."

This is pretty evident from a candidate's perspective as well. We had a "mock" interview program at my school last year and, not one, but two interviewers provided bios that contained multiple and flagrant spelling errors (one even had his name misspelled within his own bio- think "Mr. Simth is particularly accomplished in..." And these were essentially just screenshots from the firm website.

Stakes were low so I called the interviewers' attention to the mistakes. They responded predictably, and I did not do the same during actual OCI (even though errors were equally abundant).

[WashingtonIrving]

Callback interview:
Me: So what do you do?
Partner: You don't know?
Me: No.
Partner: Did you read my bio?
Me: No.
Partner: You didn't?
Me: No.
Partner: Really.
(awkward silence)

I'm sorry you had a bad interview but just how did you think that would play out?

I mean, there are several ways that an interviewer can handle that without making things awkward. She could just answer the question in the first place, for example. If an interviewer asks me, "So, what did you do this summer?" I don't generally respond, "You don't know? Did you read my resume?"

[baal hadad]

Callback interview:
Me: So what do you do?
Partner: You don't know?
Me: No.
Partner: Did you read my bio?
Me: No.
Partner: You didn't?
Me: No.
Partner: Really.
(awkward silence)

That's not a horror story

[BizBro]

to be fair, you could have simply asked the question differently; i.e. "can you tell me a bit about your practice?"