Anonymous User wrote:I'd love some opinions if possible. I only received 3 callbacks in over 20 screeners at EIP. I do have one offer, waiting to hear on one bc from last week, and one cb next week.
My question is why were my results so bad? My grades are median. I'm confident and make good eye contact and am not nervous in the interviews. These were actually 2 of my constant positives told to me both in moot court and mock interview.
I researched the firms and was prepared. Most of the screeners felt
Like a very good conversation. Including one where we were having a great time and really clicked. They dinged me.
Anyone have any idea what the problem could possibly be/have been? I really don't know....
A few thoughts, in no particular order:
1. More than a few people have given off the impression that with median grades and "decent" interview that they should be expecting a callback from Firm X. This is not the case. There are only a handful of firms where given requisite grades the callback is yours to lose (ex. SullCrom, Quinn, Patterson). At the rest you more than likely have to actively impress with a combination of grades/personality/motivation/etc. to get a callback. It's no use questioning why you didn't get a CB with above-the-cutoff grades if your interview was "fine." I don't doubt it was. But firms aren't bullshitting when they say they have a lot more applicants who would be perfectly adequate associates than they can possibly give callbacks to. "Fine" usually isn't enough.
2. I feel like there is an overstatement of how many callbacks one "should" get. The average is between six and seven out of 20-ish screeners, but keep in mind it's a fairly right-skewed distribution. Some people will have 10+ (typically these people have a 3.6+ or are otherwise particularly compelling) but there is a huge mass getting four and five callbacks. This is a good thing to have in mind on the offer front, too. The average student gets 2.5 offers, but that distribution is right-skewed too. You know that 15% of the class struck out last year, but there is also a huge chunk (maybe 20-25%) that will only get one offer (granted, a few of those are the person getting their first choice first and cancelling the rest, but that isn't the bulk). If you have one, consider yourself lucky--the difference between zero offers and one offer is astronomically larger than the difference between one and any other number.
3. OCS' endorsement of your interview skills is a (probably) necessary but definitely not sufficient barometer of whether you actually come across as likable. They tell most students that they're fine. Which might be true, but again, "fine" is ordinarily not enough.
4. As has been stated, the process is, even with all the considerations, highly arbitrary. There are many things you can change to make yourself a better candidate, but you're still judged on many of the things that you can't (a lot of which involve the way you look). Whether you're assigned to the curmudgeonly partner or the cheerful associate is not up to you. Whether you happen to remind the partner of his son is not up to you. Whether you get an antsy, distracted interviewer in the slot right before lunch or a relaxed, satiated interviewer after lunch is not up to you.
