Interests On Resume Forum

[Nebby]

*Gets answer to question with super easy solution*
*Vigorously fights answer*

Because I don't like the answer and genuinely created this thread to flesh out what the actual reasons for it are. I've become somewhat swayed as a result.

[Nebby]

Is "astronomy" a legitimate interest? Like, I double majored in humanities degrees, but liked astronomy so much I took multiple hard science classes on it and even wrote a white paper on theoretical rocket propulsion. I highly doubt any screener will have the same sentiments as me.

[kckool7]

Is "astronomy" a legitimate interest? Like, I double majored in humanities degrees, but liked astronomy so much I took multiple hard science classes on it and even wrote a white paper on theoretical rocket propulsion. I highly doubt any screener will have the same sentiments as me.

I think so. Maybe they have a telescope. Maybe their kid has a telescope.

[hurldes]

personally I'm not including an interests section ... I'm a young intelligent attractive outgoing (did i mention attractive?)... I'm not an antisocial, type-A gunner with no interests, so i doubt i need to prove it to them before being selected to interview. getting the interview likely will not depend on your interests section ... the actual meeting w/ the interviewer will give them the impression of whether they like you or not. just because you both like to swim in the ocean does not mean you will get the job. they'll know if ur undesirable from just talking to you for a few minutes...

Yeah but I'd much rather talk about something I'm interested in for those few minutes.

[Nebby]

Fine. You all win.

[A. Nony Mouse]

personally I'm not including an interests section ... I'm a young intelligent attractive outgoing (did i mention attractive?)... I'm not an antisocial, type-A gunner with no interests, so i doubt i need to prove it to them before being selected to interview. getting the interview likely will not depend on your interests section ... the actual meeting w/ the interviewer will give them the impression of whether they like you or not. just because you both like to swim in the ocean does not mean you will get the job. they'll know if ur undesirable from just talking to you for a few minutes...

I don't get how not listing interests on your resume proves before you get the interview that you're not a type A gunner with no interests. It just seems like if it's something you can use to create a connection during the interview, why not do that? Unless you list reddit, they pretty much only help, and don't hurt.

One firm that came to my school sent someone who didn't practice, only hired people. She didn't ask anyone anything about law/law school, only about their interests. A friend of mine spent her whole interview talking about running.

And Nebby, hobbies are interests. I have knitting on mine.

[kalvano]

If you have really good grades, have some fun with it. List things like "punishing those who oppose me."

[jrf12886]

I took it off my resume. I don't want to discuss my real interests (video games, drinking) and I don't want to fake discuss my fake interests (hiking, running, blah blah...).

[heavoldgotjuice]

personally I'm not including an interests section ... I'm a young intelligent attractive outgoing (did i mention attractive?)... I'm not an antisocial, type-A gunner with no interests, so i doubt i need to prove it to them before being selected to interview. getting the interview likely will not depend on your interests section ... the actual meeting w/ the interviewer will give them the impression of whether they like you or not. just because you both like to swim in the ocean does not mean you will get the job. they'll know if ur undesirable from just talking to you for a few minutes...

I don't get how not listing interests on your resume proves before you get the interview that you're not a type A gunner with no interests. It just seems like if it's something you can use to create a connection during the interview, why not do that? Unless you list reddit, they pretty much only help, and don't hurt.

One firm that came to my school sent someone who didn't practice, only hired people. She didn't ask anyone anything about law/law school, only about their interests. A friend of mine spent her whole interview talking about running.

And Nebby, hobbies are interests. I have knitting on mine.

what i thought i was saying to everyone was that you will be selected to interview based on your grades/rank/work experiences, rather than whether you have similar, or "interesting", interests. thus, your interests are not what get you in the door. once you've been selected to interview, then you prove yourself to be non-gunner-esque. if they really want to know your interests, then they will ask during the interview.

anyway, thats my 2 cents... it just doesn't seem likely that big law firms choose to interview people based off their interests alone. they could easily find that out during an interview. however, perhaps if person A and person B are exactly the same on paper (same grades, same school, same rank, same work experiences, etc.), then person A's similar interest to the interviewer will get them the interview rather than person B. still seems more likely they would give both persons an interview, then choose - that is, unless both person A and B are bottom of the barrel candidates for being chosen for an interview, but in that case it will effect <1% of all candidates.

[Nelson]

The point is to put 3-4 interesting conversation starters on there covering a range of topics because interviews are hard to do well, most lawyers that come to OCI aren't interview experts, and you aren't half as charming as you think you are. Make things go more smoothly for everyone by giving a couple of topics for softball questions to warm things up or if you hit an awkward patch.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, it's a lot easier for an interviewer to say, "I see you like hockey, how about that Stanley
Cup?" than it is for them to say "what are you interested in besides work?" And then you say "woodworking, international travel, and detective fiction," and they say, "oh."

Also, keep in mind that at places where you bid for OCI, I don't think firms even see your resume before the interview is scheduled. So it's not about getting you in the door.

[heavoldgotjuice]

*winning in poker*, *shooting guns*, *renting exotic cars*, and *eating sushi off naked women*

[SLS_AMG]

personally I'm not including an interests section ... I'm a young intelligent attractive outgoing (did i mention attractive?)... I'm not an antisocial, type-A gunner with no interests, so i doubt i need to prove it to them before being selected to interview. getting the interview likely will not depend on your interests section ... the actual meeting w/ the interviewer will give them the impression of whether they like you or not. just because you both like to swim in the ocean does not mean you will get the job. they'll know if ur undesirable from just talking to you for a few minutes...

1.) If you feel compelled to tell people on a message board that you're attractive, you aren't attractive.

2.) You seem like exactly the kind of person that needs an interest section.

HTH

[heavoldgotjuice]

personally I'm not including an interests section ... I'm a young intelligent attractive outgoing (did i mention attractive?)... I'm not an antisocial, type-A gunner with no interests, so i doubt i need to prove it to them before being selected to interview. getting the interview likely will not depend on your interests section ... the actual meeting w/ the interviewer will give them the impression of whether they like you or not. just because you both like to swim in the ocean does not mean you will get the job. they'll know if ur undesirable from just talking to you for a few minutes...

1.) If you feel compelled to tell people on a message board that you're attractive, you aren't attractive.

2.) You seem like exactly the kind of person that needs an interest section.

HTH

totes mcgotes bro, ur argument wins

[igo2northwestern]

I spoke with a recruiting professional before about this--"What could be so important on your résumé that you don't have enough space to include a few interests?"

The consensus appears to be that you should include it. Tbh the only people I've met, among management consultants, finance, recruiters, career counselors, lawyers, undergrads, etc., who were conflicted about this were law students for some reason. Not that it's a frivolous question, just personal experience. The others seemed to just accept this as the rule.

[Nelson]

The whole point of your resume for OCI is to generate talking points. You don't have any real legal experience so they aren't looking for that, they're looking to see if they like you (if you have the grades) or they're looking to kill 30 minutes (if you don't). What you want to do is tailor each item on your resume in a way that gives them an easy hook into a conversation. It's why you put your thesis title on if you wrote one in UG. It's why the more specific you can be about the work you did 1L summer the better (not in terms of skills because who gives a crap about your memo writing ability, but in terms of legal topics that lend themselves to conversations). It's why your previous job descriptions should be as interesting and unique sounding as you can make them. You just need to generate 20 minutes of questions from them followed by mildly entertaining stories from you. Add 10 minutes of questions designed to show you read the firm website for 15 minutes and you're done. Why give up a chance for free gimme questions by leaving off interests?

[DellE6500]

personally I'm not including an interests section ... I'm a young intelligent attractive outgoing (did i mention attractive?)... I'm not an antisocial, type-A gunner with no interests, so i doubt i need to prove it to them before being selected to interview. getting the interview likely will not depend on your interests section ... the actual meeting w/ the interviewer will give them the impression of whether they like you or not. just because you both like to swim in the ocean does not mean you will get the job. they'll know if ur undesirable from just talking to you for a few minutes...

I don't get how not listing interests on your resume proves before you get the interview that you're not a type A gunner with no interests. It just seems like if it's something you can use to create a connection during the interview, why not do that? Unless you list reddit, they pretty much only help, and don't hurt.

One firm that came to my school sent someone who didn't practice, only hired people. She didn't ask anyone anything about law/law school, only about their interests. A friend of mine spent her whole interview talking about running.

And Nebby, hobbies are interests. I have knitting on mine.

what i thought i was saying to everyone was that you will be selected to interview based on your grades/rank/work experiences, rather than whether you have similar, or "interesting", interests. thus, your interests are not what get you in the door. once you've been selected to interview, then you prove yourself to be non-gunner-esque. if they really want to know your interests, then they will ask during the interview.

anyway, thats my 2 cents... it just doesn't seem likely that big law firms choose to interview people based off their interests alone. they could easily find that out during an interview. however, perhaps if person A and person B are exactly the same on paper (same grades, same school, same rank, same work experiences, etc.), then person A's similar interest to the interviewer will get them the interview rather than person B. still seems more likely they would give both persons an interview, then choose - that is, unless both person A and B are bottom of the barrel candidates for being chosen for an interview, but in that case it will effect <1% of all candidates.

Just thought I'd throw in my two cents. I was talking to a buddy from UG who now does recruiting for a big 4 firm. Granted the process is a bit different for them, but he described how their first round of interviews is fairly similar to an OGI. They've alrady seen some initial stuff like a resume and transcript. Now they're looking to see how much they like you, and then factor that into grades, WE, etc... when they're doing callbacks. He told me to always include an interests section because it gives the interviewers a place to start the conversation and see where things go from there. Makes them a lot more comfortable to begin with, and it sounds like they're expecting one.

Maybe thats just how they do it, though.

[Anonymous User]

I spoke with a recruiting professional before about this--"What could be so important on your résumé that you don't have enough space to include a few interests?"

The consensus appears to be that you should include it. Tbh the only people I've met, among management consultants, finance, recruiters, career counselors, lawyers, undergrads, etc., who were conflicted about this were law students for some reason. Not that it's a frivolous question, just personal experience. The others seemed to just accept this as the rule.

This. Former executive recruiting associate at a top 3 global headhunting firm. Even on high-level CEOs, gov't ministers, and senior university administrators, the best candidates (almost) universally have an interests section. Be that as it may, there are no hard and fast rules for resumes. In general though, if you have the attitude that you're an interesting and sociable person, you might as well throw 4-6 (I prefer 6) somewhat-elaborated interests at the bottom of your resume. You never know if one of those hooks will be the hook that happens to get you that extra bit of rapport needed to sway the interviewer to your side. It's, in my opinion, an absolute waste of a golden opportunity.

This is especially true for the OCI process where, grades aside, they're just looking for a personality fit. Virtually all law school students seem the same outside of school, grades, and personality. Use this to distinguish the personality piece. If your interests don't align with the interviewer, no harm, no foul. But if they do... #goldmine.

[kalvano]

At least two jobs I got during school were directly attributable to my interests section, and I'm pretty sure my actual job is because one of my interests led to a long discussion about how awesome Top Gear is.

[lawhopeful10]

Does "learning mandarin" count as an interest if you just started learning via books, audio CDs, ect.?

[Nebby]

Does "learning mandarin" count as an interest if you just started learning via books, audio CDs, ect.?

Yeah. I studied Arabic for two years in undergrad and have kept up with it via Rosetta Stone. I'd consider that an interest.

[Anonymous User]

Anonymous because my actual resume stuff: I just have a personal section with some facts and interests. I think it is good to have a bit more than just a list if you can manage it. For example I have "I enjoy sailing and hope to circumnavigate the globe one day" on there and for a while had "Avid reader and amateur author of post-apocalyptic literature." My thought is to try to lob a few softballs at the interviewer -- anything that might prompt a followup question.

[suzige]

i love learning how interesting my classmates are when we share our interests sections. it's total bs 90% of the time. For ex.. where the hell do you go hiking in chicago?

[Crowing]

I took it off my resume. I don't want to discuss my real interests (video games, drinking) and I don't want to fake discuss my fake interests (hiking, running, blah blah...).

Underrated post, lol

[Anonymous User]

Accidental anon