Interviewee said he has an inheritance: auto ding? Forum

[Anonymous User]

thanks guys. im gonna ding him.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

IMO, if you're going to ding someone for any reason besides "I'm not confident he/she could be an excellent lawyer" or "I'm absolutely convinced this person is an asshole," you need a very, very good reason to do so. This isn't it. He has money so he's not going to be shackled by loans? Okay, fine, law students typically don't exactly come from the other side of the tracks. Then it's a question of his judgment on the answer: The upshot is that he said he wants to invest in a career but doesn't feel "pressured" to do so. Anything wrong with that? Nah. There's nothing even really wrong with saying that; it's just sort of a missed opportunity to highlight his focus. Turning that into a negative would be making a mountain out of a molehill.

But the fact that you'd even consider a ding for an answer like this shows a certain adherence to the omnipresent pedantry in this highly arbitrary process, so I'm guessing your mind's already made up.

But the problem is that there are a lot of qualified non-assholes going out for a very limited number of jobs. Firms can't give callbacks or offers to every candidate who, in the course of a 20 minute interview, doesn't prove that they wouldn't be a great attorney or is a complete asshole. 90% of candidates will pass this test in a 20 minute interview. So you do have to look for smaller things to distinguish candidates by. And forcing into the conversation how you just became a whole lot richer so you DGAF is just the kind of thing to distinguish someone. Is there a chance that this kid is still a good person and would make a great attorney? Sure. But you need something by which to distinguish candidates, and the vast majority of people would have the sense to not bring this up in an interview.

No one can judge everything that encompasses "fit" in twenty minutes. You can determine a lot of negative things--out-and-out assholes or complete aspies. But on the positive side, you can really only determine charisma. "Fit" encompasses a lot more than that--things that you often only discover over an extended period of time. And yeah, most people aren't going to fuck up in 20 minutes. That's why I think any firm that was deeply concerned about it would follow the Davis Polk model of erring on the side of more callbacks and making a comparatively lower percentage of offers from there. Yes, it's more expensive to do that, but it's also a hell of a lot more accurate.

And look, of course the process is arbitrary. It has to be. Probably 95% of the applicants can adequately do the work. But if it has to be so arbitrary, I'd much prefer applicants get every chance to make a decent impression. The kid's comment perhaps lacks a little tact, but if I were interviewing him I'd ask what he meant by that, probe a bit deeper into why he wants to work in a law firm, things like that.

ETA: I figured OP had his mind made up before he made the thread, so it's a little moot. Point still stands, though.

[hichvichwoh]

IMO, if you're going to ding someone for any reason besides "I'm not confident he/she could be an excellent lawyer" or "I'm absolutely convinced this person is an asshole," you need a very, very good reason to do so. This isn't it. He has money so he's not going to be shackled by loans? Okay, fine, law students typically don't exactly come from the other side of the tracks. Then it's a question of his judgment on the answer: The upshot is that he said he wants to invest in a career but doesn't feel "pressured" to do so. Anything wrong with that? Nah. There's nothing even really wrong with saying that; it's just sort of a missed opportunity to highlight his focus. Turning that into a negative would be making a mountain out of a molehill.

But the fact that you'd even consider a ding for an answer like this shows a certain adherence to the omnipresent pedantry in this highly arbitrary process, so I'm guessing your mind's already made up.

But the problem is that there are a lot of qualified non-assholes going out for a very limited number of jobs. Firms can't give callbacks or offers to every candidate who, in the course of a 20 minute interview, doesn't prove that they wouldn't be a great attorney or is a complete asshole. 90% of candidates will pass this test in a 20 minute interview. So you do have to look for smaller things to distinguish candidates by. And forcing into the conversation how you just became a whole lot richer so you DGAF is just the kind of thing to distinguish someone. Is there a chance that this kid is still a good person and would make a great attorney? Sure. But you need something by which to distinguish candidates, and the vast majority of people would have the sense to not bring this up in an interview.

No one can judge everything that encompasses "fit" in twenty minutes. You can determine a lot of negative things--out-and-out assholes or complete aspies. But on the positive side, you can really only determine charisma. "Fit" encompasses a lot more than that--things that you often only discover over an extended period of time. And yeah, most people aren't going to fuck up in 20 minutes. That's why I think any firm that was deeply concerned about it would follow the Davis Polk model of erring on the side of more callbacks and making a comparatively lower percentage from there. Yes, it's more expensive to do that, but it's also a hell of a lot more accurate.

And look, of course the process is arbitrary. It has to be. Probably 95% of the applicants can adequately do the work. But if it has to be so arbitrary, I'd much prefer applicants get every chance to make a decent impression. The kid's comment perhaps lacks a little tact, but if I were interviewing him I'd ask what he meant by that, probe a bit deeper into why he wants to work in a law firm, things like that.

sure, but you should still ding the ones who DO fuck up in 20 minutes, say by bringing up how they just became independently wealthy because their relative just died.

[Mredav44]

Interviewee sounds aspie, ding

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

No one can judge everything that encompasses "fit" in twenty minutes. You can determine a lot of negative things--out-and-out assholes or complete aspies. But on the positive side, you can really only determine charisma. "Fit" encompasses a lot more than that--things that you often only discover over an extended period of time. And yeah, most people aren't going to fuck up in 20 minutes. That's why I think any firm that was deeply concerned about it would follow the Davis Polk model of erring on the side of more callbacks and making a comparatively lower percentage from there. Yes, it's more expensive to do that, but it's also a hell of a lot more accurate.

And look, of course the process is arbitrary. It has to be. Probably 95% of the applicants can adequately do the work. But if it has to be so arbitrary, I'd much prefer applicants get every chance to make a decent impression. The kid's comment perhaps lacks a little tact, but if I were interviewing him I'd ask what he meant by that, probe a bit deeper into why he wants to work in a law firm, things like that.

sure, but you should still ding the ones who DO fuck up in 20 minutes, say by bringing up how they just became independently wealthy because their relative just died.

I think maybe we're just disagreeing on the difference between a concrete fuck-up and an answer someone just sort of stumbled over. Certainly he didn't win himself any points with that answer, but the question was whether his comment was an auto-ding. My bar for that would be higher than what the kid said. After all, saying you want to work for Firm X because your loans are so high that you really need the money has traditionally been ding-worthy; it's sort of bizarre that the exact opposite would be ding-worthy by itself as well. Interviewers aren't stupid; they know that 99% of kids are shooting for Biglaw because they either want the money or need it. His response doesn't reveal an actual problem of fit; it just implies an imperfect tact. And yeah, not a helpful answer for someone who was otherwise on the bubble. But suppose he was otherwise affable and HLS magna? Is it still enough to be an auto-ding?

[wert3813]

I think maybe we're just disagreeing on the difference between a concrete fuck-up and an answer someone just sort of stumbled over. Certainly he didn't win himself any points with that answer, but the question was whether his comment was an auto-ding. My bar for that would be higher than what the kid said. After all, saying you want to work for Firm X because your loans are so high that you really need the money has traditionally been ding-worthy; it's sort of bizarre that the exact opposite would be ding-worthy by itself as well. Interviewers aren't stupid; they know that 99% of kids are shooting for Biglaw because they either want the money or need it. His response doesn't reveal an actual problem of fit; it just implies an imperfect tact. And yeah, not a helpful answer for someone who was otherwise on the bubble. But suppose he was otherwise affable and HLS magna? Is it still enough to be an auto-ding?

So maybe not if you want to be literal about auto-ding. I'd be less worried about their debt level and more worried that that's a weird thing to say in that social context. It s/he going to say something weird in front of the client?

[sublime]

..

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I think maybe we're just disagreeing on the difference between a concrete fuck-up and an answer someone just sort of stumbled over. Certainly he didn't win himself any points with that answer, but the question was whether his comment was an auto-ding. My bar for that would be higher than what the kid said. After all, saying you want to work for Firm X because your loans are so high that you really need the money has traditionally been ding-worthy; it's sort of bizarre that the exact opposite would be ding-worthy by itself as well. Interviewers aren't stupid; they know that 99% of kids are shooting for Biglaw because they either want the money or need it. His response doesn't reveal an actual problem of fit; it just implies an imperfect tact. And yeah, not a helpful answer for someone who was otherwise on the bubble. But suppose he was otherwise affable and HLS magna? Is it still enough to be an auto-ding?

So maybe not if you want to be literal about auto-ding. I'd be less worried about their debt level and more worried that that's a weird thing to say in that social context. It s/he going to say something weird in front of the client?

Yeah, no doubt it's a negative. But so many students give the same canned bullshit answers to important questions that someone with something new can really stand out and do themselves a favor. So I'd consider this kid's statement to be less along the lines of "the figure skater fell and is hopelessly out of contention" and more "the gymnast didn't exactly stick the landing, but can still medal if the rest of his routine was really good."

[jbagelboy]

I made a joke about my student loan debt with an interviewer, but it seemed appropriate in context. Idk, not staple interview material though. Discussing family finances definitely displays some lack of tact, but other interviewees make similarly out of place statements and still get callbacks/hired. Also, as mono suggested, it's not like family wealth and inheritances aren't commonplace at elite law schools.

[twenty 8]

I’ve screened a number of candidates and occasionally tuition comes up in the interview. In some cases the candidate’s family has covered all or most of their debt or the candidate leveraged their debt by foregoing a higher (and most expensive) ranked school. While that may be of some interest it has yet to become a deciding factor in recommending a callback.

Saying their tuition is covered is fine, but why add that it was covered by an in heritance? Poor judgment never fares well.

[Learn_Live_Hope]

..

[should-i-do-it]

This is stupid. Your rejecting a bro because he's got some money. Don't be jealous dude.

[84651846190]

IMO, if you're going to ding someone for any reason besides "I'm not confident he/she could be an excellent lawyer" or "I'm absolutely convinced this person is an asshole," you need a very, very good reason to do so. This isn't it. He has money so he's not going to be shackled by loans? Okay, fine, law students typically don't exactly come from the other side of the tracks. Then it's a question of his judgment on the answer: The upshot is that he said he wants to invest in a career but doesn't feel "pressured" to do so. Anything wrong with that? Nah. There's nothing even really wrong with saying that; it's just sort of a missed opportunity to highlight his focus. Turning that into a negative would be making a mountain out of a molehill.

But the fact that you'd even consider a ding for an answer like this shows a certain adherence to the omnipresent pedantry in this highly arbitrary process, so I'm guessing your mind's already made up.

People with shitty social barometers make shitty lawyers. A big part of the job is being sociable/normal around clients/judges. You can't have people who have no idea what they're doing in social situations in your firm.

[A. Nony Mouse]

This is stupid. Your rejecting a bro because he's got some money. Don't be jealous dude.

Yeah, no.

[Anonymous User]

I would.

Speaking of, how is having low debt from schollies viewed. I am generally curious, as it may mean someone would be able to leave whenever they wanted.

Damn holy shit I never thought about it this way. I go to a regional school and whenever people ask why I chose it I say financially it made sense I didn't want to be 250k in debt blah blah but now I'm thinking about the angle that they worry without massive loans you won't hang around.

I disagree with this. If you don't have loans and are going into biglaw anyway, you're probably the most likely to stick around of anyone because biglaw was a mostly voluntary choice. Whereas those who are $250k in debt can only be counted on to stick around until the loans are down to a manageable size. I say this as an associate with no more loans left, though!

Back to the OP, sounds like a tone-deaf response. I would ding for failing to realize that this was a socially inappropriate thing to talk about in an interview. Don't care about the inheritance itself. Even discussing things that are to me unmitigated positives can get you a ding if talking about them unprompted shows a certain misunderstanding of social cues. (Would be different if the interviewer asked something comparably inappropriate such as "How much debt will have at graduation?" to which this would be a reasonable response, though a certain modesty about one's good fortune is always a positive ["I've been fortunate enough to have a small inheritance that covered my loans" is the right way to say this].)

[Learn_Live_Hope]

...

[Anonymous User]

I would.

Speaking of, how is having low debt from schollies viewed. I am generally curious, as it may mean someone would be able to leave whenever they wanted.

Damn holy shit I never thought about it this way. I go to a regional school and whenever people ask why I chose it I say financially it made sense I didn't want to be 250k in debt blah blah but now I'm thinking about the angle that they worry without massive loans you won't hang around.

I disagree with this. If you don't have loans and are going into biglaw anyway, you're probably the most likely to stick around of anyone because biglaw was a mostly voluntary choice. Whereas those who are $250k in debt can only be counted on to stick around until the loans are down to a manageable size. I say this as an associate with no more loans left, though!

Back to the OP, sounds like a tone-deaf response. I would ding for failing to realize that this was a socially inappropriate thing to talk about in an interview. Don't care about the inheritance itself. Even discussing things that are to me unmitigated positives can get you a ding if talking about them unprompted shows a certain misunderstanding of social cues. (Would be different if the interviewer asked something comparably inappropriate such as "How much debt will have at graduation?" to which this would be a reasonable response, though a certain modesty about one's good fortune is always a positive ["I've been fortunate enough to have a small inheritance that covered my loans" is the right way to say this].)

Thats a flawed reasoning, not to mention very naive. You cannot claim that those with "250K in debt can only be counted on to stick around until the loans are down to a manageable size."

How much you have in loans is irrelevant to you big law goals. There will be individuals with loans that are waiting to pay them off and run, and there will be individuals with desire to stay long after they pay off their loans.

It's not irrelevant at all. Most people with lots of loans do stick around until their loans are paid or manageable and then leave. True, there are exceptions to the rule, but we can't know that in advance. We have to make generalizations. Interviewing (not just in law, though legal interviews are exceptionally brief in duration and content-free) is all about making broad assumptions about people based on limited information.

In the end, it doesn't matter for the firms so much, but it does somewhat. Fifth year is around when someone who started with $250k in debt realistically has their debt down low enough or gone that biglaw is no longer necessary--and fifth year is exactly when you're most valuable and firms don't want you to leave. Whereas people who started voluntarily with little or no debt fall mostly into two categories: The illusioned, who are quickly stripped of their illusions and leave biglaw within a year or two (a loss, but not a huge one) and the masochistic, who mostly stick around until eighth or ninth year trying to make partner (from whom firms really make big money).

[Pikappraider]

Gonna be pretty funny when homeboy runs into this thread

[09042014]

Dinging him for having such a small trust fund right?

[FKASunny]

Gonna be pretty funny when homeboy runs into this thread

Came here to say this.

Also, I know some CSOs will pass anonymous interview feedback to the student. I would tell CSO about it and hopefully save this kid a lot of trouble going forward.

[arnoldpalmer36]

No one can judge everything that encompasses "fit" in twenty minutes. You can determine a lot of negative things--out-and-out assholes or complete aspies. But on the positive side, you can really only determine charisma. "Fit" encompasses a lot more than that--things that you often only discover over an extended period of time. And yeah, most people aren't going to fuck up in 20 minutes. That's why I think any firm that was deeply concerned about it would follow the Davis Polk model of erring on the side of more callbacks and making a comparatively lower percentage from there. Yes, it's more expensive to do that, but it's also a hell of a lot more accurate.

And look, of course the process is arbitrary. It has to be. Probably 95% of the applicants can adequately do the work. But if it has to be so arbitrary, I'd much prefer applicants get every chance to make a decent impression. The kid's comment perhaps lacks a little tact, but if I were interviewing him I'd ask what he meant by that, probe a bit deeper into why he wants to work in a law firm, things like that.

sure, but you should still ding the ones who DO fuck up in 20 minutes, say by bringing up how they just became independently wealthy because their relative just died.

I think maybe we're just disagreeing on the difference between a concrete fuck-up and an answer someone just sort of stumbled over. Certainly he didn't win himself any points with that answer, but the question was whether his comment was an auto-ding. My bar for that would be higher than what the kid said. After all, saying you want to work for Firm X because your loans are so high that you really need the money has traditionally been ding-worthy; it's sort of bizarre that the exact opposite would be ding-worthy by itself as well. Interviewers aren't stupid; they know that 99% of kids are shooting for Biglaw because they either want the money or need it. His response doesn't reveal an actual problem of fit; it just implies an imperfect tact. And yeah, not a helpful answer for someone who was otherwise on the bubble. But suppose he was otherwise affable and HLS magna? Is it still enough to be an auto-ding?

The opposite is ding-worthy as well because you don't use finances as a reason for working somewhere. You say you want to work somewhere because you love specific aspects of the firm and the work they do. That's not just in law interviews, that's in every job interview you're in. Not only unnecessarily bringing up your independent wealth (which is obnoxious in any social context), but using it to basically tell a firm that you're much less concerned about your future or how you do at that firm, is a bigger screw-up than 95% of people will make in a screener. If this is how the kid performs once in a 20 minute time span with one chance to prove himself, imagine how he'll act throughout his career. I would certainly ding him for this.

[First Offense]

Basically - don't bring up money in an interview unless you have a DAMN good reason for it.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Don't auto ding because he's rich, auto ding because he sounds like a jackass who also basically told you explicitly that he doesn't want to invest his time or energy in the firm.

[Anonymous User]

How is this not an auto-ding? Really? MB i'm a dick but I'm a JR associate and when i interview people at my firm, i auto-ding people for FAR LESS. My firm does like 25-30% CB to offer rates so in my mind it shouldn't take a HUGE lapse/weird ASS lapse in judgment like this to be auto dinged.

Pretty much any lapses in judgment during a 30 minute interview is an autoding. Its not hard to avoid say something weird/fucked up in 30 minutes...

[Anonymous User]

Gonna be pretty funny when homeboy runs into this thread

Came here to say this.

Also, I know some CSOs will pass anonymous interview feedback to the student. I would tell CSO about it and hopefully save this kid a lot of trouble going forward.

Yeah I learned that the hard way. Cso told me the dude from a v20 was raving about how great I was and great questions etc, but that he was taken aback when I accidentally slipped a curse word in the interview :-/. I am not expecting a callback lol