Ulterior Motives for CBs Forum

[Anonymous User]

There are CBs where the candidate has a very low chance coming in the door. Last year there was a guy who got hammered at a dinner for people who'd just gotten CBs. We didn't cancel his CB because that seemed too dramatic, but he had no chance of getting an offer after that point.

As for the law school relationship aspect, I think you're right that it's uncommon. The issue is that hiring needs change and firms may be booking OCI slots months in advance of the actual OCI. So they may book the OCI slots with genuine intent to hire people, but business needs can change in the intervening months leading up to OCI (heavier than expected pre-OCI hiring, economic shifts, partners leaving and taking clients with them, etc.). This wouldn't be like Cravath skipping Harvard. It'd be more like White & Case realizing things have slowed down to the point they no longer need to recruit at Hofstra this year.

Sure, but do we really think W&C is going to say "well darn, we don't need any Hofstra students this year, but we better let one of them come to our office and waste our lawyers' and their own time so we can save face with Hofstra." Hofstra is going to want W&C to come to campus regardless of who they call back or not, and W&C knows that.

PERHAPS this might happen vis-a-vis informal quotas from particular schools. I don't know for a fact, but I imagine my Boston firm will always try to hire someone from BU/BC. Again, I don't know this for a fact, but I could see my firm just calling back the top X candidates (roughly) from those schools. If there's a bad batch some year, some may not have as much of a chance, but that's different from saying "yeah this student has no shot at an offer but we're going to call them back anyway to save face."

I'm still interested in OP's take on what "genuine interest" means.

Lots of great insight ITT; thanks to all who have participated!

To clarify, by "genuine interest" I mean actual, legitimate willingness to hire the candidate. Having combed through the content on TLS, I understand the general consensus is that the CB stage is almost entirely about fit. In other words, if you get a callback, you're in the running for an offer, irrespective of grades, experience, ties, etc., all of which were already vetted prior to the CB.

This definitely makes sense when firms are footing the bill for in-person CBs, but I would think that if there are firms that call back candidates for ulterior motives (i.e., any reason other than a legitimate willingness to hire the candidate), they are more likely to do it now via virtual interviews than ever before. There's certainly a lot less to lose. On a related note, does the virtual CB option mean some firms are now less stringent in the screener to CB culling process, thereby resulting in CBs for candidates who firms would not have had genuine interest in had those candidates been properly vetted?

This isn't true. Candidates are not all equal, even at the callback stage. They may be taking a second look at you, especially if your grades are towards the lower end of their usual range from your school. Or the callback may be a mere formality, depending on the strength of your profile.

[nixy]

I think there’s a difference between saying “if you have a CB, you’re in the running for an offer, irrespective of qualifications” and “if you have a CB, you have the same chance at an offer as anyone else with a CB.” Being in the running for an offer doesn’t preclude having a worse shot than another person with a CB who has better grades/school pedigree/connections/screener performance than you; there are still going to be stronger and weaker CB candidates.

But I do think that generally, no one wastes their time interviewing candidates they *know* they won’t hire, and I don’t think most places are doing materially more CBs just because they can do them virtually (they would do more CBs if they weren’t getting the classes they want, which is an entirely different consideration). There’s no evidence firms have changed their vetting processes just because CBs are via Zoom.

So if you have a CB, you have a shot irrespective of grades, etc., in that you met some kind of hiring threshold - your grades aren’t so bad as to automatically prevent you from getting hired, for instance. But they still might the reason you don’t get hired, even if they like you at the CB, if your grades are worse than everyone else that they also liked and they can’t hire all of you.

[Anonymous User]

I think there’s a difference between saying “if you have a CB, you’re in the running for an offer, irrespective of qualifications” and “if you have a CB, you have the same chance at an offer as anyone else with a CB.” Being in the running for an offer doesn’t preclude having a worse shot than another person with a CB who has better grades/school pedigree/connections/screener performance than you; there are still going to be stronger and weaker CB candidates.

But I do think that generally, no one wastes their time interviewing candidates they *know* they won’t hire, and I don’t think most places are doing materially more CBs just because they can do them virtually (they would do more CBs if they weren’t getting the classes they want, which is an entirely different consideration). There’s no evidence firms have changed their vetting processes just because CBs are via Zoom.

So if you have a CB, you have a shot irrespective of grades, etc., in that you met some kind of hiring threshold - your grades aren’t so bad as to automatically prevent you from getting hired, for instance. But they still might the reason you don’t get hired, even if they like you at the CB, if your grades are worse than everyone else that they also liked and they can’t hire all of you.

+1. To quote OP, a firm has a "genuine interest" even if that interest is less than for other candidates. Examples where that interest approaches zero based on circumstances that occur after the CB offer is extended (e.g., drunken shenanigans, the class filling up, etc.) aren't really relevant to OP's Q. Maybe we've defined "genuine interest" circularly in a way that renders the distinction somewhat useless, but I think that definition is correct. Firms don't (maybe with the exception of the post a while back) offer a CB that they know couldn't possibly result in an offer.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

There are CBs where the candidate has a very low chance coming in the door. Last year there was a guy who got hammered at a dinner for people who'd just gotten CBs. We didn't cancel his CB because that seemed too dramatic, but he had no chance of getting an offer after that point.

As for the law school relationship aspect, I think you're right that it's uncommon. The issue is that hiring needs change and firms may be booking OCI slots months in advance of the actual OCI. So they may book the OCI slots with genuine intent to hire people, but business needs can change in the intervening months leading up to OCI (heavier than expected pre-OCI hiring, economic shifts, partners leaving and taking clients with them, etc.). This wouldn't be like Cravath skipping Harvard. It'd be more like White & Case realizing things have slowed down to the point they no longer need to recruit at Hofstra this year.

Sure, but do we really think W&C is going to say "well darn, we don't need any Hofstra students this year, but we better let one of them come to our office and waste our lawyers' and their own time so we can save face with Hofstra." Hofstra is going to want W&C to come to campus regardless of who they call back or not, and W&C knows that.

PERHAPS this might happen vis-a-vis informal quotas from particular schools. I don't know for a fact, but I imagine my Boston firm will always try to hire someone from BU/BC. Again, I don't know this for a fact, but I could see my firm just calling back the top X candidates (roughly) from those schools. If there's a bad batch some year, some may not have as much of a chance, but that's different from saying "yeah this student has no shot at an offer but we're going to call them back anyway to save face."

I'm still interested in OP's take on what "genuine interest" means.

Lots of great insight ITT; thanks to all who have participated!

To clarify, by "genuine interest" I mean actual, legitimate willingness to hire the candidate. Having combed through the content on TLS, I understand the general consensus is that the CB stage is almost entirely about fit. In other words, if you get a callback, you're in the running for an offer, irrespective of grades, experience, ties, etc., all of which were already vetted prior to the CB.

This definitely makes sense when firms are footing the bill for in-person CBs, but I would think that if there are firms that call back candidates for ulterior motives (i.e., any reason other than a legitimate willingness to hire the candidate), they are more likely to do it now via virtual interviews than ever before. There's certainly a lot less to lose. On a related note, does the virtual CB option mean some firms are now less stringent in the screener to CB culling process, thereby resulting in CBs for candidates who firms would not have had genuine interest in had those candidates been properly vetted?

Virtual likely doesn’t shift calculus too strongly, as the primary expense has always been attorney time. E.g, a 6th year associate interviewing you at 2 PM on a Tuesday would likely be billing work at $1000+ an hour if not for you.

[nixy]

Also, OP, just to add: most employers look for ways to spend less time on hiring, not more. So the fact that doing CBs virtually makes them arguably easier to do (though I agree with RIL about attorney time being the crucial issue) doesn't mean employers want to do more of them. Most employers would like to do fewer.

[Anonymous User]

We will absolutely do a courtesy callback if requested by a client, even if the candidate has no chance of getting an offer. If you want to avoid putting yourself in this situation, don’t ask or permit your parents or friends or other connections to try to pull strings for you. Be content to be considered (or not) on your own merits.

[Anonymous User]

We will absolutely do a courtesy callback if requested by a client, even if the candidate has no chance of getting an offer. If you want to avoid putting yourself in this situation, don’t ask or permit your parents or friends or other connections to try to pull strings for you. Be content to be considered (or not) on your own merits.

will this ever happen even if the client goes out of their way NOT to request a callback, but has spoken openly to the firm abt the fact that their kid is applying? are these courtesy CBs extended even absent a specific request? or is the idea (rightfully) that making the kid go thru the CB process for no reason is a waste of their time and will only aggravate the client/kid more than if the firm was just open abt there being no chance at the screener stage, since that way the kid could focus on CBs where they are actually competitive instead? or is there sometimes an incentive to hire a client's kid, if they would have been, say, a marginal candidate absent the connection?

[Anonymous User]

We will absolutely do a courtesy callback if requested by a client, even if the candidate has no chance of getting an offer. If you want to avoid putting yourself in this situation, don’t ask or permit your parents or friends or other connections to try to pull strings for you. Be content to be considered (or not) on your own merits.

will this ever happen even if the client goes out of their way NOT to request a callback, but has spoken openly to the firm abt the fact that their kid is applying? are these courtesy CBs extended even absent a specific request? or is the idea (rightfully) that making the kid go thru the CB process for no reason is a waste of their time and will only aggravate the client/kid more than if the firm was just open abt there being no chance at the screener stage, since that way the kid could focus on CBs where they are actually competitive instead? or is there sometimes an incentive to hire a client's kid, if they would have been, say, a marginal candidate absent the connection?

Usually the client/connection will understand that there’s little chance of the kid getting an offer, but wants to be able to tell kid or friend/colleague who asked them to pull strings, “Okay, I got you a callback, now you’re on your own.” And yes, it’s cruel, because then kid thinks they actually have a chance and blames themself for not getting an offer. If client specifically asks not to give a callback, then no, of course we’re not going to give a callback to a candidate who doesn’t have a chance. As for your other question, yes we will occasionally give an offer to someone who is a marginal candidate because of connections, but the operative term is “marginal candidate,” who is at least in the zone on their own merits.