Well, obviously I can't know anything for sure, but it would seem logical that there are still firms that like to interview lots of people and then pick the very best candidates, and other firms that like to do most of the sifting in the screening round. However, of course it's possible that individual firms have changed their strategy, and the number of people hired may have changed as well.Anonymous User wrote:do you have any idea if that would hold true ITE?NewHere wrote:Not necessarily, but firms differ in how they handle their callback rounds. Some firms basically want to know that you don't commit any major faux pas, and are used to making offers to almost all callback students. Others like to invite two or three times as many students as they plan making offers to, and require fully positive reviews from all interviewers for an offer.Does one mediocre to bad interview kill you in callbacks?
I'm not sure the economy plays much into how callback decisions are made. (The economy will influence HOW MANY callbacks and offers are made, but I'm not sure it will influence HOW these decisions are made.) Example: if a firm intends to make 50 offers, they could choose to invite 50-55 people for a callback and intend to give most of them offers, except the ones that they realize were a mistake. Alternatively, they could invite, say, 200 people for a callback and give only 25% of those an offer. (Or anything in between those two extremes.) It may look like inviting 50 people rather than 200 saves time (and therefore money), and that's probably true, but presumably going the 50-callbacks route would involve spending more time in the first round (and for example sending a hiring partner to OCI, rather than a cheaper third-year associate), because it's essential to pick the right people right there and then, as it's harder to rely on subsequent interviewers to weed out unwanted candidates.
The 200-callbacks scheme on balance probably still costs more, but even so it's unlikely (at least it seems unlikely to me) that a firm will try to cut costs there. If they intend to hire 10 people rather than their usual 20, they have an incentive to hire 10 people that they really want. And firms have philosophies about how to get the people they really want, that I'm not sure would be changed by economic circumstances. If they think a good hire requires the consent of five independent interviewers, because people currently at the firm need to be able to work with the new hire, it seems unlikely that they'll depart from that view. If they believe they have experienced screening interviewers who can separate the perceived wheat from the perceived chaff, they may put more reliance on the initial interview. It is hard for me to believe that a firm that normally wants all interviewers to agree that someone is a good candidate will suddenly agree to hire candidates with a 3/5 interview score, just for the sake of having to do fewer callbacks. Conversely, it is also hard to believe that a firm that normally does a lot of screening at the initial interview and where individual callback interviews don't count for much will suddenly start to reject people at the callback stage, essentially requiring them to do more callbacks to reach their summer-class-size target.
