University of Chicago Employment Forum

[rayiner]

The offer rate is largely useless because it's not a predictor of future performance.

Slightly disagree, since I think it's useful as part of the big picture. The aggregate of the past 3 years summer class sizes, offer rate, starting salary, layoff news, and deferal news paint a pretty solid picture of firm financial strength and management style when compared across firms.

The offer rate is almost entirely a function of of the transient gap between 2008 over-hiring and available work in 2009. I think it does give insight into firm management style, but I don't think that information is particularly useful at the bidding stage where you have 50 or so bids to work with. There aren't enough healthy firms to fill your bid list with even mostly those, and in a lottery system your bid ordering should be more concerned with gaming based on firm popularity and class size than second-order stuff like firm health.

[bwv812]

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[procrocodile]

Could someone please send the info to me also?

Thanks - anonemail84@gmail.com

Done

It's a little late in the game, but could you send it one more time?

procrocodile@gmail.com

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know the general breakdown (word of mouth or numbers) on how many people end up applying to LA, Chi, NYC markets for U Chicago's OCI bid?

[dresden doll]

And Vault ranking isn't really that relevant at the bidding stage.

The reason I used Vault ranking is because I have an inkling that it's indicative of a given firm's popularity with my classmates. I just tend to think that a lot of people will look up Vault and bid more heavily on those firms that are ranked more highly. Absent actual bidding stats, it's as good of an approximation as I can think of.

Bwv, thanks for the suggestion.

[Anonymous User]

People in recent years end up in the following markets at the following percentages:

35-40% = Chicago. 15-20% = New York City. 10-20% = Washington, DC. 10-15% = California. 3-5% = Texas. 3% = New England.

I don't know what this says about where people apply.

[Anonymous User]

Could someone please send the info to me also?

Thanks - anonemail84@gmail.com

Done

I'd like to take a last minute look at this if anyone is up this morning. Thanks.

throwawaymail22@gmail.com

[dresden doll]

Bidding period extended. Eh, so much for staying up till close to 2 last night to get everything in.

[rynabrius]

dd: Same boat here. I was so happy to wake up this morning and be all done. Now I find that I have to spend more time agonizing over this.

I have become convinced that, given the paucity of information, constructing a bid list is a paradox of choice-type situation. Best to be a satisficer, since the 'best' answer is undiscoverable.

[dresden doll]

^Yeah, I stayed up till 2 last night to get everything in so I wouldn't have to scramble this morning. I could really have used that sleep, dammit. Now, knowing myself, I will be revisiting the Excel spreadsheet to shuffle data around for the millionth time over.

[iwantawhiteiphone4]

I have become convinced that, given the paucity of information, constructing a bid list is a paradox of choice-type situation. Best to be a satisficer, since the 'best' answer is undiscoverable.

You're wrong! I'm sure there's some way to order my bid list so I'll get at least 40 interviews, 30 callbacks, and 20 offers.

I was also up to 2 am - but I deleted my excel spreadsheet, so I can't make changes now. Does anyone know when we find out which firms we're interviewing with?

[doyleoil]

I have become convinced that, given the paucity of information, constructing a bid list is a paradox of choice-type situation. Best to be a satisficer, since the 'best' answer is undiscoverable.

You're wrong! I'm sure there's some way to order my bid list so I'll get at least 40 interviews, 30 callbacks, and 20 offers.

I was also up to 2 am - but I deleted my excel spreadsheet, so I can't make changes now. Does anyone know when we find out which firms we're interviewing with?

the original "important dates" list they gave us said the schedule would be released on friday the 13th (ominous, i know) - not sure if the extended bidding deadline changes that or not

[usaojeff]

I'm sorry. I must be totally missing something. But why all the stress about bidding, anyway? I just researched the firms and bid on the ones I thought I would fit in at the best. Is that the wrong way to go about this thing?

[doyleoil]

I'm sorry. I must be totally missing something. But why all the stress about bidding, anyway? I just researched the firms and bid on the ones I thought I would fit in at the best. Is that the wrong way to go about this thing?

Because it's a pure lottery system, people think they can game it to get more interviews by bidding strategically. I'm not really sure it's possible to do that (too many variables), other than by (1) following OCS's advice not to bid on too many markets and (2) not wasting bids on firms that will be clearly out of your reach, given your GPA, etc.

I think number (2) is probably stressing people out, because we're less sure than ever where our bids will be wasted.

[rynabrius]

The concern is that if you bid wrong you'll miss out on the interviews that could land you a job, and interview for firms you have no shot at. Imagine if you bid on a company that made zero offers last year, and then they once again make zero offers. Later you learn that you could have bid on a firm that extended offers to people with approximately your stats. Next step: suicide.

However, given the dearth of information, I think that your approach might actually be the most rational.

[dresden doll]

I'm sorry. I must be totally missing something. But why all the stress about bidding, anyway? I just researched the firms and bid on the ones I thought I would fit in at the best. Is that the wrong way to go about this thing?

Because it's a pure lottery system, people think they can game it to get more interviews by bidding strategically. I'm not really sure it's possible to do that (too many variables), other than by (1) following OCS's advice not to bid on too many markets and (2) not wasting bids on firms that will be clearly out of your reach, given your GPA, etc.

I think number (2) is probably stressing people out, because we're less sure than ever where our bids will be wasted.

Credited. It's number 2 that's stressing me out.

Also, it's worthwhile to note that bid-induced stressing probably increases in inverse proportion to one's class rank (i.e. the higher the class rank = the less stress-inducing the process). If I'd graded on LR, I wouldn't have spent half as much time composing my bidlist.

[bwv812]

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[dresden doll]

Also, it's worthwhile to note that bid-induced stressing probably increases in inverse proportion to one's class rank (i.e. the higher the class rank = the less stress-inducing the process). If I'd graded on LR, I wouldn't have spent half as much time composing my bidlist.

Chicago has grade-on LR?

Yes. The majority of people grade on; minority writes on.

[Anonymous User]

I'd like to take a last minute look at this if anyone is up this morning. Thanks.

throwawaymail22@gmail.com

Bump, I'd still like to take a look at this if someone could help me out. Especially since we have the weekend now.

[iwantawhiteiphone4]

Bid results back. 21 of 50. I bid all over. I'm pretty happy. Biggest surprise: I didn't get Sidley at #6.

[pehaigllleises]

I got 15, 14 in Chicago, 1 in New York. I only had one New York firm in my top 30ish. I didn't get Jones Day at 9 or Kirkland at 13 (Seriously? Most of our Chicago-bound class probably doesn't have a shot at Kirkland anyway. This is why I'm a fan of partial preselect.). I got Dykema at 29.

I also had all of the first Thursday and Friday blocked off as exceptions because I'm getting married with exceptionally poor timing, so for that it's not bad.

[bizen boat]

I got 24; 15 in Chicago and the rest in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and STL. Hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot for sticking to the Midwest, but I really don't want to be anywhere else. The funny thing was my Minny and STL bids were 30+, but I got all of them anyway (except Bryan Cave).

[zcc2012]

Hmm. 14. Chi & NYC.

[Anonymous User]

21. 12 in Texas, 3 in Chicago, 2 DC, 4 in random cool places.

[procrocodile]

Could one of you send me the OCS grade info that's been circulating via this thread?

procrocodile@gmail.com