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OK I have a question here. I totally struck out at OCI, had over 50 interviews with no callbacks. Already got rejections from the majority. The career center couldn't really seem to shed light on the reason. So now I'm doing mass mailings.

On Thursday afternoon, I got an email from a firm saying they'd be happy to give me an initial interview, in response to my emailing of cover letter and resume. They mentioned in the email that they don't pay for travel expenses for the initial interview. I guess this is fairly standard, I wasn't aware of it, however. The problem is, this is an initial interview, and on the opposite coast to where my law school is. In a city where I don't have any friends to crash with overnight.

Is it psycho of me to turn them down? I spent a ton of money on my OCI process and I really just can't afford it. I know that it's an investment of 1K in return for a summer of 30K, but I don't really like my odds. They are a highly ranked firm (V20), and I just got rejected by 30+ firms, the majority of them outside V20.

I guess I need to get back to them by tomorrow (Monday). So far, no other firms have responded to my mailings offering me an initial interview. Is there any way I can wait to schedule the callback until I've rounded up a few more initial interviews in that city, so I can do them all together? How would I raise this with the firm?

Apologies for the essay...

Maybe ask them if you can do the initial interview via phone?

I got 2 callbacks from firms where my first interview was a phone interview. Don't know why they didn't give you the option. Do you think they are just trying to see how serious you are about them? I would just try to explain your financial situation, stress your interest in the firm and ask for the phone interview. If you don't want to do that, just suck it up and pay for the plane ticket. It seems like a high price to pay for an initial interview, but if it turns into a job, it would be well worth it.

do it.
you don't want to regret not spending the extra 1K later when you are jobless.

Anonymous User wrote:I got 2 callbacks from firms where my first interview was a phone interview. Don't know why they didn't give you the option. Do you think they are just trying to see how serious you are about them? I would just try to explain your financial situation, stress your interest in the firm and ask for the phone interview. If you don't want to do that, just suck it up and pay for the plane ticket. It seems like a high price to pay for an initial interview, but if it turns into a job, it would be well worth it.

I also got 2 callbacks from initial phone interviews. And I was going to be in their part of town anyway and offered to come by for an initial in person--but they suggested phone. I also agree with the advice to explain your financial situation, briefly, and ask if they'll do a phone interview instead. You could even suggest skype.

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bwv812 wrote:This strikes me as weird; I've always been of the impression that if a firm invites you to interview at their office, they should pay travel expenses. NALP rules seem to indicate this:

http://www.nalp.org/fulltextofnalpprinciplesandstandards wrote: III(C)(4). Candidates invited to interview at employer offices should request reimbursement for reasonable expenses that are directly related to the interview and incurred in good faith. Failure to observe this policy, or falsification or misrepresentation of travel expenses, may result in non-reimbursement and elimination from consideration for employment or the revocation of offers by an employer.

Failing that, your OCS should have facilities to set up phone/video interviews, and you should ask about them.

Also: are you the HYS transfer?

The people in the career center told me this was standard for initial interviews held off campus. And, yes, I'm that person....

At Penn, our career services office set up screening interviews in Boston at the students' own expense. I don't think there's anything unusual about having to pay for those.

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Tangentially, as a fellow HYS transfer, I would suggest heavy mailing in the market of the school you transferred from. OCI has gone fine, but the response from firms in my 1L school's market has been huge, simply from mass mailing. Of course, it helps if your 1L school has some regional pull on its own...

No way should pay $1K just for an initial interview. Especially since you didn't get a callback out of 50 interviews, the odds here are probably against you, to be blunt. Get them to do it by phone.

Do whatever it takes - phone or fly. Definitely do the interview.

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I would recommend doing whatever you can to pursue this, even if it means spending dat $. In the interim, however, explore the possibility of a Skype interview. I did this with a firm that interviewed me via direct mailing.