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3L no offered. Firm has reputation of giving low offer rates. No offered because of economic conditions.

I have two callbacks coming up in early Sept. I was not asked in my screener interviews. How should I answer the question? How likely do you think it is that someone might ask me if i got an offer from my old firm? Lastly, do you think this will hurt my chances?

"So why are you not returning to your summer firm?"

"Well, it wasn't the best fit for me because of X, Y, and Z, and everything I've heard about your firm seems to align with my personal interests because of A, B, and C."

i am a 3L doing recruiting and was asked by every firm whether i received an offer from my 2l summer gig.. thats the big elephant in the room and you will get asked this at a callback - maybe not by everyone but you can bet at least one of the partners will ask you this. all the hiring partners i met with asked me as they are more in tune with this - none of the associates asked me though but you need to be ready for more than just for "why are you interviewing again" - you will mostly likely get flat out asked "did you receive an offer"

if it's because of economic conditions i would receive letters of recommendation from partners at your firm and bring them to interviewers.

Anonymous User wrote:"So why are you not returning to your summer firm?"

"Well, it wasn't the best fit for me because of X, Y, and Z, and everything I've heard about your firm seems to align with my personal interests because of A, B, and C."

This approach is basically lying, however, unless "X, Y, and Z" are "no-offered, bad economy, and they hired more summers than they could give offers"

If by low offer rate you mean 70-80% you still didn't get no-offered because of economic conditions, you got no offered because you were at the bottom of your summer class in the firm's view. I would figure out the real reason and spin it, unless your firm offered 50% or less there was still something the firm must have identified that made you less qualified than the majority.

Anyway, my guess is it's probably your level of fit and not the work, so figure out why you were not a good fit, and why you'd be a better fit elsewhere. Theres a reason you were one of the few no-offered. Economic Conditions is a bs reason, the economic conditions totally sucked and firms were very conservative with hiring, this is not like OCI 2008.

op here. it s around 50%. Small class.
I can't really say too much but let s just say the other people that were offered were really well connected because of their family. Also, I was not from the area either. I don't think I can tell the employer that the other summers had better connections.

boaltrising3l wrote:If by low offer rate you mean 70-80% you still didn't get no-offered because of economic conditions, you got no offered because you were at the bottom of your summer class in the firm's view. I would figure out the real reason and spin it, unless your firm offered 50% or less there was still something the firm must have identified that made you less qualified than the majority.

Completely this.

They're going to flat out ask if you received an offer, so unless the "economic conditions" line truly sounds deserved (i.e. <50% offer rate, notable issue that occurred within the firm, etc.) then using it is going to sound ridiculous.

tell them the truth as you just stated it, well almost.

I was no offered with my 2L summer firm. However I do not think it was anything, I did or didn't do. They offered less than 5/11 or whatever the specific numbers were. Those that were offered all had strong relationship with the firm or the area. In retrospect I would have chosen this other firms offer for 2L summer if I had to do it over again.

shastaca wrote:tell them the truth as you just stated it, well almost.

I was no offered with my 2L summer firm. However I do not think it was anything, I did or didn't do. They offered less than 5/11 or whatever the specific numbers were. Those that were offered all had strong relationship with the firm or the area. In retrospect I would have chosen this other firms offer for 2L summer if I had to do it over again.

OP Here: did you end up finding a different firm during 3L recruiting? Did anyone ask you about the no offer? Can you give me a little more information?

Thanks.