Hiring committee- what do they do? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Are evaluations from interviewers who are on the hiring committee more important than those from other interviewers?
What about evaluations from junior/senior associates vs. partners?

[Anonymous User]

tyft q. Also wondering, if all your CB interviewers + screener pull for you can you still be ding'd by hiring committee ? if so, on what basis? do committees see grades and resumes or just written reviews of callback interviewers?

[terribleperson]

tyft q. Also wondering, if all your CB interviewers + screener pull for you can you still be ding'd by hiring committee ? if so, on what basis? do committees see grades and resumes or just written reviews of callback interviewers?

I'm sure they purposely deny themselves relevant information during the process of planning for their firm's future...

[Anonymous User]

tyft q. Also wondering, if all your CB interviewers + screener pull for you can you still be ding'd by hiring committee ? if so, on what basis? do committees see grades and resumes or just written reviews of callback interviewers?

for my callbacks, some of the interviewers had copies of my transcript when they were interviewing me.
can a screening interviewer support you in callback stage?

[bmontminy]

While I imagine this varies greatly firm-to-firm, I would be very interested to hear any anecdotal info out there.

[Anonymous User]

I'm curious as well. I interviewed with a firm for who I am well below their standard cutoff, but it went well. I am curious how much weight the partner / associate who interviewed me will have. Will the committee only see the grades, or will the impressions of the interviewers (who asked questions about my grades, which I answered to their satisfaction) be of more importance?

[Anonymous User]

From what I understand from an uncle on a V10 hiring committee, everything is in play in front of the committee. They see the interview sheets, transcripts, resume, etc. Different people have different things they look for and value out of that stack of stuff, but they do have all of it in your folder.

[Renzo]

I'm curious as well. I interviewed with a firm for who I am well below their standard cutoff, but it went well. I am curious how much weight the partner / associate who interviewed me will have. Will the committee only see the grades, or will the impressions of the interviewers (who asked questions about my grades, which I answered to their satisfaction) be of more importance?

Screener or callback? Because the purpose of a screening interview is to "screen" out candidates who look good on paper, but are weirdos in real life. It's an expectation that it will go well, and an almost unheard-of rarity that it would go so well that a firm would ignore it's GPA cutoff.

If, on the other hand, it's a callback, they've already decided they like you enough to consider you, and they're going to consider all the information they have. They aren't going to auto-ding you on grades at that point, but they might consider them as part of the total picture.

[Anonymous User]

We know CB-to-Offer rates roughly, but it would be interesting to get a feel for how many dings at CB stage happen from CB interviewers compared to how many happen from hiring committees after CB interviewers go to bat for the candidate. We probably will never know.

[Anonymous User]

I'm curious as well. I interviewed with a firm for who I am well below their standard cutoff, but it went well. I am curious how much weight the partner / associate who interviewed me will have. Will the committee only see the grades, or will the impressions of the interviewers (who asked questions about my grades, which I answered to their satisfaction) be of more importance?

Screener or callback? Because the purpose of a screening interview is to "screen" out candidates who look good on paper, but are weirdos in real life. It's an expectation that it will go well, and an almost unheard-of rarity that it would go so well that a firm would ignore it's GPA cutoff.

Screener. They are still going through the OCI process, but when I say well outside their range, I mean well outside. But the partner interviewing me specifically said that he wasn't going to ask me about grades, but I impressed him enough to make him question my grades, and then he specifically said that my answers to those questions were excellent and he was suitably impressed.

Also, this was off of an email application, so they requested me for the interview outside of their OCI. I'm assuming that's a good thing.

But he still has to go to a hiring committee to determine callbacks, and I just wonder how much weight his opinion will have when it comes down to it.

[Anonymous User]

We know CB-to-Offer rates roughly, but it would be interesting to get a feel for how many dings at CB stage happen from CB interviewers compared to how many happen from hiring committees after CB interviewers go to bat for the candidate. We probably will never know.

Are CB:offer ratios generally higher in secondary markets? i.e. V100 firms in secondary markets?

I'm a rising 2L at a T20 going through the process with a few CBs, but I am still pretty oblivious to the whole system, so any help is appreciated. I need some hope at this point...

[Renzo]

I'm curious as well. I interviewed with a firm for who I am well below their standard cutoff, but it went well. I am curious how much weight the partner / associate who interviewed me will have. Will the committee only see the grades, or will the impressions of the interviewers (who asked questions about my grades, which I answered to their satisfaction) be of more importance?

Screener or callback? Because the purpose of a screening interview is to "screen" out candidates who look good on paper, but are weirdos in real life. It's an expectation that it will go well, and an almost unheard-of rarity that it would go so well that a firm would ignore it's GPA cutoff.

Screener. They are still going through the OCI process, but when I say well outside their range, I mean well outside. But the partner interviewing me specifically said that he wasn't going to ask me about grades, but I impressed him enough to make him question my grades, and then he specifically said that my answers to those questions were excellent and he was suitably impressed.

Also, this was off of an email application, so they requested me for the interview outside of their OCI. I'm assuming that's a good thing.

But he still has to go to a hiring committee to determine callbacks, and I just wonder how much weight his opinion will have when it comes down to it.

Don't hold your breath. As I said, it's not impossible to talk your way past a GPA cutoff, but its truly rare indeed.

[Anonymous User]

What % of students actually get the CB after the screener?

[DoubleChecks]

anecdotal evidence that ive heard:

okay inteviews at one firm, but great interview with last interviewer who was hiring partner (offered)
amazing interviews all day with every interviewer and the lunch, but somewhat sub-part interview with last interviewer who was also hiring partner (ding)

take that for what it's worth

[Renzo]

What % of students actually get the CB after the screener?

Varies widely by firm. Some firms rank students first, then schedule basically as many callbacks as they have slots in their summer class, and add additional interviews if some of those candidates don't pan out; these firms have low CB to screener rations. Other firms (DPW, for example) bring back huge numbers of students for callbacks; this means higher CB to screener ratio, but means that an offer is less likely even if you get a callback.

[Anonymous User]

What % of students actually get the CB after the screener?

Varies widely by firm. Some firms rank students first, then schedule basically as many callbacks as they have slots in their summer class, and add additional interviews if some of those candidates don't pan out; these firms have low CB to screener rations. Other firms (DPW, for example) bring back huge numbers of students for callbacks; this means higher CB to screener ratio, but means that an offer is less likely even if you get a callback.

That's very helpful, thank you. Any ideas which firms (besides S&C) have low CB to screener ratios?