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Have seen this mentioned but can't find where, sorry.

Did the thing where I e-mailed an alum of my school who is a big partner at a firm that is hiring: Brief but customized message (enough to show I have researched them) that I would like to ask a couple questions about hisexperiences (both general and firm-specific) bc want to learn about/practice xyz, also noted that I had applied to his firm, attached resume. Got his reply an hour later saying "Thank you for your interest in x firm, I forwarded your e-mail to head of hiring committee"

2 questions for this scenario, which I think will be frequent:

1) Do I e-mail back thanking him and politely asking again to speak to him in a brief call (the "informational interview") or 2) Just say thanks for forwarding my e-mail and let it go?

2) Does his e-mail forward to the hiring committee help me at all with getting a screener (this is mass mail, firm not coming to OCI)?

Also - if you send an introductory e-mail to someone asking for an informational interview and get no reply, do you follow up or just figure they're busy/not interested and let it go?

Note: I realize this kind of networking in conjunction with mass mailing is kind of half-assed and not likely to yield significant results, but hope it is better than nothing.

Anonymous User wrote:Have seen this mentioned but can't find where, sorry.

Did the thing where I e-mailed an alum of my school who is a big partner at a firm that is hiring: Brief but customized message (enough to show I have researched them) that I would like to ask a couple questions about hisexperiences (both general and firm-specific) bc want to learn about/practice xyz, also noted that I had applied to his firm, attached resume. Got his reply an hour later saying "Thank you for your interest in x firm, I forwarded your e-mail to head of hiring committee"

2 questions for this scenario, which I think will be frequent:

1) Do I e-mail back thanking him and politely asking again to speak to him in a brief call (the "informational interview") or 2) Just say thanks for forwarding my e-mail and let it go?

2) Does his e-mail forward to the hiring committee help me at all with getting a screener (this is mass mail, firm not coming to OCI)?

Also - if you send an introductory e-mail to someone asking for an informational interview and get no reply, do you follow up or just figure they're busy/not interested and let it go?

Note: I realize this kind of networking in conjunction with mass mailing is kind of half-assed and not likely to yield significant results, but hope it is better than nothing.

This just happened to me. I legitimately wanted to talk to the guy, too :/

I would respond to him and thank him for forwarding your email, and reiterate your interest in his practice area but don't be pushy about asking him for a call. He's busy, but he was nice enough to forward your communication to recruiting. It probably won't help and his forwarding the email was probably to comply with firm policy, but if they like your resume they might also like that you took the initiative to contact him.

1) In my experience, it means he's not hugely interested in you and use thank you #2.
2) Again, in my experience, it's probably not going to do much for you.

Eh. I did that once, the partner just said "I forwarded your resume to the recruiter" or something to that effect, and the recruiting person emailed me to set up a screening interview. The email said something like: "I received your resume from [partner] and we would like to set up a time for a phone interview..."

I doubt it's a bad thing since I've also had partners that just never responded even to say they forwarded my resume to recruiting (even if they did to comply with firm policy). You could say "thanks for forwarding my email" along with a reiteration of asking to speak with him, but as the first reply said, don't be pushy with it. I know if I ever see one of those emails from anyone from my law school, 95% of the time they're probably more interested in their application to the firm than they are in talking to me.

On a similar note, what should I do if they never reply at all? Is a followup ever ok or should I just let it go and send in my application or bid on them at OCI like it never happened?