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The dreaded interview question, "tell me about an adversity you faced and how you overcame it."

Is it ok to say something related to law school?

Anonymous User wrote:The dreaded interview question, "tell me about an adversity you faced and how you overcame it."

Is it ok to say something related to law school?

You run the risk of leading people to believe that you haven't really faced adversity.

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r6_philly wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:The dreaded interview question, "tell me about an adversity you faced and how you overcame it."

Is it ok to say something related to law school?

You run the risk of leading people to believe that you haven't really faced adversity.

Yeah thing is, I haven't. Which is why I don't know what to say...

Anonymous User wrote:
Yeah thing is, I haven't. Which is why I don't know what to say...

Find something that other people haven't faced. If it is something the interview can't easily relate to, it's hard to pick apart your answer. Talking about law school is risky because people may have experienced the same thing. Find something in your childhood, focus on the lesson you learned.

r6_philly wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:
Yeah thing is, I haven't. Which is why I don't know what to say...

Find something that other people haven't faced. If it is something the interview can't easily relate to, it's hard to pick apart your answer. Talking about law school is risky because people may have experienced the same thing. Find something in your childhood, focus on the lesson you learned.

Childhood seems easy (sob story very cliche) but that's so long ago...back in elementary school.

Fortunately, law firms mostly eschew "interview questions" in my experience. I got very few "what's your weakness?" and "describe yourself in three words" type questions. For the most part, firms that were inclined to ask questions like that were pretty undesirable.

But, to answer the question, "adversity" doesn't have to be coming from a poor family or anything that severe. A good response could involve something as benign as a bad review at work or a semester of bad grades. You'll think of something. Many law students at top schools have not really experienced any significant adversity, and the same goes for most big law interviewers.

Bronte wrote:Fortunately, law firms mostly eschew "interview questions" in my experience. I got very few "what's your weakness?" and "describe yourself in three words" type questions. For the most part, firms that were inclined to ask questions like that were pretty undesirable.

+1....I never got that question in, like, 50 interviews (including callback interviews). I do have significant adversity because of a difficult family situation, but I am not sure I would want to talk about that in an interview.

On the opposite side of the spectrum for this question, do you think it would be too much for an interview to discuss real personal adversity. In my case, overcame significantly difficult circumstances and personal loss to succeed in law school, but worry that sharing such personal details could freak out a law firm interviewer.

Anonymous User wrote:On the opposite side of the spectrum for this question, do you think it would be too much for an interview to discuss real personal adversity. In my case, overcame significantly difficult circumstances and personal loss to succeed in law school, but worry that sharing such personal details could freak out a law firm interviewer.

Piggybacking on this... if you have a kind of adversity that illustrates positive character qualities like self-motivation, independence, etc. is that something that you should generally shy away from? For instance, should a first-generation college grad who made it to a T-10 law school try to get that in an interview or avoid it?

I'm curious about this as well. My younger brother passed away unexpectedly about three weeks into first semester. I hesitate to talk about it at the risk of making the interviewer uncomfortable, especially since I did well grade wise in spite of it (almost top 10% at T30). Do I avoid bringing it up at all, even if asked one of those "hardest part of law school"/"time you overcame a challenging situation" question where it's the honest answer?

Anonymous User wrote:

Bronte wrote:Fortunately, law firms mostly eschew "interview questions" in my experience. I got very few "what's your weakness?" and "describe yourself in three words" type questions. For the most part, firms that were inclined to ask questions like that were pretty undesirable.

+1....I never got that question in, like, 50 interviews (including callback interviews).

+1