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at OCI: Tell me about a time you have faced adversity and how you have overcome it

I want to talk about how my parents pressured me into the pre-med route and I ended up hating pre-med, felt stifled intellectually, felt it was mind-numbing and not what i was passionate about, etc. etc. and overcame it by choosing a different career path.

is this a risky answer? will this make them think i am not worth taking in? that if i find doc review mind numbing, i will jump ship?

how can I frame this in a less risky manner. thanks a lot.

Anonymous User wrote:is this a risky answer? will this make them think i am not worth taking in? that if i find doc review mind numbing, i will jump ship?

yea, that's exactly what they'll think.

fatduck wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:is this a risky answer? will this make them think i am not worth taking in? that if i find doc review mind numbing, i will jump ship?

yea, that's exactly what they'll think.

damnit. any way to spin it another way or just try and find some other kind of adversity? (will be hard)

Most firms don't ask these kinds of questions. They do behavioral interviewing. Tell me about X (from your resume). Then they expect you to hit the unspoken traits on their secret checklist during your answer.

Also, if your interviewers have ever faced true adversity, your answer about being forced into pre-med will come off as disingenuous. Adversity is not being able to afford food...or having to work your way through college. Not that you didn't have the balls to disobey your parents when it came to your life.

Anonymous User wrote:at OCI: Tell me about a time you have faced adversity and how you have overcome it

I want to talk about how my parents pressured me into the pre-med route and I ended up hating pre-med, felt stifled intellectually, felt it was mind-numbing and not what i was passionate about, etc. etc. and overcame it by choosing a different career path.

is this a risky answer? will this make them think i am not worth taking in? that if i find doc review mind numbing, i will jump ship?

how can I frame this in a less risky manner. thanks a lot.

Tell them you had cancer. It's not like they can check your medical records.

The Duck wrote:Most firms don't ask these kinds of questions. They do behavioral interviewing. Tell me about X (from your resume). Then they expect you to hit the unspoken traits on their secret checklist during your answer.

This is so amateur hour, but is there somewhere you can link me to this "Secret checklist" i get that it is secret, but how should I be coming across in these BigLaw interviews? is there some big picture article/checklist floating out there to frame my interview prep? thanks a lot

You might run into 1 or 2 interviewers max who ask a question like this. for this & the other related questions, just use a story about when you had to lead a group that had a lot of dissension and was tackling a hard, ill-defined problem, and that will cover all your bases.

Anonymous User wrote:

The Duck wrote:Most firms don't ask these kinds of questions. They do behavioral interviewing. Tell me about X (from your resume). Then they expect you to hit the unspoken traits on their secret checklist during your answer.

This is so amateur hour, but is there somewhere you can link me to this "Secret checklist" i get that it is secret, but how should I be coming across in these BigLaw interviews? is there some big picture article/checklist floating out there to frame my interview prep? thanks a lot

if it helps, they don't know it until they see it?

Anonymous User wrote:

The Duck wrote:Most firms don't ask these kinds of questions. They do behavioral interviewing. Tell me about X (from your resume). Then they expect you to hit the unspoken traits on their secret checklist during your answer.

This is so amateur hour, but is there somewhere you can link me to this "Secret checklist" i get that it is secret, but how should I be coming across in these BigLaw interviews? is there some big picture article/checklist floating out there to frame my interview prep? thanks a lot

I assumed teamwork, leadership, responsibility, maturity, etc. I made sure no matter what they asked me about during my interview, I highlighted those traits but without using those exact terms.

Edit: To clarify, I didn't hit all of them in each question. I just tried to hit them all throughout.

I didn't get this question today, but I did get a few questions that were like "tell me about a position where you were working with a team and had to convince people to come over to your side of a disagreement" and then when I answered, "what persuasive tools did you use exactly" (I guess I didn't answer the question well enough the first time), and "when did you overcome a personal obstacle" (which is sort of like your question I guess). I wouldn't say the thing about med school though. I mean if med school was mind stifling, law school isn't that much better. If you aren't passionate about med school, are you going to say you're passionate about the law? Because that might just come off as corny.

ilovesf wrote:I didn't get this question today, but I did get a few questions that were like "tell me about a position where you were working with a team and had to convince people to come over to your side of a disagreement" and then when I answered, "what persuasive tools did you use exactly" (I guess I didn't answer the question well enough the first time), and "when did you overcome a personal obstacle" (which is sort of like your question I guess). I wouldn't say the thing about med school though. I mean if med school was mind stifling, law school isn't that much better. If you aren't passionate about med school, are you going to say you're passionate about the law? Because that might just come off as corny.

Well, what did you answer?

i got a similar question, prefaced by "just so you know, i think these questions are stupid, but i have to ask at least one"

if that doesn't out me, my answer definitely would. let's just say i didn't have anything prepared.

delusional wrote:

ilovesf wrote:I didn't get this question today, but I did get a few questions that were like "tell me about a position where you were working with a team and had to convince people to come over to your side of a disagreement" and then when I answered, "what persuasive tools did you use exactly" (I guess I didn't answer the question well enough the first time), and "when did you overcome a personal obstacle" (which is sort of like your question I guess). I wouldn't say the thing about med school though. I mean if med school was mind stifling, law school isn't that much better. If you aren't passionate about med school, are you going to say you're passionate about the law? Because that might just come off as corny.

Well, what did you answer?

To which one? They were all pretty stupid answers anyway, I'm not saying I did a good job. I've been lucky not to have that many personal obstacles.

ilovesf wrote:

delusional wrote:

ilovesf wrote:I didn't get this question today, but I did get a few questions that were like "tell me about a position where you were working with a team and had to convince people to come over to your side of a disagreement" and then when I answered, "what persuasive tools did you use exactly" (I guess I didn't answer the question well enough the first time), and "when did you overcome a personal obstacle" (which is sort of like your question I guess). I wouldn't say the thing about med school though. I mean if med school was mind stifling, law school isn't that much better. If you aren't passionate about med school, are you going to say you're passionate about the law? Because that might just come off as corny.

Well, what did you answer?

To which one? They were all pretty stupid answers anyway, I'm not saying I did a good job. I've been lucky not to have that many personal obstacles.

What persuasive tools did you use? Feel free to answer the others as well.
I'm curious because I have no idea how the hell I would answer it.

delusional wrote:

ilovesf wrote:

delusional wrote:

ilovesf wrote:I didn't get this question today, but I did get a few questions that were like "tell me about a position where you were working with a team and had to convince people to come over to your side of a disagreement" and then when I answered, "what persuasive tools did you use exactly" (I guess I didn't answer the question well enough the first time), and "when did you overcome a personal obstacle" (which is sort of like your question I guess). I wouldn't say the thing about med school though. I mean if med school was mind stifling, law school isn't that much better. If you aren't passionate about med school, are you going to say you're passionate about the law? Because that might just come off as corny.

Well, what did you answer?

To which one? They were all pretty stupid answers anyway, I'm not saying I did a good job. I've been lucky not to have that many personal obstacles.

What persuasive tools did you use? Feel free to answer the others as well.
I'm curious because I have no idea how the hell I would answer it.

I tried really hard to write this in a way that wouldn't totally give away what I did but it was totally incomprehensible. It wasn't a great answer. I'll say that I worked in a team-work situation where I was on point for the project but we all had a say. I conducted a round table meeting where we were all able to give our opinions on the topic. I thought in convincing people the important part was making sure they felt like I was listening to their concerns and taking them into consideration (and I was). I said I thought when people knew they were being heard they might better understand why you're making an opposite determination instead of something seeming arbitrary. There is a little more to this but I can't really include it. Sorry that's not a very good answer.

Anonymous User wrote:

fatduck wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:is this a risky answer? will this make them think i am not worth taking in? that if i find doc review mind numbing, i will jump ship?

yea, that's exactly what they'll think.

damnit. any way to spin it another way or just try and find some other kind of adversity? (will be hard)

Really? If you cannot come up with a canned answer to this then the stifled intellectuality you experienced seems to have persisted well beyond your pre-med years.

The Duck wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

The Duck wrote:Most firms don't ask these kinds of questions. They do behavioral interviewing. Tell me about X (from your resume). Then they expect you to hit the unspoken traits on their secret checklist during your answer.

This is so amateur hour, but is there somewhere you can link me to this "Secret checklist" i get that it is secret, but how should I be coming across in these BigLaw interviews? is there some big picture article/checklist floating out there to frame my interview prep? thanks a lot

I assumed teamwork, leadership, responsibility, maturity, etc. I made sure no matter what they asked me about during my interview, I highlighted those traits but without using those exact terms.

Edit: To clarify, I didn't hit all of them in each question. I just tried to hit them all throughout.

Nope. You want to come across as an aggressive pedant who will be a raging Type A prick to subordinates and peers while remaining servile to superiors. This is BigLaw we're talking here.