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Tell me, oh grandmasters, what did you do? How did you prepare? What did you say?

Or anyone with a 1:1 CB offer ratio can chime in I guess.

I have a very small number of callbacks (even though I had a crapload of screeners... feelsbadman.jpg) and really need to nail these.

I didn't get an offer from my first CB and got offers from every one after that. The first one, I wasn't really clear on what the firm did, particularly in the practice area I was most interested in, and it showed. Every one after that was much better researched, and I came in with more enthusiasm and sincerity.

Anonymous User wrote:I didn't get an offer from my first CB and got offers from every one after that. The first one, I wasn't really clear on what the firm did, particularly in the practice area I was most interested in, and it showed. Every one after that was much better researched, and I came in with more enthusiasm and sincerity.

what questions did you ask during each interview?

I had three callbacks last year, but only one that actually wanted (think one V5 and a couple unhealthy V50s). I got offers at all. For the firm I really wanted, I just talked to every single person possible who might be able to give me some advice: former summer associates, associates from my UG or LS, etc. Probably talked to ten or fifteen people in total. I knew I wasn't going to get an offer based purely on the strength of my resume, so I knew that every callback interview had to be flawless. My deep preparation gave me confidence, and once the actual interviews came around, I knew exactly the right questions to ask, how to subtly make my case, and so on. Hell, I even got a sense of the clothing style donned by many associates at the firm. My piece of advice would be to talk to as many people and do as much research as possible. Meet in person with students at your school who had a summer job there, reach out to associates at the firm who went to your law school, find out everything you can till you feel confident that you can pull off a flawless performance.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I didn't get an offer from my first CB and got offers from every one after that. The first one, I wasn't really clear on what the firm did, particularly in the practice area I was most interested in, and it showed. Every one after that was much better researched, and I came in with more enthusiasm and sincerity.

what questions did you ask during each interview?

They were pretty practice-area-specific/market-specific.

So far I'm 6 for 6 on my CBs to offers in NY and DC.

What I did: I researched the firm/interviewers and understood their practice areas, but always tried to keep the conversation light. If an interviewer would ask about my professional interests or why this firm, I'd give them a detailed answer, but try and pivot from there. I would ask them about how they ended up where they are now, talk about my interests/activities out of school, and ask if they took a vacation (reasoning that this is the "vacation season" for a lot of lawyers/bankers). Basically, I kept the conversation away from the law and my professional interests, especially with junior associates (my guess is the last thing a junior wants to do is hear about how interested you are in PE or appellate lit - if I were them I'd rather talk about sports or good bars).

Also, I made a list of 4-5 stock questions regarding the summer program or junior associates and tried to drop one for each interviewer (making sure not to ask the same question twice).

Smile, nod, and engage in the conversation.