Interviews before OCI Forum
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Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
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Anonymous User
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Interviews before OCI
Assuming I can land interviews with a few firms before OCI, would there be any downside to doing this other than the fact that I wouldn't be able to bid them again? I really can't think of anything, but I just want to make sure that I'm thinking this through carefully.
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UMich11
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Re: Interviews before OCI
I don't think there is a drawback. I'm shooting to do some of these and maybe land an SA before OCI. I've already been invited to one firm as a pre-OCI interview by the hiring partner.Anonymous User wrote:Assuming I can land interviews with a few firms before OCI, would there be any downside to doing this other than the fact that I wouldn't be able to bid them again? I really can't think of anything, but I just want to make sure that I'm thinking this through carefully.
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OneMoreLawHopeful
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Re: Interviews before OCI
Overall, I think you should go for it and try to land interviews before OCI starts, but there are a handful of (minor) drawbacks you should be aware of.
First, firms tend to send alums to OCI screeners, whereas if you go around OCI, you could get paired up with basically anyone. This may not count for much, but every bit can help during this process. As an example, one interview I had during OCI was with an alum who had previously TAed for the same professor I was then a TA for. That created an immediate connection, and I was able to pull a CB out of that - if I had interviewed with just anyone at the firm, it's not clear the result would have been the same. Again, it's minor, but every little bit can help.
Second, in the market I was looking in (SF/SV), many offices waited until after all of the major OCIs were over before extending the bulk of their offers. Because the market included Stanford, this could mean a LONG wait. As an example - Boalt's on campus interviews this year are scheduled to be August 4th-8th, so if you were to try and get an interview/CB before that, you'd be sometime in July. However, Stanford's OCI isn't over until August 29th, and so CBs for Stanford students probably won't begin until early September. The practical effect of this is that you might go for an interview and a CB in July, and then not hear anything until mid-way through September. When I went through the process, there were actually two firms that I was 100% certain had dinged me, that suddenly reached out in September, one asking if I was still interested, the other actually making an offer - but I had accepted elsewhere at that point because I thought I had been dinged after hearing nothing for ~6 weeks (in fairness, given the firms involved I wouldn't have changed anything - but that's not to say everyone else would end up like me).
Third, still related to the potentially long delay between screener/CB and offer if you go around OCI - I was also somewhat suspicious of that process because my 6 week old application seemed to be pitted against people that the firm had just interviewed yesterday. I don't know how the hiring process works for most firms, but it's odd to think that someone would remember your 20 minutes with them 6 weeks ago clearly enough to compare you to the student that came in for a CB only a day ago. As I mentioned above, it can still work out for you, but it's disconcerting to think about.
Fourth, if your school has a randomized OCI system, OR if your school's OCI has separate interviews for specialized practice areas, then going through OCI may help you to keep from being pigeonholed. To give an example - I know someone who had good grades and a technical background, but who hated IP and wanted to do tax. When he went through OCI he was able to make that clear to his interviewers, and his interviewers were often not from the IP group (either because the IP group was interviewing separately, or because he would sign up for an interview with the tax group, where available). However, when he submitted materials outside of OCI, he would often be contacted by partners from the IP group, and brought in to an interview where he was told that basically they were only considering him for IP based upon his background - firms saw the technical degree and pigeonholed him in a way that didn't occur during OCI.
I probably made the above sound worse than it is - as I said at the start, I would encourage applying outside of OCI where available. Until you have an offer, it's something of a numbers game, and you should do everything you can to maximize your chances. Even if there are issues with applying outside of OCI, the benefit is that you can apply outside and STILL DO OCI - you are maximizing your chances with little downside. I just wanted to share the above experiences because I think there's a value to having all of the information in front of you; you should apply outside of OCI, but you should also be aware of the potential limitations.
First, firms tend to send alums to OCI screeners, whereas if you go around OCI, you could get paired up with basically anyone. This may not count for much, but every bit can help during this process. As an example, one interview I had during OCI was with an alum who had previously TAed for the same professor I was then a TA for. That created an immediate connection, and I was able to pull a CB out of that - if I had interviewed with just anyone at the firm, it's not clear the result would have been the same. Again, it's minor, but every little bit can help.
Second, in the market I was looking in (SF/SV), many offices waited until after all of the major OCIs were over before extending the bulk of their offers. Because the market included Stanford, this could mean a LONG wait. As an example - Boalt's on campus interviews this year are scheduled to be August 4th-8th, so if you were to try and get an interview/CB before that, you'd be sometime in July. However, Stanford's OCI isn't over until August 29th, and so CBs for Stanford students probably won't begin until early September. The practical effect of this is that you might go for an interview and a CB in July, and then not hear anything until mid-way through September. When I went through the process, there were actually two firms that I was 100% certain had dinged me, that suddenly reached out in September, one asking if I was still interested, the other actually making an offer - but I had accepted elsewhere at that point because I thought I had been dinged after hearing nothing for ~6 weeks (in fairness, given the firms involved I wouldn't have changed anything - but that's not to say everyone else would end up like me).
Third, still related to the potentially long delay between screener/CB and offer if you go around OCI - I was also somewhat suspicious of that process because my 6 week old application seemed to be pitted against people that the firm had just interviewed yesterday. I don't know how the hiring process works for most firms, but it's odd to think that someone would remember your 20 minutes with them 6 weeks ago clearly enough to compare you to the student that came in for a CB only a day ago. As I mentioned above, it can still work out for you, but it's disconcerting to think about.
Fourth, if your school has a randomized OCI system, OR if your school's OCI has separate interviews for specialized practice areas, then going through OCI may help you to keep from being pigeonholed. To give an example - I know someone who had good grades and a technical background, but who hated IP and wanted to do tax. When he went through OCI he was able to make that clear to his interviewers, and his interviewers were often not from the IP group (either because the IP group was interviewing separately, or because he would sign up for an interview with the tax group, where available). However, when he submitted materials outside of OCI, he would often be contacted by partners from the IP group, and brought in to an interview where he was told that basically they were only considering him for IP based upon his background - firms saw the technical degree and pigeonholed him in a way that didn't occur during OCI.
I probably made the above sound worse than it is - as I said at the start, I would encourage applying outside of OCI where available. Until you have an offer, it's something of a numbers game, and you should do everything you can to maximize your chances. Even if there are issues with applying outside of OCI, the benefit is that you can apply outside and STILL DO OCI - you are maximizing your chances with little downside. I just wanted to share the above experiences because I think there's a value to having all of the information in front of you; you should apply outside of OCI, but you should also be aware of the potential limitations.
