Zero callbacks. Please help Forum

[Anonymous User]

I would ask one of the firms you didn't get a callback from to find out what was wrong and see if it's something that can be fixed. I also go to CLS, and I heard some firms talking about some of our classmates and what they were doing wrong, and why they thought those people were going to have a rough time.

I don't think you would get anything meaningful. This is a big HR thing, and you're also assuming that the interviewer both remembers and cares. From their perspective it takes a lot of time to reexamine one candidate, and not only recognize what was bad, but to word it in a way that's constructive for them and not damaging for you.

I agree with staying positive. These things run in cycles, because I think the recruiting process is so new for people that their confidence is shakier. If they experience success then they assume they're good at interviewing so then are confident and do interview better. If they don't it becomes a self-repeating cycle. Own the callback, and don't reflect on the past. Easier than done, but do it.

OP here
Thanks. I'm focusing on nailing the one callback I have and not looking back. I guess they don't know that I have zero callbacks from OCI.

And I was thinking... very small things might ding me right? I mean, when you're looking at so many qualified candidates, the one who whose voice is a bit shaky and is obviously nervous will stand out. As
I go into this "autopilot mode" during the interview due to nerves... Will make a conscious effort not to during the callback.

Here is the thing, median at Columbia isn't terrible, but it's not impressive either. You can get a lot of jobs, but not on grades alone. YOu have to convince them.

Yep. I'm in the same position at N and it seems like I've gotten a callback at every interview that went pretty well but gotten/on my way to getting dings at every place where I didn't feel that I impressed. We really are in a yours to win AND yours to lose position.

[Anonymous User]

Yep. I'm in the same position at N and it seems like I've gotten a callback at every interview that went pretty well but gotten/on my way to getting dings at every place where I didn't feel that I impressed. We really are in a yours to win AND yours to lose position.

If i may ask, what do you mean when you say "impressed"? I keep hearing that we should impress them but I really don't know how.
In my mind, a "perfect" interview is getting through the 30 minutes being personable, saying the right things, saying no wrong things, and being engaging. Beyond that, I don't know how to actually impress. maybe that's my problem?

[Anonymous User]

I am a terrible interviewer, but got a CB to a reach (V2/3) that I think was based on one question. There were 2 interviewers, and they were both running through the motions. It felt mediocre. Then one asked an offbeat question about something from my resume. I had never considered their question before, but thought about, and said what I thought was true. They looked at each other, and smiled. I got a CB. My experience was that you're likeliest to impress when you're cool enough to be 100% yourself. For me I could only do this where I had drank with people prior to the interview. I think that when the situation calls for it impressing big law partners requires saying things that are genuinely smart, and also displaying personality. Most of the people competing with you are smart enough not to fuck up so I think that the requisite bar is different than merely not being aspie.

[Anonymous User]

Yep. I'm in the same position at N and it seems like I've gotten a callback at every interview that went pretty well but gotten/on my way to getting dings at every place where I didn't feel that I impressed. We really are in a yours to win AND yours to lose position.

If i may ask, what do you mean when you say "impressed"? I keep hearing that we should impress them but I really don't know how.
In my mind, a "perfect" interview is getting through the 30 minutes being personable, saying the right things, saying no wrong things, and being engaging. Beyond that, I don't know how to actually impress. maybe that's my problem?

I'm about at median and had a pretty decent level of success. I think I focus on being positive no matter the question, being upbeat (but not annoyingly chipper), and letting my personality shine through. If they're going to ding me for my personality, then it's probably for the best, so I try hard to make sure they're getting a sense of me. Like, I have a pretty forceful personality and either you like it or you don't, so I feel like I need to know if they can handle that and they need to know that's what they're getting. Other than that, substantively speaking, I try to take charge of interviews. I answer all of the questions that I'm given, but in a way that I make sure I talk about the things on my resume or in my background that I want to talk about. In other words, I try to be more proactive rather than reactive. So far it's worked out pretty well. I have a handful of offers, a few of which are V10.

[ze2151]

stay in the game, op. you have to be positive and relaxed...

also, how old are you? if you're 23, project maturity. if you're 33, project spryness and eagerness. i certainly don't think anybody's giving you a red X just because of your age, of course. i'm just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. i hope things work out for you. i would just encourage you to be the complete candidate, to the best of your ability. be experienced and eager, mature and fun.

[Anonymous User]

Yep. I'm in the same position at N and it seems like I've gotten a callback at every interview that went pretty well but gotten/on my way to getting dings at every place where I didn't feel that I impressed. We really are in a yours to win AND yours to lose position.

If i may ask, what do you mean when you say "impressed"? I keep hearing that we should impress them but I really don't know how.
In my mind, a "perfect" interview is getting through the 30 minutes being personable, saying the right things, saying no wrong things, and being engaging. Beyond that, I don't know how to actually impress. maybe that's my problem?

So like for instance if your interviewer asks about a prior job, what does she really care about learning? 1) she wants to know whether you're an organized, effective communicator - so you need to have a well-structured explanation of the position, with a solid example of something you did while there. 2) She wants to know if you picked up any relevant skills. So, for instance, in my prior management positions, I mention - oversaw X# employees and it was successful because of Y thing that we accomplished. Then, maybe a few bonus points if you can subtly turn this into a skill that would be valuable for their firm. Hell, I've even had interviewers semi-happy with my prior restaurant experience b/c I showed how I can do a bunch of things at the same time, and that I'm someone you can put in front of people to communicate effectively and not piss anyone off. At another job I got an award for client satisfaction so I went into my explanation about how I got that recognition. Then I turned this into a subtle "when you're dealing with clients, even more than skill as an attorney, having the care to focus on making people happy is really important and as you can see, I am good at it."

So the trick is to yes, have a pretty normal conversation, but you can't just get away with not throwing up on yourself as the people at the top of the class may be able to.

ETA: and you cannot possibly imagine the difference between eye-contact/no eye-contact and smiling/not.

[Anonymous User]

I was in a similar situation, although not quite to that degree. It took a while before I was able to make some sense of my OCI troubles, but two years later I think I have more perspective.

To paraphrase Tolstoy, people who succeed at OCI all succeed the same way, but people who fail all fail differently. In my case, the following was helpful:

1. Choose a friend, preferably someone a class year ahead or even a working lawyer, who understands you thoroughly and is a straight shooter. Have that friend give you mock interviews. Don't ask him "how did I do?" because we already know you didn't do well enough. Ask him "why are you going to reject me?" This is not the time to reassure yourself that you're not too bad, or to check off the "completed mock interview" box. By this point, you have clear evidence that you are doing something wrong and the solution is to identify it and practice correcting it. If he can't identify it, do the interview again. If he can identify it, do the interview again and correct it. After you've practiced a few times, practice a few more times, with new questions and interview twists.

2. Video yourself doing the mock interview and watch it again super-critically. Don't be discouraged by your friend's feedback or the video. Your voice will sound funny and that doesn't matter. You will notice things like slouches, tonal issues that point to anxiety, dishonesty, discomfort, etc. These things are correctable. Your job is to correct them.

This might sound harsh and possibly discouraging. OCI is a uniquely hellish experience and for some personalities, it can really fuck with your mind. I had done like 40 interviews with miserable results and little meaningful feedback. I agonized a lot over why I wasn't good enough or what was different about my friends who had S&C banging down their phones off the hook. Eventually I realized that if you can screw it up, you can also fix it. You CAN improve your interviewing and do better on future interviews. The tips above saved my ass. I had the extreme luck to get two interviews late in the year. I spent two hours with a friend, doing what I described. Then I watched parts of the video on my own. After the first interview, I walked out knowing that I had blown a couple questions. At the second, I corrected it and got the offer.

Good luck!

[baal hadad]

I am a terrible interviewer, but got a CB to a reach (V2/3) that I think was based on one question. There were 2 interviewers, and they were both running through the motions. It felt mediocre. Then one asked an offbeat question about something from my resume. I had never considered their question before, but thought about, and said what I thought was true. They looked at each other, and smiled. I got a CB. My experience was that you're likeliest to impress when you're cool enough to be 100% yourself. For me I could only do this where I had drank with people prior to the interview. I think that when the situation calls for it impressing big law partners requires saying things that are genuinely smart, and also displaying personality. Most of the people competing with you are smart enough not to fuck up so I think that the requisite bar is different than merely not being aspie.

Lol @ v2/3 cmon bro

[Anonymous User]

Yep. I'm in the same position at N and it seems like I've gotten a callback at every interview that went pretty well but gotten/on my way to getting dings at every place where I didn't feel that I impressed. We really are in a yours to win AND yours to lose position.

If i may ask, what do you mean when you say "impressed"? I keep hearing that we should impress them but I really don't know how.
In my mind, a "perfect" interview is getting through the 30 minutes being personable, saying the right things, saying no wrong things, and being engaging. Beyond that, I don't know how to actually impress. maybe that's my problem?

if you are median you need to do something to stand out. I am median at duke with 3 callbacks from oci and 3 from mass mails. I had a pretty aggressive interview strategy where I went in there very confident and sold my work experience and personality hard. I needed to do this because if I just went in there and was another nice/polite kid, I probably wouldn't have gotten cbs because my grades are meh. I may have over sold myself in some interviews, I tended to do better with partners than associates. Whatever though, I would rather go down swinging than just going in there and being decent/nothing to write home about.

one of my callbacks was at a firm whos median on the offer report was a 3.55 while I am at mid 3.3s. I went in there I owned the place with a mentality that I was without a doubt the best candidate they were going to see the whole day. I was not cocky but made sure that I like came across as confident and sure of myself and asked practice group specific questions to demonstrate that I did my research and that I was clearly interested in more than just learning about a generic SA program. I am positive i over did it in some interviews but sometimes you need to be a little riskier in our position. Someone who has a 3.5+ is in a position where they can secure callbacks by not fucking up. We are not in that position.

[84651846190]

Xanax is shit. Take Ativan instead.

[Pikappraider]

Xanax is shit. Take Ativan instead.

TCR, ativan or kolonopin >>>>>> Xanax. The really low half life of xanax really fucks people up much quicker than some of the other benzos. Would be better not to take any but if you need it to not be freaking out during interviews go with something other than xanax

[Rahviveh]

unsurprisingly, this thread turned into yet another opportunity for people to brag about their interviewing skills

[Anonymous User]

unsurprisingly, this thread turned into yet another opportunity for people to brag about their interviewing skills

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but maybe the problem isn't your interviewing but a glaring (and really bad) typo(s) somewhere prominent that all the firms are picking up on?

[Anonymous User]

unsurprisingly, this thread turned into yet another opportunity for people to brag about their interviewing skills

OP Here
believe it or not it has been super helpful haha

Thanks everyone

[Anonymous User]

I think forehead sweating is generally the end. Other than that people are quick to call out nerves. Everyone is nervous. We're human, and we get more nervous doing something that we come to think we're shitty at. It's your behavior, and the crap coming out of your mouth. What is in your head is irrelevant except for how it impacts you externally.

[Anonymous User]

I think forehead sweating is generally the end

This happened briefly during my callback today. I wonder if a couple of minutes of forehead sweating with one interviewer is enough to kill a callback with 5 total interviewers.

[Anonymous User]

Have you considered that maybe it's not your interview style that's getting you dinged, but rather your actual substantive response to a common question? It's easy to get in this mode where you've heard all these questions before, you have your answer down by rote, and you just spit it out, but perhaps you need to critically evaluate your instinctive answers to the big ones, e.g. "Why did you go to law school / what makes you tick?", "What do you see yourself doing in 5/10/20 years?", or even "What practice areas are you interested in?"

I mean, if you keep telling people you want to do tax litigation and only tax litigation, for instance, you might have a bad time.

I dunno, just offering a possibility I didn't see anyone else mention. There's plenty of things you could say that might sound normal to most people and even be totally earnest, but which would turn off a partner. Good luck dude, you're gonna make it.

[jbagelboy]

I think forehead sweating is generally the end

This happened briefly during my callback today. I wonder if a couple of minutes of forehead sweating with one interviewer is enough to kill a callback with 5 total interviewers.

it's not. don't overanalyze every flaw. I arrived at my first callback interview a couple weeks ago after stepping off the train sweating beads through my suit (fuck northeast humidity). My forehead was still a little damp and it definitely would have showed for the first couple minutes, but I just had some great conversations and got the offer.

I've also been dinged where I felt like my attire/preparation/presentation were at their best. it's a shitshow and at the end of the day I think randomness dominates this process more than we can know

[jbagelboy]

Have you considered that maybe it's not your interview style that's getting you dinged, but rather your actual substantive response to a common question? It's easy to get in this mode where you've heard all these questions before, you have your answer down by rote, and you just spit it out, but perhaps you need to critically evaluate your instinctive answers to the big ones, e.g. "Why did you go to law school / what makes you tick?", "What do you see yourself doing in 5/10/20 years?", or even "What practice areas are you interested in?"

I mean, if you keep telling people you want to do tax litigation and only tax litigation, for instance, you might have a bad time.

I dunno, just offering a possibility I didn't see anyone else mention. There's plenty of things you could say that might sound normal to most people and even be totally earnest, but which would turn off a partner. Good luck dude, you're gonna make it.

I agree with this, it's also bound to result in some rejections: obviously, target the firm and do your research, but the answer that appeals to one partner might alienate another.