Hi guys,
I'm a 3L at Vanderbilt who's still looking for employment after graduation. Almost all of the people I've talked to recently have either secured a job or are waiting to hear back from their 2L summer associate positions. I feel like I'm one of the only people without a lead on anything.
I have a 3.275 GPA and am a member of the Law Review, but somehow I completely struck out last year in finding a summer job. I came into my 2L year optimistic, having just finished a summer clerkship at the US Attorney's Office in Tampa. However, I didn't get a single callback from OCIs or land an interview from any of the firms in my mass mailings. I ended up having to split my summer between Vanderbilt's Legal Clinic and a local single-person firm. I'm struggling to figure out what I'm doing wrong and why it is so difficult for me especially to find a job. I know that my grades aren't terrific, but I'm pretty sure they are slightly above average (Vanderbilt does not rank outside the top 20%) and I know people with worse grades than me that landed a decent firm job over the summer. As I am from California and preferred to go back when I graduated, I focused my job search last year on the West Coast, but in hindsight that may not have been the best idea. This time, should I focus more on states in the South? At this point, I don't even care where I work, as long as I can land a decent job.
I applied to a lot of federal clerkships over the summer but have either been rejected or still waiting to hear back. Right now, the only thing I can think of is to continue mass mailing like I did throughout last year, but I am not at all sure if it will get me anywhere. Does anyone have any suggestions for me moving forward? I'm mainly interested in a firm job, federal clerkship, in-house counsel, or an SEC position. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
3L still seeking employment Forum
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whitespider
- Posts: 592
- Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:37 am
Re: 3L still seeking employment
Err... You might have better luck if the mods move this to a different forum instead of "Law School Admissions"
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filibuster
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:05 pm
Re: 3L still seeking employment
it sounds like you know what to do....massmail and continue networking/hustle. Also, why did you go to Vanderbilt if you wanted CA?
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Attax
- Posts: 3589
- Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:59 am
Re: 3L still seeking employment
filibuster wrote:it sounds like you know what to do....massmail and continue networking/hustle. Also, why did you go to Vanderbilt if you wanted CA?
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tabula rasa
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:16 pm
Re: 3L still seeking employment
You don't say.xuster22 wrote:As I am from California and preferred to go back when I graduated, I focused my job search last year on the West Coast, but in hindsight that may not have been the best idea.
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xuster22
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:17 am
Re: 3L still seeking employment
Well, Vanderbilt offered me a substantial scholarship while the CA schools I got into (UCLA, USC) didn't offer me anything. Also, I pretty much lived in CA my whole life (grew up in LA, went to Berkeley for undergrad) and thought it would be a good chance to experience another part of the country. I never expected it to be this difficult to land a west coast job from Vanderbilt. In retrospect, I probably would have been better off going to UCLA...filibuster wrote:it sounds like you know what to do....massmail and continue networking/hustle. Also, why did you go to Vanderbilt if you wanted CA?
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tonidee
- Posts: 40
- Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:55 pm
Re: 3L still seeking employment
Have you consider the government honors programs? I know the applications are due soon. Also, consider consulting. A number of my classmates are going that route. Lastly, apply to state clerkships.
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SDPalmTree
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:49 pm
Re: 3L still seeking employment
CA does not do state clerkships like most other states, it's more like becoming a clerk of the court outright rather than serving a 1-2yr term.tonidee wrote:Have you consider the government honors programs? I know the applications are due soon. Also, consider consulting. A number of my classmates are going that route. Lastly, apply to state clerkships.
BTW xuster22, I completely understand where you're coming from, being a SD native currently attending Fordham who swung out during 2L OCI. The advice I have been getting from people who moved from the East Coast back to CA is: move back without a job, pass the bar there, and then search for work; because of the difficulty of the CA bar, a lot of employers are leery of hiring non-CA residents until after they are employable as attorneys.
Hope this helps.
