Did anyone feel that their status as an international student hurt them during OCI? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So the advice that I've read in threads and heard from CSO is that my status as an international student should not affect my chances at a Biglaw job at all.

My 1L grades were well above median at CCN, I did many practice interviews, and my bidlist was almost all NY firms with large class sizes. Still, I was terrifyingly close to striking out. I've obsessed about it a bit and I really do think that being an international student was an added barrier for me during interviews.

Have any other international students had this experience? Particularly non-Candians who have to apply for an H1-B visa in the future? I know that the cap has been exceeded in the last 2 years and that many international junior associates have not won the lottery. Perhaps this could be affecting hiring?

[Anonymous User]

I am an international student too. I underperformed my grades at one of HYSCC, even though I am happy with my outcome. I would consider myself an average interviewer. Some partners raised up the topic of my international status (visa and all that) during some callbacks.

[Anonymous User]

at a lower t-14, its terrifying to know that even with good grades internationals are close to striking out. any tips?

[Anonymous User]

At a lower t14, unless the hiring climate improves a lot, you should try to get excellent grades. If you are not a KJD though and have good work experience, your situation would be better. The truth is, as some career services of the top schools tell us, your relevant work experience, choice of major all count as virtual grades.

[Anonymous User]

at a lower t-14, its terrifying to know that even with good grades internationals are close to striking out. any tips?

OP here. To be safe, do not waltz into OCI thinking that you are on the same footing as everyone else like I did. Hustle harder than other people with your same stats. Otherwise, maybe try not to draw attention to your international background if you are able to.

[Anonymous User]

lower t14 anon, are the firms that have smaller class sizes reluctant to hire internationals? I've heard that none of the v10s/large class size firms batted an eyelid in terms of sponsoring/international status

[Anonymous User]

lower t14 anon, are the firms that have smaller class sizes reluctant to hire internationals? I've heard that none of the v10s/large class size firms batted an eyelid in terms of sponsoring/international status

That was what I had heard as well. However, that is not the sense that I have now, coming out of OCI. My theory is that international status is an extra hurdle. If you get over it, and they still want to hire you, then most firms will not bat an eyelid in terms of sponsoring. I'd love to hear if anyone who has recently gone through OCI agrees/disagrees.

[Anonymous User]

lower t14 anon, are the firms that have smaller class sizes reluctant to hire internationals? I've heard that none of the v10s/large class size firms batted an eyelid in terms of sponsoring/international status

That was what I had heard as well. However, that is not the sense that I have now, coming out of OCI. My theory is that international status is an extra hurdle. If you get over it, and they still want to hire you, then most firms will not bat an eyelid in terms of sponsoring. I'd love to hear if anyone who has recently gone through OCI agrees/disagrees.

would having an accent hurt big time? Out of curiosity and since we're all anon where is everyone from?

[jbagelboy]

At a lower t14, unless the hiring climate improves a lot, you should try to get excellent grades. If you are not a KJD though and have good work experience, your situation would be better. The truth is, as some career services of the top schools tell us, your relevant work experience, choice of major all count as virtual grades.

Wut?

Your college major has no impact on your OCI performance, patent firms notwithstanding.

[Anonymous User]

Science majors do well in IP, econ/business/stat majors do better than art history majors in corporate.
Choice of major that is relevant to your practice area does give one an understandable advantage.
Work experience is more important however. I did not mean to put them on the same level of importance just by mentioning both.
Fluency in a relevant language is also another boost.
All these boosts function like virtual grades of varying degrees as some top schools' career services tell us. I did find that that really was true.

And yeah. Of course having an accent that is not British hurts you. But not more than how your internatinal status itself will hurt you.

[Winter is Coming]

And yeah. Of course having an accent that is not British hurts you. But not more than how your internatinal status itself will hurt you.

This is a pretty ridiculous thing to say/think. Plenty of people that I know with Spanish/Portuguese/Eastern European accents did fine at my school this year with big law hiring in New York. It's especially an insane concept that any non-British accent will hurt if your talking about firms in cities like Miami.

[jbagelboy]

Science majors do well in IP, econ/business/stat majors do better than art history majors in corporate.
Choice of major that is relevant to your practice area does give one an understandable advantage.
Work experience is more important however. I did not mean to put them on the same level of importance just by mentioning both.
Fluency in a relevant language is also another boost.
All these boosts function like virtual grades of varying degrees as some top schools' career services tell us. I did find that that really was true.

And yeah. Of course having an accent that is not British hurts you. But not more than how your internatinal status itself will hurt you.

I don't think as a general rule economics or 'business' majors do better than philosophy or history majors in hiring at large firms. It's just not a true statement in observing hiring, even if there's some rational force behind it. And the only reason I'm taking the pains to point this out is that throw away advise like this winds up inadvertently influencing college students in their selection of major in unfortunate and erroneous ways when they see it somewhere online.

[Anonymous User]

I am the poster that talked about majors and accents. Not gonna spend more time on this but I will address the above points.

Whatever you may have observed, I observed that science majors definitely tend to perform better, roughly holdng other things constant. Economics, etc, I am not as certain. But my advice to college kids would be: choose a major that the labor market likes or a major that is intellectually rigorous. Legal studies, criminology, art history are neither rigorous nor practical. The fact that students at top schools who majored in art history still get biglaw doesn't affect my argument. Think about causality, sample, etc. Same goes for accents. The fact that eastern Europeans at top schools still get good outcomes doesn't change what I said. You gotta try to isolate the independent effect of the nonBritish accent factor.

[Winter is Coming]

That's fine, but if you're talking about sample size, what are you basing that experience on? To be fair I'm a white, non-accented American so I only have anecdotal evidence from friends. I'm actually genuinely interested if above anon has experience from the hiring side with things like accents negatively affecting candidates?

[Anonymous User]

Lower T14 Int'l student, got a top firm SA gig through OCI (w/ accent).

First, yes, being an international student hurts, since the firm would have to go extra miles to make sure you can work here, and if English is not your first language then you need great grades to convince the firms to which you apply that you can do legal work in English.

Second, if you are from an area where its economy is strong, e.g., Asia, then you might be at advantage if you apply to right firms/offices due to your language skills and cultural background. To realize this advantage, make sure that you express interest or willingness of moving to overseas offices down the road.

Last, if you are an international student and want to do litigation, you will likely face a worse battle than your peers who want to do corporate work, because (1) litigation requires better English language skills and (2) by putting you into litigation teams it is harder for firms to move you overseas in the future, since there is not much litigation work outside of the U.S.

Good luck to fellow int'l students in future OCIs! Just try to get good grades, practice interviews, and pray that the U.S. would change its visa system in our favor.