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I am top 25% at a T14, had ~20 screeners, but have received mostly rejections with only 2 callbacks so far. I am not sure what went wrong, I felt like I was connecting with the interviewers. What can I do to ace these callbacks so I don't strike out?

Are you international student?

From an associate standpoint, we only want to know whether you seem cool to work with. There's a post on Reddit that says the OP thought OCI would be academic discussions. Don't do that. Be personable and seem interested in the firm. That's really it.

Anonymous User wrote:I am top 25% at a T14, had ~20 screeners, but have received mostly rejections with only 2 callbacks so far. I am not sure what went wrong, I felt like I was connecting with the interviewers. What can I do to ace these callbacks so I don't strike out?

Immediately let your career services know. Maybe its an interview thing they can hammer out, or maybe they know some places still hiring. If you are an international student, I feel like this recruiting season is going to be rough on internationals due to the administrations posturing on visas. Too much risk to take a bunch of international students could be affecting your chances (again if you are).

Regardless, you need to figure out what is going on immediately, like tomorrow morning with career services. Also, massmail.

Op here. I am not an international student and I only applied to markets where I have legitimate ties. I talked to career services, but they weren't super helpful, they just recommended waiting because some callbacks might be slow. I did mock interviews with two different counselors at career services before OCI. I am really at a loss what to do, or how to improve.

Anonymous User wrote:Op here. I am not an international student and I only applied to markets where I have legitimate ties. I talked to career services, but they weren't super helpful, they just recommended waiting because some callbacks might be slow. I did mock interviews with two different counselors at career services before OCI. I am really at a loss what to do, or how to improve.

Well thats your problem right there- " I only applied to markets where I have legitimate ties". That was a bad move. I will take this as meaning you bid smaller markets and not NYC, which was stupid. You should have supplemented your other markets with NYC. That is the standard advice.

Now you need to mass mail NYC hard to make sure you get something.

For example if you bid DC, top 25% is nowhere near safe for DC. Stuff like that is your problem.

I feel for you. I had similar stats and ended up striking out so would highly recommend mass-mailing immediately if you haven't already started. My post-mortem basically came down to not seeming like the "big-law type," so good grades really never make you big-law secure. I had 5-ish years of public-interest work pre-law school, public-interest 1L summer, but genuinely wanted to start at a firm. Walked into a screener w/a famously liberal firm and first words out of the partner's mouth were a withering "you know we work for the bad guys, right?"

ETA: If you didn't heavily bid NYC, or have other logistical issues, definitely course correct.

I think there's a thread like this every year. I was right around 25% (just a little below) at MVP going into OCI and struck out on like ~22ish screeners. I know people may think this makes me like frankenstein or something. I'm really not. Most people seriously don't believe me when I tell them I struggled in OCI. I was just very nervous and handled all my interviews uniformly poorly. I think the takeaway here is that you are almost never really biglaw secure.

Other posters are right. Mass-mail NYC right now (and any other markets you have ties to). It's not too late. I ended up getting a NYC V15 SA a couple months after OCI ended. I would start now though and try to figure out what you may be doing wrong.

I think other posters are hitting on good points. I'd add that I'd recommend just relaxing and being yourself. Forget about the strikeouts and try to forget about the whole process itself and enjoy yourself. 2 CBs isn't bad. You impressed two firms and that's good. But also just make sure you have your overall points down, like why you want to be in the market (in NYC you want to do major transactions basically ) and know what kind of work the firm you're interviewing at does. Also read over your application materials extra closely. After that, just relax and mass mail.

Good luck! You should be fine!

This is a dumb question, but when people say mass mail, should we email recruiting contacts directly? Or apply via the website? I don't want to bother the recruiting people and hurt my chances that way.