Rejected after callback - post-mortem Forum

[Anonymous User]

From a T5 school, rejected from a V5 firm in NY after callback. Does anyone know why this happens?

Grades are good (or at least median). I know it's possible to misjudge the impression you leave, but I left with a very strong impression that all conversations went well.

I guess I'm just curious if anyone has experience with the behind-the-scenes stuff and might be able to provide a little insight. I thought offers are pretty much determined by how well callback conversations go, but now I'm wondering if I somehow didn't fit the profile or if they had too many early acceptances or something like that.

Which is not to say that I couldn't have somehow blown it, too - I didn't get any sense that I did, but it's certainly possible I terribly misread one or more conversations.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

[Anonymous User]

From a T5 school, rejected from a V5 firm in NY after callback. Does anyone know why this happens?

Grades are good (or at least median). I know it's possible to misjudge the impression you leave, but I left with a very strong impression that all conversations went well.

I guess I'm just curious if anyone has experience with the behind-the-scenes stuff and might be able to provide a little insight. I thought offers are pretty much determined by how well callback conversations go, but now I'm wondering if I somehow didn't fit the profile or if they had too many early acceptances or something like that.

Which is not to say that I couldn't have somehow blown it, too - I didn't get any sense that I did, but it's certainly possible I terribly misread one or more conversations.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

It doesn't necessarily mean you did poorly. You could have been great during the interviews... but they liked someone a bit more. And when there's not as many spots due to Pre-OCI, those small margins could make the difference.

[commonlaw]

I had my CDO reach out to a firm after they rejected me. I felt the interview went well was surprised by the rejection and thought that I somehow did something wrong during the interview. Turns out that they just had 1 spot for which they interviewed 5 applicants. They said my interview was fine and they liked me and couldn't suggest anything I should do differently. I guess they just liked someone or their transcript a bit more.

A V5 firm is going to be competitive. Even if you interviewed well, maybe they used transcript as a tiebreaker and went with people who had better grades or more accolades that you do.

I've also heard rumors that firms did more pre-OCI hiring this cycle and shrunk their summer programs.

[nixy]

Yeah, you can do perfectly great and they still just like someone else a little better.

Or that one really influential person liked the other person better.

Or they liked you equally but the other person had better grades. (Obviously your grades were good enough to get the callback so they weren’t a dealbreaker, but if it comes to cutting people, they can be a tiebreaker.) Or they had more pre-law school experience. (Or less, if that’s what the firm is looking for.)

Or the other person expressed more interest in an area they expect to have more need in.

Or they’d made a lot of offers to people from your school already and wanted to have a more mixed class.

Or the other person had better connections.

Or you did in fact blow one of the conversations without knowing it. I don’t think this is super likely, but it’s not always going to be possible to tell from your side of things.

There isn’t really much point in post-mortem-ing based on one rejection from one extremely selective firm. This is just how job applications go. You’re going to get some rejections even when you do well.

[Anonymous User]

OP here - Thank you all for your advice. After reflecting and reading your thoughtful comments, I can definitely appreciate that there are a lot of potential (and potentially arbitrary) reasons why you could have a great callback and still get rejected. It stung in the moment, but I also understand that there are a lot of factors that go into the decision, many of which don't reflect my value as a future lawyer (or as a human being lol).

I am fortunate to have an offer at another great firm, and I know a lot of people are still waiting on their first offer, so I have a lot to be grateful for.

Thanks again!