Questions to ask when lateraling Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am a third year lateral trying to decide between similar offers at V10 firms, and have some second look conversations set up to help me decide - what questions would be good to ask folks to get a better sense of which firm to choose?

[papermateflair]

Find out what the timeline looks like for promotion. It may be a little early to have those conversations, but I think it's important to look at what the next steps are at the new job, and when you'll need to be ramping up for promotion.

[Anonymous User]

I am a third year lateral trying to decide between similar offers at V10 firms, and have some second look conversations set up to help me decide - what questions would be good to ask folks to get a better sense of which firm to choose?

Keep in mind that the person who is answering your question is told to "sell you" the firm to get you to accept the offer. I do these second-look meetings with prospective candidates at my V50 and am told by HR to push the candidates to accept the offer and make the firm look good. So just take whatever they tell you with a grain of salt.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

"Why is this position open? Why did the last guy leave? Do you think he would recommend this job to me? You mind if I call him to confirm that?"

I wouldn't ask these before I had an offer, but since you do, I'll bet you get some fun answers.

Just in general, it's great to ask questions that immediately identify who's 100% full of shit.

[Anonymous User]

I am a third year lateral trying to decide between similar offers at V10 firms, and have some second look conversations set up to help me decide - what questions would be good to ask folks to get a better sense of which firm to choose?

Keep in mind that the person who is answering your question is told to "sell you" the firm to get you to accept the offer. I do these second-look meetings with prospective candidates at my V50 and am told by HR to push the candidates to accept the offer and make the firm look good. So just take whatever they tell you with a grain of salt.

To be fair, I never had this experience, but I do think my firm might be in the minority. I do think there is this unspoken rule that you're supposed to push it on them (obviously, there is also a selfish interest at heart: you'd rather have more colleagues to pass off work to, than less), but it was never indicated to me by anyone that I should try and convince anyone. That being said, I'm also in a satellite office, so maybe people just don't care as much.

[Anonymous User]

I am a third year lateral trying to decide between similar offers at V10 firms, and have some second look conversations set up to help me decide - what questions would be good to ask folks to get a better sense of which firm to choose?

Keep in mind that the person who is answering your question is told to "sell you" the firm to get you to accept the offer. I do these second-look meetings with prospective candidates at my V50 and am told by HR to push the candidates to accept the offer and make the firm look good. So just take whatever they tell you with a grain of salt.

To be fair, I never had this experience, but I do think my firm might be in the minority. I do think there is this unspoken rule that you're supposed to push it on them (obviously, there is also a selfish interest at heart: you'd rather have more colleagues to pass off work to, than less), but it was never indicated to me by anyone that I should try and convince anyone. That being said, I'm also in a satellite office, so maybe people just don't care as much.

I've been in this situation and was never told to sell the firm either, but I didn't need to be. Things were busy (that's why we were hiring) and I was desperate for someone else to take on work, so I did my best to convince people to join. I didn't feel bad about misleading anyone because I was at the point where I would have quit without more support. I think a lot of associates are feeling that way now.

What you should be doing is talking to people who recently departed the two firms (try cold contacting them on LinkedIn if nothing else) and friends/classmates who work at the firms. When I lateralled my second time I thought I could handle pretty much any work environment, but the reality is that some partners are absolutely awful to work for and will make your life miserable; you need to be sure you're not stepping into an environment like that.

[Anonymous User]

I am a third year lateral trying to decide between similar offers at V10 firms, and have some second look conversations set up to help me decide - what questions would be good to ask folks to get a better sense of which firm to choose?

Keep in mind that the person who is answering your question is told to "sell you" the firm to get you to accept the offer. I do these second-look meetings with prospective candidates at my V50 and am told by HR to push the candidates to accept the offer and make the firm look good. So just take whatever they tell you with a grain of salt.

To be fair, I never had this experience, but I do think my firm might be in the minority. I do think there is this unspoken rule that you're supposed to push it on them (obviously, there is also a selfish interest at heart: you'd rather have more colleagues to pass off work to, than less), but it was never indicated to me by anyone that I should try and convince anyone. That being said, I'm also in a satellite office, so maybe people just don't care as much.

I've been in this situation and was never told to sell the firm either, but I didn't need to be. Things were busy (that's why we were hiring) and I was desperate for someone else to take on work, so I did my best to convince people to join. I didn't feel bad about misleading anyone because I was at the point where I would have quit without more support. I think a lot of associates are feeling that way now.

What you should be doing is talking to people who recently departed the two firms (try cold contacting them on LinkedIn if nothing else) and friends/classmates who work at the firms. When I lateralled my second time I thought I could handle pretty much any work environment, but the reality is that some partners are absolutely awful to work for and will make your life miserable; you need to be sure you're not stepping into an environment like that.

Also consider reaching out to associates in that practice group who HR has *not* offered to set you up with. This is a lot easier than reaching out to ppl on linkedin because you can just email them.
My experience is that HR tries to figure out who is happy and who is not, and excludes the latter from the recruiting process. That then gives candidates a really skewed impression of what things are like.

I work in a niche lit practice group in the NY office of a v10 firm with 8-10 associates; there's only one or two associates who are not absolutely miserable adn exhausted, and surprise surprise those are the two who are doing all of our lateral interviewing. (The firm doesn't even tell the other associates the names of the candidates.)