Tell me about the time you realized your career services was useless Forum

[Anonymous User]

Share your most eyeroll-worthy story

[12YrsAnAssociate]

Mine tried but wasn't in touch with reality. I went to a fairly middling school, and they would send me totally unrealistic job openings to apply for. For example, when I landed a clerkship with a local Fed. COA judge they sent me an announcement for the Bristow Fellowship program and encouraged me to apply. There has never ever been a Bristow Fellow from a school ranked where mine was. I think they just saw it as a numbers game -- the more apps their students sent out the better their stats would be.

[Anonymous User]

Mine tried but wasn't in touch with reality. I went to a fairly middling school, and they would send me totally unrealistic job openings to apply for. For example, when I landed a clerkship with a local Fed. COA judge they sent me an announcement for the Bristow Fellowship program and encouraged me to apply. There has never ever been a Bristow Fellow from a school ranked where mine was. I think they just saw it as a numbers game -- the more apps their students sent out the better their stats would be.

I had a similar (if slightly less redonkulous) experience, not with career services, but with a prof on the clerkship committee who said I had a shot at a federal COA. Spoiler: I did not remotely have a shot. I think the prof assumed everyone had the same experience they did, having gone to Stanford, despite working at Very Much Not Stanford.

(Our career services office was pretty much what you could expect, the biggest issue was students thinking the office should be able to hand-deliver them jobs, despite this being Very Much Not Stanford.)

[Anonymous User]

Had a career counselor take a Zoom meeting lying in bed

[VEEP]

The best piece of advice I received from a 3L when I was a 1L: Don't listen to anything career services tells you.

T14. 3.8 GPA at the end of 1L, my assigned career advisor told me I should not be participating in pre-OCI (submitting early applications) for big law jobs because there was a strong likelihood that candidates that apply early get rejected, and if I'm rejected, I wouldn't be able to interview with those firms during OCI, when I otherwise would be able to.

I included my GPA/school range to give further context to how ridiculous this advice was. It's not like I was being told not to apply due to a low GPA. In any case, it was terrible advice as firms rarely take the time to reject candidates so quickly and before OCI has even begun. Usually they just ignore the applications from students they don't want to hire early/snag right away. There was not much to lose by submitting pre-OCI apps in my position. I ended up submitting them anyway after talking to a 3L at the time. Glad I did, received a few offers and this took the pressure off of having to secure something during OCI. Predictably, no firm I applied to pre-OCI rejected me prior to OCI starting; I was able to interview with every firm I got a slot for during OCI.

[Anonymous User]

Share your most eyeroll-worthy story

When they “strongly discouraged” students from applying for jobs outside of OCI. I’d say about 75% of university administrative/bureaucratic employees are entirely useless at best, and actively harmful at worst. It’s honestly absurd how many people at elite universities do almost nothing and get paid reasonably well. And people wonder why tuition is through the roof?

[Anonymous User]

Career services very nearly ruined my life by discouraging pre OCI.

Also my resume sucked and instead of fixing it they just changed the formatting. After I started struggling with OCI I found a former biglaw person who gave me tough love and completely rewrote my resume. Suddenly I started getting interviews.

[Anonymous User]

Told me I "didn't have the look" for big law lol. Didn't realize I was signing up to be a model!

[Anonymous User]

Went into career services for a resume edit as a 1L to get ready for OCI the upcoming year. I had done an internship in a Senator's office prior to law school and she noticed it. The whole time she tried to convince me to run for office. I laughed and she didn't understand why. I never came back to career services after that.

[Anonymous User]

Career services very nearly ruined my life by discouraging pre OCI.

Also my resume sucked and instead of fixing it they just changed the formatting. After I started struggling with OCI I found a former biglaw person who gave me tough love and completely rewrote my resume. Suddenly I started getting interviews.

This, except they successfully talked me out of pre-OCI and I suffered the consequences

[Anonymous User]

Told me I "didn't have the look" for big law lol. Didn't realize I was signing up to be a model!

This is absolutely ridiculous. What is the "look" for big law? Genuinely curious about what this career services person was thinking because after spending a summer at a big law firm, I'll just say that we aren't a profession known for being lookers.

[Anonymous User]

Told me I "didn't have the look" for big law lol. Didn't realize I was signing up to be a model!

This is absolutely ridiculous. What is the "look" for big law? Genuinely curious about what this career services person was thinking because after spending a summer at a big law firm, I'll just say that we aren't a profession known for being lookers.

Plot twist: Career services thought OP was way too attractive to be suffering through biglaw

[Anonymous User]

Told me I "didn't have the look" for big law lol. Didn't realize I was signing up to be a model!

This is absolutely ridiculous. What is the "look" for big law? Genuinely curious about what this career services person was thinking because after spending a summer at a big law firm, I'll just say that we aren't a profession known for being lookers.

Plot twist: Career services thought OP was way too attractive to be suffering through biglaw

I’m going to guess the OP is fat (OP, I don’t mean that as an insult to you, just I could see anti-fat bias being expressed that way).

[Anonymous User]

Did some mock interviews with career services. I did these with several different people, but one in particular was really bad. I paused before each answer to give myself time. The person told me I should add in "ums" and other things like that because I sounded too well prepared. I think she was just giving feedback for the sake of feedback.

They also said to have I think three interests and have those be specific, like French New Wave Cinema and Flamenco Dancing. That's stupid. Some people just like a lot of things and broad categories. Nothing wrong with enjoying movies and dancing. Doesn't need to be specific types. Also nothing wrong with having a wide range of interests like movies, tv, traveling, reading, etc.

The other classic is telling students to not apply early--they make too much money from OCI to want students to apply early.

[Wanderingdrock]

Did some mock interviews with career services. I did these with several different people, but one in particular was really bad. I paused before each answer to give myself time. The person told me I should add in "ums" and other things like that because I sounded too well prepared. I think she was just giving feedback for the sake of feedback.

They also said to have I think three interests and have those be specific, like French New Wave Cinema and Flamenco Dancing. That's stupid. Some people just like a lot of things and broad categories. Nothing wrong with enjoying movies and dancing. Doesn't need to be specific types. Also nothing wrong with having a wide range of interests like movies, tv, traveling, reading, etc.

The other classic is telling students to not apply early--they make too much money from OCI to want students to apply early.

The first two actually seem like... pretty good advice? Don't add too many ums, but one or two here or there might make you sound more human. I don't want to hear someone give what sounds like a packaged response; I want to think my questions are somewhat original and they are thinking on their feet (even if they're not). There absolutely is such a thing as being "too prepared" if it shows through in the interview. And I skip right over the "interests" section on a resume if it says "movies" or "travel," because who the eff doesn't like at least one of those things in some fashion? I'm only going to think it was worth including on a resume if it says enough to spark a conversation.

[Anonymous User]

Did some mock interviews with career services. I did these with several different people, but one in particular was really bad. I paused before each answer to give myself time. The person told me I should add in "ums" and other things like that because I sounded too well prepared. I think she was just giving feedback for the sake of feedback.

They also said to have I think three interests and have those be specific, like French New Wave Cinema and Flamenco Dancing. That's stupid. Some people just like a lot of things and broad categories. Nothing wrong with enjoying movies and dancing. Doesn't need to be specific types. Also nothing wrong with having a wide range of interests like movies, tv, traveling, reading, etc.

The other classic is telling students to not apply early--they make too much money from OCI to want students to apply early.

The first two actually seem like... pretty good advice? Don't add too many ums, but one or two here or there might make you sound more human. I don't want to hear someone give what sounds like a packaged response; I want to think my questions are somewhat original and they are thinking on their feet (even if they're not). There absolutely is such a thing as being "too prepared" if it shows through in the interview. And I skip right over the "interests" section on a resume if it says "movies" or "travel," because who the eff doesn't like at least one of those things in some fashion? I'm only going to think it was worth including on a resume if it says enough to spark a conversation.

I strongly disagree with you on that. Someone with "ums" sounds unprepared to me and there is no such thing as being over prepared. You sound natural when you have the confidence that you have answers to fall back on. Actors memorize all of their lines and play around with them after they've memorized them.

Also, if you're skipping over general interests maybe you're in the wrong here. People can have broader interests. Someone may enjoy watching both Marvel movies and Goddard. Someone may enjoy visiting Berlin's art museums and the Grand Canyon. Someone may read War and Peace and also read a non-fiction book about the Kardashians. Keeping to narrow interests is dumb.

And just to establish some sort of authority, I did very well at my school's on campus recruiting plus have mentored many law students in getting excellent jobs.

[Anonymous User]

Pausing is good, ums is bad. That's the issue, not "too prepared".

Nothing wrong with listing "travel" in interests. If you wanna skip it, skip it. Or make a conversation out of it, just ask "where have you traveled". Career services loves pushing kids to add extra details like "enjoys kayaking in the Himalayas with his favorite teddy bear packed in his helmet" and it ends up looking super weird.

[Anonymous User]

Did some mock interviews with career services. I did these with several different people, but one in particular was really bad. I paused before each answer to give myself time. The person told me I should add in "ums" and other things like that because I sounded too well prepared. I think she was just giving feedback for the sake of feedback.

They also said to have I think three interests and have those be specific, like French New Wave Cinema and Flamenco Dancing. That's stupid. Some people just like a lot of things and broad categories. Nothing wrong with enjoying movies and dancing. Doesn't need to be specific types. Also nothing wrong with having a wide range of interests like movies, tv, traveling, reading, etc.

The other classic is telling students to not apply early--they make too much money from OCI to want students to apply early.

The first two actually seem like... pretty good advice? Don't add too many ums, but one or two here or there might make you sound more human. I don't want to hear someone give what sounds like a packaged response; I want to think my questions are somewhat original and they are thinking on their feet (even if they're not). There absolutely is such a thing as being "too prepared" if it shows through in the interview. And I skip right over the "interests" section on a resume if it says "movies" or "travel," because who the eff doesn't like at least one of those things in some fashion? I'm only going to think it was worth including on a resume if it says enough to spark a conversation.

I strongly disagree with you on that. Someone with "ums" sounds unprepared to me and there is no such thing as being over prepared. You sound natural when you have the confidence that you have answers to fall back on. Actors memorize all of their lines and play around with them after they've memorized them.

Also, if you're skipping over general interests maybe you're in the wrong here. People can have broader interests. Someone may enjoy watching both Marvel movies and Goddard. Someone may enjoy visiting Berlin's art museums and the Grand Canyon. Someone may read War and Peace and also read a non-fiction book about the Kardashians. Keeping to narrow interests is dumb.

And just to establish some sort of authority, I did very well at my school's on campus recruiting plus have mentored many law students in getting excellent jobs.

Like yeah, people can have divergent interests within an umbrella category but if you want people to ask you about it - you have to say something ungeneric that gives the interview something to ask about.

If I like sports and put "sports" on my resume, no one is gonna be like "oh you like sports?" but if I put "being disappointed by underperforming midwestern football teams," then there's a conversation to be had

[Anonymous User]

Interests don’t have to be either incredibly generic or incredibly specific. I once put down “travel in Italy [and some other places]” rather than “travel” and got asked “what’s your favorite Italian city?” which was a little surprising but still a softball/pleasant conversation.

I think one way to think about interests is to think about what you could carry a conversation about. If you write “sports” and someone says “what’d you think of the Tour de France this year?” it’s not great to answer to say “oh I don’t follow cycling.” So put down something you would feel comfortable discussing in at least a little detail.

All that said, nitpicking interests is a silly thing for a CSO to do, as long as you don’t put down something that makes you look like a psychopath. Like “being disappointed by midwestern sports teams” is a cute catchy interest, but it’s not what’s going to get you hired (yes, you may bond with your interviewer over it and that conversation may give you and edge with that interviewer compared to another candidate, but it’s all so random anyway. There are much better things to obsess about on your resume).

[Anonymous User]

Went into OCI exactly median at a T14. The counselor who I was assigned to work with told me not to bother applying to any firms with a GPA requirement slightly above median, even though I was a student who had a rough first semester but made near straight As my second semester. I will never forget her telling me how "embarrassed" I would be if I went into an interview with a firm that says it has a minimum GPA .05 higher than mine. I was an idiot and followed her advice, and I ended up with choices I was very unhappy with. I had plenty of classmates who applied to firms who had a higher GPA requirement than their GPA, and they received OCI offers/full time offers.

[Anonymous User]

I had the exact opposite experience with my career counselor. There were six career counselors at my school and you were just randomly assigned one as a 1L. Five of the six were idiots and their credentials were mostly a year or two in big law and then either burned out or got fired and, for some reason, the law school hired them. But the career counselor I got assigned was a former partner at a big law firm in DC and COA clerk. She told me exactly what I needed to do to get a DC offer as a 1L, helped me a make a realistic bid list that landed me a bunch of offers (many at firms where I was below the GPA median), and then connected me with judges that she thought would be interested in my application which resulted in two clerkship offers from two applications. I'm a first generation professional from a small town and don't know any lawyers so I would have absolutely drowned if it wasn't for her. I always think about how much different my career could have turned out if I was just assigned a different career counselor.

[Anonymous User]

My T6's OCS is notoriously a nightmare. Warned everyone repeatedly not to do pre-OCI and then the people who disobeyed and did it got what they wanted; the others did not.

[Anonymous User]

I had the exact opposite experience with my career counselor. There were six career counselors at my school and you were just randomly assigned one as a 1L. Five of the six were idiots and their credentials were mostly a year or two in big law and then either burned out or got fired and, for some reason, the law school hired them. But the career counselor I got assigned was a former partner at a big law firm in DC and COA clerk. She told me exactly what I needed to do to get a DC offer as a 1L, helped me a make a realistic bid list that landed me a bunch of offers (many at firms where I was below the GPA median), and then connected me with judges that she thought would be interested in my application which resulted in two clerkship offers from two applications. I'm a first generation professional from a small town and don't know any lawyers so I would have absolutely drowned if it wasn't for her. I always think about how much different my career could have turned out if I was just assigned a different career counselor.

UVA or Georgetown? Jealous of your experience lol

[Anonymous User]

My T6's OCS is notoriously a nightmare. Warned everyone repeatedly not to do pre-OCI and then the people who disobeyed and did it got what they wanted; the others did not.

Penn?

[Anonymous User]

I had the exact opposite experience with my career counselor. There were six career counselors at my school and you were just randomly assigned one as a 1L. Five of the six were idiots and their credentials were mostly a year or two in big law and then either burned out or got fired and, for some reason, the law school hired them. But the career counselor I got assigned was a former partner at a big law firm in DC and COA clerk. She told me exactly what I needed to do to get a DC offer as a 1L, helped me a make a realistic bid list that landed me a bunch of offers (many at firms where I was below the GPA median), and then connected me with judges that she thought would be interested in my application which resulted in two clerkship offers from two applications. I'm a first generation professional from a small town and don't know any lawyers so I would have absolutely drowned if it wasn't for her. I always think about how much different my career could have turned out if I was just assigned a different career counselor.

UVA or Georgetown? Jealous of your experience lol

Prob not UVA