So, the interview saga from yesterday is a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG story, and I don't want to bore everyone, so I think I'll just give you a written highlights reel and if you want to know the gory details you can always email me.
- 4 Interviewers -- 2 Partners, 1 Mid-Level Associate, 1 Junior Associate -- 1/2 hour each
- 2/4 interviewers do not know that I've already been interviewed during OCI
- 1/4 interviewers demands to know why I'm there so late and how come I didn't show up with all the other 2L's -- seems unsatisfied by my "We're on quarters" argument.
- 1/4 interviewers asks me how I like being a 3L.
- 4/4 interviewers GRILL me about my connections to San Francisco and all cite the reason for this as people coming out for the summer to live in San Francisco and not being willing to commit.
- 1/4 interviewers will NOT accept my answer regarding ties to San Francisco, that I've lived all over the world and grew up an Air Force brat and if the only place I can apply for a job is a place I have ties than I'm pretty limited to one podunk paper mill town in southern Oregon where my parents bought into the country club and retired.
- 1/4 interviewers tells me that they have room in the summer class but they're not going to give it to someone that doesn't have concrete ties to San Francisco and they don't want to waste their offers on people [implicit in this is "people like me, people without ties, etc." -- ed].
- 2/4 interviewers RAVE about how great it is to work there but can't provide any concrete basis for their claims.
- 1/4 interviewers tells me, when pressed, that why they like working there so much is that it's so consuming. And I quote "I work, I go to the gym, and then I go home and drink wine...that's my life."
- 1/4 interviewers start the interview off with "So, how many offers do you have?"
- 3/4 interviewers ask me why I'm not taking XYZ Law (the type of law they practice) and seem unimpressed with my "We have a lottery system" answer.
- 1/4 interviewers said I should blow off school today and stay in San Francisco for the weekend and just "submit the receipt to the firm and get them to pay for it" [they only paid half my last minute airfare there, so this claim is pretty spurious -- ed].
- 0/4 interviewers know ANYTHING about the military or seem remotely interested in any prior work experience I may have had before starting law school.
- 0/4 interviewers seems to have looked at my resume. In fact, one asks me for one because they lost it before I got there and just hadn't thought about it until I walked in.
- 2/4 interviewers take calls during my interview.
Overall, I just felt like they treated me like someone who had walked in off the street, clearly no one had read (or even glanced at) my resume, and there was this concern about my ties to the city that was disconcerting. I mean, at what point does the interviewer just accept that I am probably not going to suddenly remember my grandma lives there or something? Also, since when is it held against you that your parent was in the military and so you don't have a "hometown" or a typical hometown experience? I can't stress how much THEY stressed this...out of a two hour total interview time, I bet I spent 1 full hour answering questions about my ties/lack of ties to the San Francisco area. Anyway, I have a feeling I won't need to be worrying about an offer from them.
On the other hand, I think there will soon be a good news announcement in the job department on this very blog. Stay tuned for further developments.
