Personal Strategies for Success in a Law Firm Interview

Dear Lawcrossing,

I have a self-analysis problem. I am a second-year law student, and I have done well in school. I'm in the top 5% of my class and I'm on Law Review. During on-campus interview season, many firms were anxious to interview me. However, following the interviews, I received very few callbacks and no offers.


I am not socially retarded or anything like that, but I just can't figure out what's going wrong during the interviews. I have heard all of the standard advice about interviewing, and have tried to apply the suggestions. I hate the thought of blowing job prospects just because I am an inept interviewee. Do you have any suggestions?

HB, New York,

DEAR HB,

LawCrossing always has suggestions-although in your case, HB, she is not entirely proud to admit that one of the reasons she graced your letter with a column is to show your less academically-blessed law school colleagues that great grades and Law Review ain't, to put it in the vernacular, everything. They don't hurt, but as you have so frankly and self-effacingly pointed out, credentials might make it easy to get in the door, but the interview is what seals the deal.

So, what's going on here? Of course without meeting you herself LawCrossing can't be sure. But having met and spoken with many thousands of law students, HB, she is confident that whatever obstacle you face in interviewing is easily overcome-even though whatever this glitch is may not be obvious to you. The important point to remember about interviewing is that the interviewer doesn't know you-they only know what you present. An interviewing problem is just a presentation problem. It's a matter of making sure the best "you" is the one that comes across.

Three of the more obvious cases LawCrossing has met immediately come to mind. One charming young man accosted LawCrossing after one of her Guerrilla Tactics seminars, and said, "I do everything you tell us to do. I'm prepared, I have answers ready, I ask lots of questions. I don't know what's wrong." Upon further interrogation, LawCrossing was horrified to discover that the question he always led with in interviews was, "When's the last time your firm had a group hug?"-apparently as a means of trying to determine the firm's atmosphere. Needless to say, when LawCrossing gently redirected him away from asking this particular question, the flow of offers quickly began.

Another young man similarly bemoaned an interviewing problem. As LawCrossing spoke with him, taking a cue from his facial expression, she tried to discern a nasty odor in the air. There was none; this young man's problem was, in fact, that his natural expression was one of mild distaste. He was completely unaware of it until LawCrossing led him to a mirror and pointed it out.

Finally, LawCrossing thinks of a young woman who was turning down an offer from her current employer, and believed this was tripping her up in interviews, even though she had an answer fully prepared for questions about it. Unfortunately, when asked why she wasn't staying put, she said, "My employers are completely unorganized. They never get anything accomplished, and it's very frustrating to me." Even though this was the truth, it was the unvarnished truth. As LawCrossing pointed out to her, virtually any interviewer will be able to think of someone in their own office who is unorganized, and the interviewer will extrapolate from her response that this person, too, would drive her crazy, and thus she wouldn't be a good hire. By simply rewording her response, and pointing out how she'd learned to cope with disorganized bosses and was now ready for a different challenge, she corrected this simple-but important-interviewing flaw.

Now, HB, could your problem be a facial expression? An inappropriate question? A poorly worded, albeit truthful, answer? Or perhaps you come across as shy or, God forbid, arrogant in an interview, even though LawCrossing knows that you are, in your heart, both confident and humble? (LawCrossing is fairly sure you haven't offended the arrogance gods, HB, since you characterize your perfectly stellar credentials as merely showing that you have "done well.") The best, fastest, and easiest way to cut to the chase is to go to your career services office and request a mock interview, or perhaps a series of them, with different interviewers. If your school has such facilities, request that the interview be videotaped. And prepare for these mock interviews as you would for any interview; tell your career services office what kind of jobs you are seeking, so that they will question you accordingly. How do you prepare? The simplest way is to go to your career services office, library, or your local bookstore, and check out a well-know legal job search book, LawCrossing's much-heralded (at least by LawCrossing) job search book for law students. It's got an extensive chapter on interviewing. For a start-there's a lot more to it than this, of course, which is why it takes a whole chapter to explain-what you've got to do is learn as much as you can about the employer beforehand, ask lots of questions based on your research and inquire into the interviewer's own experience at the firm, memorize a brief "infomercial" about yourself (to be used for a question like "Tell me about yourself"), and prepare answers, actually rehearse them, for any difficult question you might face (the chapter takes you through dozens and dozens of potential questions, as well as great and terrible answers).

When you request such mock interviews, be sure that you lay yourself as bare as you did for LawCrossing. Say that you know you're doing something wrong, and you sincerely want to find out what it is. That way, you are predisposing your career services director (or whoever conducts your mock interview) to criticize you, which is what you've got to do. Better to have criticism come in the form of helpful hints from a mock interview, than as a rejection from a real interview.

If, for some ungodly reason, your career services office doesn't perform mock interviews-and LawCrossing has never seen such a thing-go to another law school in the area, or a local college, and explain your plight. They will either oblige you, if they feel like being helpful that way, or direct you to a local independent career counselor who will do the same thing.

HB, LawCrossing is certain that taking these simple steps is all you'll need to do to "lick" your interview problem-and bask in the warm glow of those fabulous credentials!

See the following articles for more information:
 

• 21 Major Interview Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
• The Best Way to Prepare for a Job Search and Interviews
• How to Talk About Other Interviews in Your Interviews
• How to Answer the Tell Me About Yourself Interview Question
• How to Answer the Do You Have Any Questions for Me Interview Question