So a cold spam resume sent to an Oil and Gas boutique resulted in an email telling me to show up for an interview. I arrive at a nice glass building and park in the connected garage. As a random side note, the garage had rather ridiculous infestation of spiders along the I-beams of the ceiling making me shirk away from every surface and slouch slightly with a vigilant eye upwards. But, inside the building it was quite lovely, and there was a pretty veranda with tables and chairs overlooking a little brook running behind the building that had a whole bunch of turtles in it!
Anyway, back on topic… I get to the office and it was a nice lobby, although some rather cheap flooring, but it was quite large. I’m told to wait and after about 10 minutes one of the soon-to-be interviewers comes out and asks if I brought a copy of my resume with me because apparently they can’t find where they put it. (apparently not a tech savvy office if they can’t search thru email…) So I hand them a copy and I’m ushered into the named partners office. Imagine a living room from 1975 done up with wood paneling and a lot of leather.
The interviewers for this 20+ attorney firm consist of the named partner, and 2 associates who are very likely younger than I am. We start talking about O&G in general and what my interest is in it, I answer I am interested in general business law and O&G is a subset I’d be interested in pursuing considering.. well its Texas (lots of O&G firms). Now, just to clarify, I come from a place where there basically was no oil or gas activity at all, although rather recently there is a great deal. There were no classes in law school because it was the wrong part of the country to have such things. So most of my answers to the O&G info are based on studying for the Texas bar exam.
This shouldn’t be a huge surprise, because this firm had people who had multiple bars in places all over the country, and well, its pretty obvious from my resume… which they must have read before I got here… right? So the general Q&A goes on for awhile and finally I ask (because if you recall… this was a cold resume with no job posting) “what are you looking for, for this position?”
The named partner speaks up and says “7-10 years experience doing title examination opinions in all the places you have bar licenses in.” Silence descends upon the room. WTF. He (theoretically) had looked at a copy of my resume which had zero O&G on it, and pretty close to zero title work on it, and oh let’s not forget I only graduated 4 years ago… so… the whole experience part was a bit of a wash. How was I supposed to respond to that? So after a few seconds of silence I finally just answered “Well, at least I have the bar licenses part.”
The interviewers seem to start winding down and I get asked the great “do you have any questions for us?” The firm had listed on their website that in addition to O&G they also did IP – specifically copyright, trademark, patents, and trade secret work; oh yeah, and Wills, trusts, estate planning, and probate. So, thinking I could leverage my other skills in place of the apparent absence of O&G work I speak up. “I saw on your website that you do IP work…” that was all I got out.
The named partner (possibly a bit too emphatically) spoke up “That’s a LIE.” Once again… silence in the room. Was he saying I was lying? Or the website? I was stuck just sort of staring – waiting for more, and finally he decided to extrapolate. “We don’t do any of that, I think in the past 20 years we’ve done it twice for a client.” So, no… I can’t leverage any other specialties. Apparently the person who made the website never actually consulted with the named partner.The firm ONLY did one thing. O&G title opinions. The other dozen ‘practice areas’ listed were space fillers and they didn’t actually do any of them. (ethics of legal advertising aside, how the hell is someone from outside the firm supposed to know that from looking at their crappy website?)
Suddenly it fell into place. The named partner was computer illiterate. He didn’t look at my resume because it was a PDF attachment… he didn’t download it or open it. He read the brief introductory blurb of my email and made a snap determination on the 3-5 sentences therein. He had no input on his website or interest therein… yeah… I suddenly realized that the first time anyone in that room had seen my resume was as I was sitting down for the interview. There was literally no chance of me getting this job because Mr. Techno-illiterate partner had no idea what my background was because he didn’t read my resume or cover letter, he just saw from the email that I had bar licenses in the right states and he was hoping I had the background he was looking for.
So the interview basically hit a wall and wound down pretty quickly thereafter. I tried to make some small talk surrounding a specific hobby listed all over his bio, but it went nowhere fast. The only bright spot was when I was asked how soon I could start if they were interested. I checked my watch, looked up and said “is now too soon?”
I was ushered back out of the office and felt vaguely confused by the whole ordeal. It was a friendly enough interview minus the whole “7-10 years of experience in a field I don’t have”. Maybe they were looking to train someone…
Yeah.. the answer was no. The email showed up an hour later. I contacted one of the interviewers with the standard “thank you, can you give me some feedback” notes. They basically said I needed to have shown more interest in the field by having joined about a half dozen different professional organizations in O&G to show commitment to the field. (mind you a field I have been incapable of practicing based on geography until the last 30 days). So, pay a bunch of membership fees to organizations that were more local than national, for a sub-specialty I couldn’t possibly have been connected with up until now.
Super. Great advice. I literally couldn’t be more happy with your help. Next time open the damned resume before you setup an interview.