I’ve interviewed at this firm 3 times; twice in the past year now. They have never mentioned that I’ve been there before and I’m quite certain they have no record of my prior applications.There was an odd consistency of confusion that seemed to just be accepted by all there.
The firm was located in a nice mid-rise and a pretty nicely decked out office, done up in the classic ‘grey on grey’ for everything.
#1. My first interview at this place was a few years back when I first moved down here. Basically I had a great interview with a young partner. He told me he got stuck running the interviews because he was the newest partner and got suck with the crappy jobs (Way to make an impression on the applicant!). On the plus side however, we had a ton in common and a fair amount of the interview was the two of us bullshitting and having a really great conversation. I was sure I had an offer. At the end of the interview, the real information came out though. This legal office had a satellite office in the armpit of this state, some 300 miles away. Although the job posting had been to work in the main city, the actual job offer was for the legal office in Armpit. The partner basically said they would hire me on the spot if I would take the Armpit job, but they’d have to think about it if I was only looking at Main City. I told them in no uncertain terms I had no interest in Armpit. That pretty much killed any chance of an job offer, because they didn’t actually have a job here… only in Armpit.
I ended up working with a colleague who had the exact same interview with them. “Sure, we might hire you to work here, but we would definitely hire you to go work in Armpit.” He told them where they could put that offer too.
#2. The second time I interviewed here was last year. They setup the interview and then the guy who was supposed to interview me got a case of poison ivy which sent him to the hospital and out of work for the week. No one had thought to reschedule and I ended up waiting a long time while they searched for someone to interview me. I mean why not just reschedule… or maybe be more organized and cancel these things before I am sitting in the conference room… instead they grabbed one of the wandering lit attorneys who was probably the image you would have in your mind if I told you to imagine someone who was dead inside and had no soul. He exemplified why people hated attorneys. He told me stories about how opportunistic he was and how he had scammed several hundred thousand (legally!) out of his prior employers and used his personal knowledge of them for his own profit, and then he laughed about it. He thought it was hilarious.
How the hell do you respond to that in an interview? He was one of the few people I really felt icky after talking to, and I just wanted to go shower to wash off whatever veneer was on this guy that might have rubbed off.
#3. This one was this month. I was supposed to interview with partner X. Who just didn’t bother showing up for work on the day of my interview. So, in the spirit of this law firm they just cobbled together a few people who did show up to sit down and interview me. None of them were all that memorable this time, and the interview was sadly a very normal affair, excepting the interviewer who was a no show. I was really expecting a bit more weirdness in the vein of the prior encounters. I think the one consistency in every interview was I always end up in the same conference room sitting in the same chair, and no one had ever seen my resume before they sat down to talk to me. And also, the firm never bothers to actually get back to me to even say “no thank you”, (assuming there even was a job in the first place).
I have a vague feeling they constantly advertise for a non-existent position, and if you are the perfect applicant, they might create the position they have been advertising for so long, otherwise you never hear back.