A Free Lunch

As I have mentioned previously, I am nothing if not a connoisseur of free lunches; and with my recent foray into the art of networking how could I say no to a free Bar Association event which was called a “networking luncheon.”

I have been showing up to pretty much any and all free CLE and legal meetings you can imagine in my geographic area. I think I am CLE compliant for my next 2 reporting periods at this point. A fair number of them involve free food which is obviously a nice draw for me personally.

Before I go further, I want to explain to the uninitiated how the listing of CLEs and Bar meetings are arranged. The bar assoc. is composed of the huge main organization and within it there are multiple subcommittees which you often have to pay an additional fee to be a member. So for example the criminal law section of a local bar association often has private section organizational meetings and also private CLEs which are only free to the Criminal Law Section members, but which other attorneys can show up to by paying a small fee for the CLE. This information is always listed and you can usually tell which are the public meetings by the listing of a fee for non-section members and also by how it is described on the master calendar.

Anyway, the Bar Assoc. calendar of events listed a networking luncheon being presented BY the women in law society. This is important, because often subsections of the Bar will put on a public CLE every so often to drum up membership in their section. The listing stated no fee and said it had open registration. You can probably see where this is headed.

I showed up to the luncheon and sat down with a nice boxed lunch I was handed at the door. I look up at the projector screen to see the presentation title “Something Legally Related and Very Boring, presented TO the Women in Law Society Section.” I turned over the change in preposition in my mind and how it was a rather large distinction. I turned around from where I was sitting to quickly scan the room and saw I was the only guy in the room of about 50+ women. Yes… the only one. I considered this for a moment. It was too late to leave as the talk had already begun, and I already had my food. So I inwardly shrugged, ate my lunch and left without talking to anyone.

Not my best networking attempt.

Desperation and Futility

A long time ago, I was told what was likely an apocryphal story about a 3rd year law student who was waiting in line at McDonalds. The small child behind them started talking to them and they ended up in a friendly conversation with the child. The father of the child then started talking to the law student and asked if they were a student at the university nearby. This led the law student to tell the child’s father that they were a soon to be graduating law student, but that they weren’t sure what they were going to do since they had no offers as of yet. It turned out the father was a federal judge, and he looked at the law student and offered them a clerkship, right there in line at McDonalds. There were more details to the story, but whether the story was true or not, the point is that you really never know where you will meet the person who will hire you; it could be at McDonalds. Be open to the possibilities.

I always feel slightly smarmy doing it, but every time I meet someone new, I work into the conversation some iteration of ‘I am a lawyer looking for work’. It’s the tentative probing to see if the person takes the bait and might give you a worthwhile contact or even offer up a job. But to continually be exposed to new people you have to go out and search for them. I show up at more meetings and CLEs of things I have no interest in, just to try to drum up a conversation or two with the other attendees and drop the statement that I am looking for work.

So last week I showed up to a job fair organized by my current city. I knew it was likely going to be a futile endeavor, but I had nothing else planned for the day; and… well… you never know who is going to be there. The advertisement for the job fair claimed that the companies showing up were hiring “at all levels”. So, I figured I would put that to the test and see what the ‘at all levels’ really entailed. I printed off a couple dozen copies of my resume, put on a nice suit and headed out to the job fair. Turns out ‘all levels’ entailed low level sales and manual day laborers.

The job fair was held in the concourse of a sports arena. You know that ring of cement walkway under the seats in a baseball stadium where you go to buy your hotdogs? Yeah. It was there. I seriously wonder who decided it was a good idea to have an event where many people were going to be showing up wearing suits, effectively outside in near 90 degree weather. Mind you, people wearing suits were definitely in the minority. The outfits ran the gamut down to a tank top and purple hot pants (nothing but the best for interviewing I guess). The vast majority of the job fair was depressing at the best, but there were a few memorable moments. 

Probably the strangest thing about the job fair was: without exception when I spoke to the HR reps who were there, they might have a list of jobs they were hiring for, but they would all say “Everything we’re looking for is listed online, and you have to apply online for any of these positions.” So everyone showed up, to be told to go home and apply online. What exactly was the point of the job fair then? No one got hired at the fair… no one was taking applications at the fair. The best you could do was to hand your resume to someone with the hope that they might call you back later. But you showed up in person, only to be told to go apply online. It was ridiculous.

As it happened a few of the local universities were there. I stopped by the table for one and asked the HR admin about open legal positions. There had nothing, as expected since I had already looked online at their career page previously, but then I thoroughly confused them when I asked if their tech-transfer office had any openings. Blank stare, “tech transfer?” they seemed utterly confused. I tried again… Technology capitalization office…. same confused reaction… I rattled off two or three other possible names for the office and finally just explained what they did. “The office that sells and licenses the research and discoveries made by your faculty’s research.” I kid you not, they looked at me and said “I don’t think we do that.” Right. Because research never leads anywhere… I gave up and wandered off.

And wandered right over to the table run by the HR dept of the university from (non)-Interview #22. They had a single sheet of paper on an otherwise empty table, printed off from their own website listing the positions they were hiring for (that you had to go home and apply online for.. of course). But I had a quick thought and asked the HR manager “Who would I talk to at your university to find out about being hired as an adjunct?” They said I would have to contact the departments directly because each department handled such things internally. But then, they helpfully added “But we don’t pay our adjuncts.” Now it was my turn to pause and stare. I had to make sure I understood that correctly. “I’m sorry, you don’t pay them anything?” The HR drone seemed slightly uncomfortable because there were at least a half dozen people milling around the table who heard. “Correct. I think we might be one of the only universities that doesn’t.” I put the only copy of the job listing paper down onto their completely empty table and said,”So I guess you aren’t hiring adjuncts.” She seemed a little flustered and said “well, we do but…” and I cut her off and laughed “Not if you aren’t paying them you’re not.” And I ambled off to another table.

I spoke to someone from a hospital HR dept who had no open  positions but wanted a business card from me to prove that there was an attorney at the job fair looking for work. (this was truly the high point for the morning).

I spoke to someone from a veterans affairs office who said I should contact him for a potential networking opportunity but wouldn’t give me his business card (from a stack he was holding in his hand) because I wasn’t a veteran. I’m not sure what game was going on with him… it was weird; he was weird. I made the vague promise to get in contact and wandered off into the crowd wondering ‘what the hell…’

I think of the 100+ employer reps who had tables, only 2 showed any interest and took my resume.

Generally the story was always the same… Ooo we’ve never seen an attorney at one of these things. And we have no openings regardless. And even if we did, you’d have to go online and apply there and hope we get back to you. So thanks for showing up in person to be told to go look online, and damn I’ve never seen a professional show up to a job fair.

My ego can literally sink no lower.

 

Interview #24: Money

So I got a call from an AM 100 firm asking for a phone screen interview. A few days later I get another call asking me to show up at their office for an interview “because their needs have changed”. I’m still not sure what that means, but I’m always game to show up for interviews – plus a Big Law office interview should be interesting if nothing else. I’m then told I’m going to be video conferencing with a couple attorneys in another state.

I sorta thought that meant that there would be someone in person to also speak with, but that turned out not to be the case here. Anyway, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I show up at the building and park in possibly the most expensive parking garage in this city (thankfully unlike previous ‘of course we will validate parking‘ interviews, this office actually did validate my parking). I then take a series of elevators to the top floor.

— Sidenote… I recall in other cities taking a single elevator up 100 floors or more, usually on an express elevator, but it was a single elevator. The city I am in now seems to have some sort of requirement that elevators can only go up 50 floors, and then you have to get out and go to a different bank of elevators to continue up any farther. Anyone know why this is? It just seems strange to me.

Anyway, saying it was the top floor wasn’t quite right. For this office, you go to the top floor, then get out of the elevator and walk up another flight to the their office. It almost seemed like they looked at the Realtor and said ‘we want the top floor’ were then told it was occupied, and then asked ‘What if we built something above that…”. That being said, it was beautiful. The decor dripped money, moreso than any other office I have been in. While I was waiting, someone came in whose sole job was to monitor and maintain the wood furniture and replace it if it started to look worn. I am quite confident that the fee charged by the decorator of this office cost more than most law firms spend on filling their office with actual furniture.

After waiting in an empty lobby for a few minutes, someone finally walked by. And actually got halfway down a side hallway before stopping and turning back to ask if anyone had helped me yet. It was a weird disconnect that apparently there are so few people who come into their fabulously decorated lobby, that someone waiting in it will be initially overlooked.

So after a few more minutes, I’m led back to a conference room with a large TV displaying the inside of a much less impressive conference room 1000 miles away, and I’m left there alone staring into another empty conference room. The existential implications were profound.

Finally the other attorney wandered into the frame and started talking with me and conducting the interview. I will say first that this was the most sane interview I’ve had in a very, very long time. The only weird part was that technically for this job, the direct supervisors were the people I was talking to 1000 miles away. I would likely almost never see them in person, but it also explained why I was sitting in an empty room talking to a TV. It also made me wonder why I couldn’t have done this interview over Skype from my apartment.

The whole situation gave a somewhat impersonal feel, but also showed that this was a very technically adept firm. The HR admin in one office setup an interview with several other attorneys across multiple states and it all went off incredibly smoothly. The only irritation was a slight delay of probably 1-2 seconds on the video-link which made me almost want to announce ‘over’ at the end of each of my answers, like some sort of ham radio.

But dear lord… if I was willing to kill to get the job from the prior interview, I can’t even tell you what I would do for these people. Probably something the Hague would want to talk with me about; but I think it might be worth it.

 

 

Interview #23: Good cop, Bad Cop

I think there must be one of those worthless business books written by a self-proclaimed guru with no credentials, that states the correct way to conduct an interview is to first have a sane interview with the candidate; and then send in the most obnoxious and deranged personality you can find for the second interview. I can not fathom any other explanation for why it seems to happen over and over again.

I went two rounds of interviews with a foreclosure firm recently. The first interview went quite well. I met with the named partner and the office manager. I got along quite well with the named partner, and based upon previous interviews, I thought that this was in the bag by scoring points with the big name of the office. Oh how wrong I could be. This particular firm was setup slightly differently, and operated on an almost franchise style of management. The firm had what amounted to a ‘mostly silent partner’ who rarely showed up and I would apparently have no contact with whatsoever. Except apparently for the interview. So, one of the silent partners showed up and was anything but. This is in contradistinction to the named partner who this time sat completely silent and smiling to my right through the whole second interview. Apparently I had misjudged where the power resided in this firm.

The silent partner started it off and said “I have three questions for you.” He asked for a specific citation to a state statute, the second question was a second point cite to a rule. I quickly stated ‘I don’t know’ to both questions, because honestly, that’s not something you should know off the top of your head for an interview for an entry level position which was offering to pay less than many paralegal salaries. (see the insane interview for reference).  He then proceeded to calmly step over the line of professionalism and well into the territory of douchbaggery and said “well, if you don’t know that, then what good are you to this office?”

(sidebar… so this means that if he had 3 questions already set, 2 of which he knew no interviewee could answer, he had his 1 phrased insult already chambered? Because he started off by saying, “I have 3 questions…” and I honestly don’t think I got a different version than anyone else, so the standard interview with this guy was to be insulted?)

There was a short beat wherein I had to process the lobbed insult which seemed a bit uncharacteristic in an interview, but at this point nothing much phases me; I’ve come to expect this abuse and like a Stockholm syndrome sufferer… I almost miss it when it’s not there. So relatively quickly my tenor shifts into a slightly more dick-ish stance and I state “I’m sorry, I was told that this position would include training. Was I misinformed?”

This answer actually caught him off guard, and he shifted in his seat a bit and stated that it would. So I continued on and told him I was bringing my multiple bars which were gotten via testing. My several advanced certifications, and my not insubstantial intelligence which I do believe was shown on my resume via several points. I finished my short (even keeled tirade?) statement by dismissively waving my hand and saying, “I am quite confident that I can pick up this relatively quickly.”

As with anybody who has just been told they said something stupid, the silent partner decided to double down on the dumb.  And he started listing off Probate, foreclosure, bankruptcy and asking if I had filed any of those cases before. Once he got to the third one I interrupted and said “Look, I am not hiding anything from my resume. If it’s not on there, I haven’t done it.” I proceeded to explain my actual litigation background in more depth. Which didn’t really sink in because he then proceeded to list off two other sub-specialties before stopping.

The interview came to a rather stilted end wherein the grinning named partner finally asked if I had any other questions before ending the interview. The interview itself only lasted about 15 minutes; not a horribly good sign. I walked back out, and the highlight of the experience was walking down to my car talking with another applicant for the job. He had a slightly similar background as me interestingly but he had just come out of his first interview with the foreclosure firm. I gave him the ‘3 questions’ on the off chance he was asked back and we chatted for a few minutes. He had previously worked at the County office referenced in Interview 18. I asked what his impression of the office was, his response was “It’s a meatgrinder… you dodged a bullet by not getting an offer there.” He said a few other choice remarks about the office as well as the interviewer I had spoken with, enough to seemingly legitimize his first statement, and that was the end of this latest interview.

I had been told they would get back to me in about 3 days. It’s been over a week. I’m not holding my breath for this one.

 

Interview #22: Welcome to the area, we just wanted to make sure you owned a suit.

In my continuing quest, I’ve sent out quite a few emails and resumes. They all have something in common however… they all state that I am looking for a job. Usually the attached resume and cover letter is a dead giveaway, but you have to make sure to bluntly state it for the more dense recipients. One of these cold resume emails is what brought me back to the hallowed halls of higher education.

I sent out a job seeking email to the tech capitalization office of a university, and I got a reply telling me to come in for “a meeting to discuss what I was looking for.” Now, most people would pretty readily recognize what I was looking for from the email and resume, vis a vis — a job, at the most basic level. For my part, I assumed I was headed into an interview, because when you send an email saying ‘I am looking for a job’ and someone else replies ‘Come over here so we can talk about that,’ one might naturally assume the ensuing conversation would be about a job.

Well, you would be wrong. At least so far as this meeting was concerned. I show up at a very well regarded university and park in the paid lot I was directed to by the secretary who was directed to schedule the interview. The grounds are quite lovely and I briefly enjoy the view before heading to the appointed office. The office is pretty much what you would expect from a university admin office, industrial carpeting, various functionaries and work study kids sitting in cubicles rather than a reception area; the standard attempt to use all the available space. Initially I am told to wait in the single folding chair sitting forlornly in a corner but instead I am quickly ushered into the office of the director.

I will start out by saying… they were an incredibly nice person. And I will follow it up by saying, they had no idea why they were meeting with me. Which is doubly odd since they were the one to directly setup the interview with me. We hit it off in the small-talk arena for awhile and talked about a few common points between us and gossiped about the academic world. Then they told me there was no job there. (thud). But there might be at some indeterminate point in the future, or maybe at the GC’s office, or somewhere. Then, to really drive the point home that they have no clue what attorneys do, they mentioned that they have some internships in the summer there. (not legal mind you… just business) Uh huh. They also seemed surprised to find out I was a patent attorney, which again seemed odd to me since it was on line 3 of my resume. and in the email. and in the cover letter. But honestly, the mention (offer?) of an unpaid internship usually gotten by undergrads in business majors really was the high point of the ‘interview’.

I’ve become an expert at disguising my disappointment, and to put it honestly, I’ve come to expect this type of thing. I think the real shocker will be when I get an interview for a job that actually exists. So we continued talking about whatever they wanted to talk about… for about 45 minutes more. I guess if they had been forthright and stated this would be more a networking meeting rather than about a job, I might not be posting it here. I’ve had lots of networking meetings at this point, but both sides are aware going into it that there isn’t a job offer in the balance.

So basically I got all dressed up to go gossip with someone in higher education. The meeting finally wound down, and I wandered back out of the office. As I left, I asked for the parking validation that had been promised in the email setting up the interview. The secretary looked at me and said “damn.. the person who does those things left for the day already.” I stood there for merely a moment and sighed, and said don’t worry about it.

Par for the course.

 

Interview #21: The one where I was interviewed because they didn’t know how to open my resume

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.

Interview #20 – Murder for Hire

The first of the networking garnered interviews!

I was turned onto a medium sized commercial litigation firm by one of the line of networking contacts I’ve talked to over the past few weeks, and I got a call back. Well, actually I got an email, a very ambiguous email saying something to the effect of ‘we should talk.’

It started out I was meeting the attorney for breakfast. Personally I thought that was an odd choice but I don’t cast aspersions regarding food choice when there is a possibility of actual work. Breakfast at a location near me, turned into lunch, turned into a 15 minute meeting at their office. Pinning the attorney down with an actual time was ridiculous, the final email said “just show up anytime after 2:30”. Nothing in the emails ever actually said ‘interview’ so I hoped for the best and headed to their office at the ambiguously appointed time.

I parked by the address and headed over to the tallest skyscraper for miles in any direction. I walked into the lobby and checked the address, top floor. Swanky. I got to their office, and the first thought through my mind was “I would legitimately murder someone to work here.”

It turns out it was a job interview, but a very abbreviated one. The partner had been tasked with finding a few people to add to the firm without any real guidance by the managing partner; And they were headed out on a longer vacation at the end of the day, so the interview was going to have to be a fast one because of all the last minute work they needed to get done. I was effectively the first person they were interviewing. The job sounded amazing. Without going into many specifics, the job entailed almost everything I would want to do in law, and had the added benefit of being told I would likely be required to fly to London on a regular basis (the horror).

Then, of course, because it is me… the ‘but’ was finally stated. It turns out they have no timetable for hiring. The partner told me point blank, they may be looking to hire next week (unlikely) or in 9 months or more. They just didn’t know. I suppose it was nice that they were honest with me. But dear god, I was just dangled the perfect job in front of me wherein they said they were very interested in me but have no idea when they may decide to actually hire.

But truly… I would legitimately kill someone at this point for that job.

Networking

If you believe the apocryphal statistics, 50% of jobs are acquired by the traditional resume / application / interview. The other 50% of jobs are gotten thru networking. Some even say that the percentage of jobs gotten thru networking is significantly higher. I think the relative percentage varies based upon your location and profession, but it definitely seems to be that a great many jobs are gotten by playing a very strange game of telephone and talking to a friend-of-a-friend in your industry.

Up until now, I had largely been ignoring the networking aspect of the job hunt. Why? Well, I’m not a social butterfly and it is somewhat painful to pull the mask over my face and play the networking game.

That all stopped 2 weeks ago. I decided to try to network with a vengeance and see how far afield I can run with the networked contacts I have, and have been given. I definitely believe that getting into a face to face situation gives you a much higher likelihood of getting a job. And using network contacts has the added benefit of skipping over the high school drop-out that is working as the HR admin who keeps tossing your resume because it has too many big words she doesn’t understand.

In the last two weeks, I have been having email and face-to-face conversations with General Counsels from huge multi-billion dollar corporations, large firm partners, small boutique firm owners, academics, you name it. If someone says, ‘Hey I know this guy…’ I’m going to call them and try to talk to them.

So far there have been no job offers. One of the big GCs revamped my resume and offered pointers. Several hand off many other names to contact to see if they can help. The information they pass out in the short interviews is actually really invaluable. Salary info, business contacts, who to avoid, what the latest gossip / firm breakup is going on… things you don’t see from outside.

I think the most interesting thing about running with this experiment is the Alumni connection. I never really gave much thought to actually contacting Alumni, even though every career service office ubiquitously mentions it. So I finally did it. I think I got a 90% response rate… every one of them was happy to talk and mentioned that no one had ever bothered to reach out to them as an alumni. It was a surprisingly good resource. I was shocked that the career office got one right for once.

I guess I will see where this experiment goes, if nothing else, it is absolutely fascinating.

Interview #19 – Bait and Switch

Applied to a Junior Associate position at a nice mid-sized civil trial firm of about 30-ish attorneys. I got a call back and setup an interview. Received an email relaying the instructions to get to the office and various particulars relating to who I would be talking to etc.

Re-reading the email it never specifically mentioned what the job position I was actually interviewing for. I apparently assumed it was for the position I applied to (weird, right?). I roll into the firm’s office and the admin who setup the interview was out sick. Then the partner I was supposed to be interviewing with was subbed out for 2 associates (huh?). Sat down with two waifish women associates who started in with “Well we assume you know the particulars of the job from the posting…” Based on interview 17… I told them I would rather if we could quickly run through the particulars of the job and who I would specifically be working with (see… I am learning).

Boom. Document review. Temp project. The smile on my face drooped noticeably and at a certain point they noticed I was no longer apparently being nearly as attentive or perky. I appoligized and said “I’m sorry… I applied 2 weeks ago to this firm for an associate position. I assumed this interview was for that position.” No.. no it was not. They asked if I was still interested in the doc review. They dangled the hilarious trope of ‘maybe we might hire you if just possibly we like you’ which then spun to asking if I could work from home. (how would anyone ‘get to like you’ working from home I wonder…) The blonde of the duo then asked me 3 successive times if while doing reviews if I understood what I was reading. Apparently they had problems with people actually not understanding those squiggly lines on the page. Forget that I had more than twice the credentials of the 2 associates in front of me combined; they wanted to know if ‘I done read good.’

What little charm I have evaporated. I spoke frankly about document review and what a blemish it is on one’s resume. I told them I was actively seeking a real attorney position and expected I would have a job very shortly. I reiterated that I had applied twice to this firm and the last application was 2 weeks prior for a real position, which this was not. The blonde swung back around and wanted to know how much experience I had with Relativity. She really didn’t quite get it. I finished out the interview even though I should have walked out.

It’s a shame. The firm was in a beautiful building and had a very nice office. It had potential. It just turned out they were the standard douchbags that populate most of the legal field. Bait-n-switch job postings… nice.

minor update: I figured that since it could have been an error, I would contact the firm and make sure I wasn’t missing out on a real opportunity. I initially contacted the admin who setup the interview. No response. So after a few days, I reached out to the partner I was supposed to interview with… Radio silence. So apparently their M.O. actually was to try to pull in applicants with legit sounding job postings and then offer document review crap and hope it all worked out for them.

Interview #17 update: All Things to All People

I can never leave well enough alone, so I contacted the managing partner a week later to see where the misstep within the interview actually was (asking in a much more political manner). As a bit of a masochist, I can’t help but replay each of my interviews in my head  ad nauseam trying to figure out what I did wrong and where I can improve. At a certain point, you just have to write them and ask “what did I do wrong?”

Now I definitely feel there was some name-game issues with the Named Attorney. I almost wish that had been the whole reason, because that I can understand. No… the reason for my rejection was a new one. And I had to re-read what the managing partner sent me a few times to actually understand, because it looked like he was reiterating the reason he was told, and was trying to make it mesh with the interview we had prior.

The problem was that I had applied generically sending a cold resume to the firm for an as yet unlisted job which had no set criteria. And each attorney who interviewed me apparently walked into the room assuming I would be working in their practice group and apparently no one got together and determined what I would actually be doing if I were hired. Attorney 1 really liked my diverse set of skills and thought it was my strongest asset. He worked in a civil litigation practice group focused on motions practice. He also wanted to use me for my IP related background and potentially create an added niche within the firm to draw more business from existing clients.

Attorney 2 thought my diverse interests in the law were more a liability and therefore I lacked focus. He told me they wouldn’t be using me for any IP work and that he was interested in using me for his trial litigation section which would involve frequent travel.

Attorney 3 was overworked and just wanted someone that could help shoulder the burden of some of the appeals as he was the only appellate attorney in the firm. He wanted me to work primarily on research and writing and answering the various back and forth prior to arguments.

So, without copying and pasting the email… the extrapolation from what I was sent, amounted to saying that I should have presented myself very differently to each attorney. Seemingly, so much so that if they actually had gotten together and talked, it would have seemed like they had each interviewed a different candidate. And I was supposed to determine how to create my schizophrenic personalities for each based solely on their short bio-synopsis on the firm website. (as it was, I dropped so much info from each of their bios I thought I sounded like a creepy stalker memorizing facts about them.)

So, the reason I didn’t make it by this interview was because I was supposed to work in attorney 1’s civil practice group, while traveling and doing full time trial work with attorney 2, while writing appeals for attorney 3. And no one bothered to stop and talk to each other to decide what they were actually looking for when interviewing me. Strangely enough, had we all been in the same room at once, it would have been obvious. But they were all one on one interviews, so I was the only one who ended up with a full picture. Awesome. That’s some great coordination. Real stellar work. How the hell do they even manage to conduct inter-firm business if this is how they handle something as simple as an interview.

I’ve had experience litigating trials, doing motions practice, and doing appellate work… but somehow I was supposed to be able to claim to have focused in all of them, and have done nothing else. The joke of it all is that this firm had originally done Med Mal, and then after Tort Reform, changed to a completely unrelated specialty. So I guess the moral is, it’s good to be diverse when it suits us, and bad at all other times, unless we say otherwise. Or as the title says, I was supposed to be All things to All people.