Life in the Real World

When I speak with candidates, I really believe that honesty is paramount. After a conversation with a recruiter, a candidate should know his/her chances of success in the market and should have an assessment of the timing of the search, etc. Sometimes it is hard for candidates to hear the truth.

I was recently speaking with a first year litigation associate who had excellent credentials. The potential candidate came to me in her second month of practice and said that she had to leave her firm. She couldn’t stand it. Really. I am sure it wouldn’t surprise you to know that looking for a new position in the second month of your first year might set off a few red flags in a law firm’s recruiting department. Even though I had explained every one of the associate’s “negatives” to her, she insisted upon a job search against my admonition.

Fast forward a few months. I was right. This associate doesn’t have a new position. Why not? Well, the associate couldn’t understand the reality of the situation – the overall economy, her lack of experience, the non-existent litigation market. It was a confluence of many negative factors. According to the candidate:

I should have been marketable on the basis of my credentials alone, no matter what my seniority or the state of the economy.

That statement might be accurate when you are interviewing for a summer associate position but it is very different in the lateral hiring context. Some associates get the wrong idea about lateral hiring because their only experience involves interviewing for a summer position as a law student. It’s not like that in the “real world” – the post-graduation, first year associate world. I had a teacher in high school who would always reference a utopia called “the land of the bunnies.” Would that all job searchers could live there!

If only this associate could accept the reality of her situation. Some factors are beyond anyone’s – even an associate with excellent credentials – control. Sometimes it is best to wait on a job search until those factors lessen a bit.

How to Ace the Interview

The first step in any successful interview is reading and assessing your interviewer.  The person in front of you is a lawyer, not a professional interviewer, and may or may not conduct a traditional interview.   It is up to you to read each interviewer’s tone and steer the interview to a positive place that will leave the interviewer with a great impression of you.

In this article, I will examine some common types of interviewers and how to handle them.  For example, your interviewer may feel annoyed at having to take time out of her busy day to interview you.  Others may be most interested in whether they will enjoy working with you- whether there is a personality fit.  Still others may ask you about every aspect of your resume.  A last type may be the dreaded “hard interviewer” who poses a series of difficult questions seemingly intended to trip you up. You have no way to know what kind of interviewer you will encounter.  Therefore, taking a moment to assess what kind of person you are talking to as soon as you sit down is key.

1.  The Too-Busy Senior Associate.

This interviewer felt that she had to say “yes” to the partner who asked her to interview you at the last moment.  She is overwhelmed, working too many hours, hoping to make partner herself.  You are taking time away from her billable day. The moment you walk in, you sense that she is annoyed.

How to navigate this scenario:

This person starts off not being engaged in the interview; her mind is elsewhere.  Your solution: try to engage her and get her to focus on you.  She probably will not ask you a lot of questions, so you need to make the effort, at least initially.  Volunteer information about yourself.  Talk about your career, yes, but the important thing with this interviewer is to connect with her.  If you can brighten her day, she will feel great about you.  Make a subtle joke, make lots of eye contact, smile.  If you noticed something from her bio that you have in common with her, subtly bring it up.  Look for opportunities to get her to talk about herself.  She went to school in your hometown?  Ask her how she liked it there.  She is an avid skier?  So are you- now you can talk about ski destinations.  If you are more comfortable doing so, you can always stick to work-related topics: ask her how she ended up in her particular practice area, about the path she walked to get there.  Ask her why she loves working at the firm, her favorite project, proudest moment- these are guaranteed mood lifters.  It will also help, after you have established a connection, to acknowledge that she has taken time out of her busy schedule and thank her for doing so.  For example, “I really appreciate your taking time to talk to me when you must have so much work to do.”  This gives her an opportunity to state the opposite, that it really was no problem; she truly enjoyed meeting you, and needed a little break.

2. The “Friend.”

This person wants to know whether she will enjoy working with you.  This is usually an associate level person; she will leave the decision whether you have the skills to work in the firm up to the partners.  She is therefore less interested in your skill set; she just wants to know whether she likes you, and whether you are someone she wants to work with.

How to navigate this scenario:

The trick here is not to become too relaxed.  It is all too easy to talk yourself out of a job by saying something inappropriate to someone you have “bonded” with.   This person is not your friend.  She may be looking to make a connection, but always, always, remain professional when talking to her.  Be careful not to let your guard down too much.   If you say something inappropriate, she will absolutely notice and she will remember.  Don’t forget that she will be asked for her opinion about you after the interview.

The Friend will focus primarily on your interests outside the workplace.  Maybe you know the same people, belonged to the same sorority, went to the same school.  The two of you will connect right away.  Specifically, I have heard of interviewers who will say negative things about a former employer, discuss wild times, politics and religion, even use swear words during interviews.  Resist the urge to do the same, even if your interviewer does.  Do not discuss your personal life, except for neutral matters.  Never ask about salary, about reduced-hours possibilities, “true” billable requirements, or bonus amounts, no matter how comfortable this person makes you feel.  Smile and be warm, make jokes, find common ground, and remain professional.

3.  The Resume Miner.

This is generally a partner who wants to hire someone with a particular skill set.  It is quite possible that he saw something on your resume that caused him to bring you in for an interview.   He is trying to determine how in-depth your work was, whether you had a high level of responsibility or were just performing specific tasks as directed.  Show him that you are tuned in to the big picture.

How to navigate this scenario:

Know everything on your resume, and know it well.  Go back and review the work you have done before your interview and be prepared to discuss everything.  If you wrote a brief to an appeals court several years ago, and you are talking to a litigation partner, you had better know exactly what the issue was in the case, what the research showed, and how the case ultimately came out, even if you were not part of the team the ultimately saw the matter to argument.  If you submitted a writing sample, go back and re-read it.  Know details and be able to talk confidently and cogently about them; this is what this interviewer is after.  If you were worked on a due diligence matter, know if the deal went through, and know what the sticking points were.  Be able to talk about the challenges and outcomes in each of the matters you worked on.  If you supervised people, if you ran a deal or portions of a deal, if you talked regularly to clients or opposing counsel, this is the time to say so.  Highlight any leadership roles.  If you wrote a law review comment or article, you will almost certainly be asked about it.  If you can’t remember details about an item, it is probably best to take the item off your resume.

Similarly, know the non-legal related items on your resume.  You play xylophone in the church choir band?  Be prepared to discuss your training and your participation.  You used to be a professional  ice skater?  Be able to discuss your experiences, and why you were drawn to that activity.   Active in cat rescue?  Tell them all about it, and why you love it.  These are great opportunities to bond with your interviewer, and make yourself memorable.  They are probably asking about it because they do something similar, or find that activity interesting.

4. The Difficult Questioner

This person, happily, is rare.  However, she will appear from time to time in one form or another.  She will ask you all the questions you hate to answer, seemingly just to watch you squirm.  As a general matter, when talking to this interviewer, don’t let her see you sweat.  Remain calm and focused.  Sometimes when we are nervous, we tend to talk too much and say the wrong thing, and that is exactly what she is watching for.   Take a deep breath before answering, speak slowly, and think about each response carefully, even if you take a noticeable pause.

Now let’s go over some commonly asked difficult questions, and some do’s and don’t’s of how to answer them.

1. Where do you see yourself in five years?

This is probably my personal  least-favorite question.  The obvious answer is, “Here!  As a partner in this law firm!”  But you can’t say that, can you?  Therefore, think about what will actually make you happy as a law firm lawyer in five years.  Picture yourself as a partner.  What are your goals?  Are you someone who looks forward to cultivating business?  Why?  What would you like about it?  Is your goal to argue a case before a federal trial or appellate court?  What do you plan to do to get there?  Do you see yourself running deals and training associates?  Being a big client’s main contact?  Being an expert in a particular area of law?  Do you see yourself as active in the bar association, possibly heading a practice section? Giving speeches, writing books and articles?  Talk about what you see yourself doing in accomplishing your professional goals.  Get excited.

The best answer usually involves becoming an authority or leading figure in your field, with much visibility in the community, as well as a resource for junior attorneys at the firm.  These are things that benefit both you and the firm.

Here are some examples of what not to say:

- “I see myself going in-house.”

- “Working part time.”

-“I’m not choosy, I just want to be happy.”

These answers all betray a desire not to embrace the life of a law firm associate, much less put in the effort to become partner.  You would be surprised how often people give these honest, but fatal, answers.

B.            What is your worst quality?/What has been your biggest challenge in your current position?

This is a world-famous question that interviewees always get, and always dread.  I do not recommend the hackneyed,  ”I work too hard. “  Instead, offer something that was a challenge for you in the past, but no longer is because you recognized the issue and worked hard to overcome the problem.  Discuss the steps you took.  Always, always make it a problem that is now solved and entirely within your control.

For example:

-“I am actually a very shy person, but I forced myself to take acting classes in order to make myself feel unafraid when dealing with people.  Now I can speak publicly and am not nervous.”

Another example:

- “I generally dislike legal research.  I therefore spent the maximum amount of time with our firm’s librarian, who showed me all kinds of great resources to make research quicker and less painful.   I no longer feel like I have to reinvent the wheel each time I research an issue because of the tools I’ve learned.  I still dislike research, but I’m far more efficient, so it is no longer the chore it once was.”

A third example:

-“There is a brilliant but demanding partner in our law firm who everyone finds very intimidating on a personality level.  Rather than avoid her like some other associates do, I sought her out early on in order to show her that I can handle her work competently.  Now I’m her go-to associate.  She still intimidates me, but I get fantastic, steady work that I love, she trusts me more and more as time goes on, and has told me she is happy with my work product.”

The moral of the story is always that you have overcome the obstacle.  You had a problem or issue, you took constructive steps, and you won.

Here are some examples of answers that always make you look bad, and that you should never offer as examples of your worst trait, even if they are:

-”I have a hard time with time management.”

-“I get really stressed out/frustrated and feel overwhelmed.”

- “I hate doc review/due diligence/grunt work.”

- “I’m not detail oriented enough.”

All of these answers reflect on the candidate as not having the control or desire to be an effective law firm associate.

A final note on this topic: I highly recommend avoiding mentioning challenging situations that are ancillary to practicing law.  For example, you didn’t get good work assignments because the work-provider partner has an inappropriate relationship with another associate?  Avoid the topic altogether.  You want to leave your firm because your work-provider is a screamer who makes his secretary cry?  Find another reason.  You don’t get invited out for drinks and feel that generally you don’t fit in with the other associates?  No need to mention it.  These are things that certainly happen in law firms, but they are not appropriate for discussion during an interview.

1. Tell me about yourself.

Attorneys who are not particularly talkative hate this question.  However, it is important to recognize that it gives you an opportunity to discuss why you are an interesting, dynamic person.  If you are shy or modest by nature, think hard about this question before walking into any interview; it is important to have an answer ready.

When this question is posed will determine the tone of your answer.  Many interviewers will lead off with this question.  If they do, I recommend starting with your resume, walking backwards, but embellishing what’s there.  For example, if you are coming from another firm, discuss why you chose that firm, that practice group, that city, what you have enjoyed about those choices.  If you are moving cities, discuss why.  If it feels right, you can also discuss the reasons you are looking to move firms.   You may or may not get the opportunity to discuss your skydiving adventures or your passion for collecting stamps, but again, the important thing is to read your interviewer and look for opportunities to point out the qualities that set you apart and make you interesting.  Also important is to engage the interviewer; make sure she seems interested in what you are saying.  If she doesn’t, move on to another discussion or give her a chance to ask a different question.

If the question comes towards the end of the interview, you have probably already discussed your legal skills and experience.  What is interesting about you that is not on your resume?  What are your interests, aside from practicing law?  Again, the first step here is to assess your interviewer.  If you’re sitting with a partner who has a reserved air, she may not relate to your recent heli-snowboarding trip, or your weekend at Lollapallooza.  She may want to hear, however, about a great book you recently read, or a foreign language you’re trying to learn.  An animated junior associate may jump on other experiences to bond with you.  I recommend avoiding discussing family and children to the extent that you can; whether you are married or have children is generally not an interviewer’s concern.

1. What questions do you have for me?

This is another much-hated question.  Interviewees often feel tired at the end of an interview, and seldom know what to ask.  However, you can miss another opportunity to make yourself memorable if you simply say, “I think all my questions have been answered, but thanks!”

There are some standard questions which can be viewed as overasked, but which should still be asked at some point, because you do need to obtain this information.

They are:

• What will my day look like?
• What kinds of matters will I be working on?
• How is feedback given and how will I know I’m doing a good job?
• What is the partner –associate ratio?
• Will I get client contact, and when?

Once you have asked these questions of one interviewer, however, there is no need to ask them again.  When subsequent interviewers ask, you can use this question as an opportunity to get your interviewer to talk about himself.  What has been his most exciting experience at the firm?  Why did he choose this firm?  This practice group?    What is his favorite part about working at the firm?  Can he describe the firm’s culture?

In sum, a key factor in a successful interview is assessing within the first few minutes the type of person who is sitting across from you.  You need to be focused and pay attention to the signals your interviewer is giving you.  Once you have done this, you will not have a problem turning each interview to your advantage.

Sometimes a Lateral Law Firm Move is the Best Path to a Solid In-House Position

A large percentage of the people who contact us for recruitment assistance are currently working in-house and are looking to return to the law firm sector or break into it for the first time. What most of these candidates don’t realize is that it is generally much more difficult to transition from an in-house position to a law firm position than it is to lateral from one law firm to another.

Many of those who end up moving from a law firm to an in-house position tell us that they preferred the law firm environment. Their reasons vary, but some common themes include: same stress, different hours; a lack of substantive and/or interesting work; a feeling that their skills are not developing at the appropriate pace; the sense that they are stuck working on matters that are not of interest to them or are not within their areas of expertise; a lack of meaningful promotion/progression prospects; and the belief that the companies they are working for are not growing at the pace the candidate expected.

Because so many of the candidate who contact us are in-house and are unhappy and because it is often very difficult to make the transition back into the law firm environment, I often find myself explaining to candidates why, in many cases, the best path to a reliable and fulfilling in-house position is a solid law firm lateral move.

There are multiple reasons for this. First, since the economic downturn, there has been a shift in the amount of experience companies look for when searching for qualified in-house counsel. Prior to the downturn, it was often said that corporate attorneys could comfortably look to make an in-house transition after 5 years of experience, while litigators had more success in or around the 8-10 year range. However, as a result of the downturn, many highly qualified and experience senior-level government employees, law firm partners and senior in-house attorneys suddenly found themselves on the job market, either as a result of lay-offs, department collapses, or company mergers and dissolutions.

As a result, at the height of the downturn, there was suddenly an overwhelming number of highly qualified but unemployed attorneys, often with excellent credentials, who were now vying for the same in-house jobs as the corporate attorneys with 5 years of experience and the litigators with 8-10 years of experience. Companies started to realize that they could hire attorneys with twice the experience and could do so at the same pay grade. As a result, demand for years of experience crept up, as did demand for credentials, and companies began looking for corporate attorneys with at least 8-10 years of experience and litigators with at least 10-15 years of experience. This trend still holds in many respects, especially as companies continue to outsource less of their legal work in order to keep costs down and, as a result, require more seasoned and experience inside counsel to handle the company’s legal matters.

Attorneys who choose to make a strong lateral law firm move put themselves in a position to continue developing their legal skills while simultaneously honing niche practice area expertise that will, in the long run, make them more marketable in the in-house job sector. Those candidates who genuinely want to make an in-house move will have far greater and far better in-house job prospects – at least in the current economic climate – if they get the level and degree of experience in-house companies are now demanding. Additionally, candidates who take the time to further refine their skills and their practice area strengths before making an in-house move are less likely to feel that they are not being challenged, are working on matters outside their area of expertise or interest and/or are not further developing their legal skills.

Additionally, making an informed lateral move to another law firm can actually aid candidates in making a good in-house move down the road. Many of the “currently in-house” candidates who seek our recruiting services in order to return to the law firm sector tell us that they are unhappy in their current job and that the position is not what they were expecting. In other words, they accepted their current position without knowing enough about the company they joined and the legal work that the position involved.

While it is difficult to know what a job will entail before beginning that job, one way to protect against this is to get meaningful client contact while working at a law firm and then use that contact, and the resulting client relationships, to make an informed in-house move. In other words, if you want to make a good in-house move,  first focus on making a lateral move to a law firm that will allow you the opportunity for meaningful client contact. This is critical, not just to allow young attorneys to further develop their skills and begin managing cases, but also because it puts attorneys in a position to develop client relationships that can have long-standing benefits.

Meaningful client contact can open the door to possible in-house positions with clients (or client subsidiaries) you have come to realize would be good fits for your long-term aspirations. Having worked directly for the client and repeatedly interacted with members of the legal department, you will be much better positioned to know if the company will be a good fit for you. Relatedly, meaningful client contact can result in secondment opportunities, where law firm attorneys are seconded out to the client and actually working at the client site, in the client’s legal department, while still functioning as a law firm employee. This is a fantastic way for attorneys to “test drive” a prospective in-house employer while still having the security of their law firm job (and salary).

When interviewing with law firms, let them know at the outset that significant client contact is very important to you. Most firms will understand that it is also in their best interest to allow their associates to interact with clients – not just because it helps the firm’s attorneys develop their skills and frees partners up to develop additional business, but also because it is simply good business. When former law firm attorneys lateral to a client site, generally speaking, those firms are guaranteed continued business from that particular client. In other words, everyone wins.

Lastly, many candidates who initially contact us in search of in-house opportunities ultimately realize that they are more excited about, and a better fit for, positions at boutique or mid-sized firms or even satellite offices of larger firms. Often these candidates are searching for a more intimate work environment, and the opportunity to work on a variety of legal matters, or they simply want to be in an environment where they feel they can make a greater contribution and are more consistently valued. We have seen a number of similarly situated candidates lateral to a smaller firm or a satellite office of a larger firm only to realize that they don’t actually want to transition to an in-house position after all. In other words, by making a smart and strategic law firm move, these attorneys often discover that what they were really seeking was a different, or more compatible law firm environment rather than an escape from law firms altogether.

The legal market is extremely competitive right now, with law firms typically seeking lateral attorneys from other firms and paying little credence to in-house attorneys (notwithstanding those attorneys’ prior law firm experience). My hope is that, with the above in mind, attorneys can limit the number of obstacles they have to face in the current job market, both by really considering the benefits of lateral law firms moves and by making well-informed decisions about possible in-house opportunities.

Don’t Panic Over Law Firm Silence

I am currently working with a candidate who specializes in a very unusual area of law and who is quite unhappy in her current position. She came to me looking for a new position in the same of the law but at a firm with a better culture. Finding such a job was not easy, especially in this market, where the need for associates in general is not particularly high.

After about 6 weeks of working together, I was able to obtain an interview for this candidate at one of Chicago’s premier law firms with a strong practice that matched her experience. She had a fantastic interview, loved everyone she met with and walked out of the interview believing that she had just found the perfect firm for her.

As I always do, I warned this candidate that firms tend to move much slower in this economy, and that it may take a few weeks to hear back as to whether the firm was going to extend her an offer. She appeared to be fine with that, although she admitted that she was anxious about it.

A week passed, during which I had followed up with the firm to see where they were in the process. I learned very little in terms of details, other than the firm was still considering my candidate. I reported this to candidate, who was becoming increasingly anxious about the job. She kept asking me what was taking so long and suggesting that if the group really liked her, they would move faster.

Another week passed with no updates from the firm, despite my efforts to follow up. With the passage of this time, my candidate began to rethink the firm and her opinion of the people she met. “Maybe they weren’t as nice as I thought.” “Maybe they don’t do quite the type of work I want to do.” “Maybe they aren’t as great of a firm as I originally thought.”

By the time I heard back from the firm three weeks later, my candidate had convinced herself that she hated the firm, did not want to work there and was not going to accept an offer if given to her. As she put it, the fact that the firm took so long to get back to her was a “clear indication” that they didn’t really like her and she therefore did not want to join them. Of course when she learned from the firm that they were, in fact, extending her an offer, she didn’t know what to feel. After all, she has initially loved the firm but spent the last month talking herself into hating it. Now what?

Talk about mentally sabotaging a possible job opportunity!

Remember that firms spend significant time collecting and reviewing resumes, eliminating those they aren’t interested in, and narrowing it down to a reasonable number of candidates to interview, they have to schedule and actually interview the candidates. Finding a single day that 5 or 6 busy attorneys can interview a single candidate can take weeks. Scheduling multiple candidates to interview can be next to impossible. Furthermore, even after the firm interviews the candidates, each individual lawyer has to complete and return an evaluation form, and we all know that attorneys are notoriously terrible at doing these types of administrative things. Once the evaluations are collected, they must be reviewed, often by a committee of attorneys, and then a decision made. All of this can easily take weeks, especially when you factor in that attorneys would much prefer to service their clients than deal with recruiting and hiring.

So, remember this: Firm silence does not mean that the firm is not interested in you. Don’t torture yourself or talk yourself out of what could be a fantastic job opportunity simply because the firm’s attorneys do not move as fast as you would like.

After much discussion, my candidate took the job with the firm that sent a “clear indication” that it was not interested in her…. And you know what, she is back to loving the firm and the people with whom she works.

It’s All About the Interview

As a recruiter, my main focus is all about getting candidates to one place: the interview. This means speaking about their needs, assisting with their resumes, drafting a compelling cover letter on their behalf, advocating to the places to which we’ve submitted them and then fully preparing them with a mock interview. After that point, most of my job is done. After all, I can’t go into the interview and answer the questions for them! (Although sometimes I wish I could)

Yes, there are some things I do after an interview to help a candidate land their dream job, but so much of the decision rests upon a candidate’s shoulders once it gets to that phase. I recently had a friend link to an article that Forbes did about the interview process and it proposes that there are really just three key interview questions:

1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can we tolerate working with you?

Overall, I’d have to agree with this summary. A prospective employer already has your resume and can see a basic picture of what you’ve done in the past. They’ve also likely seen your transcript and gotten personal feedback from your recruiter, if you are working with one. So, if they ask you in for an interview, they generally know that there is a high likelihood they’d like to hire you.

As you prepare for an interview, keep those three questions in mind and try to incorporate them into your answers to other questions. Obviously, most employers won’t ask any of those three questions outright, so it’s up to you to convince them that you can do the job even though you’re technically answering a question about your biggest weakness (everyone’s favorite interview question). And follow it up with reassuring them how much they’ll love working with you as you are smiling broadly and capturing their attention with an appropriate humorous story or two.

What it really comes down to is simple: they want someone who can do the work well, who will do it without complaint (and, gasp, maybe even an occasional smile), and who they don’t mind being stuck in the office with on a Saturday afternoon. Use this information to your advantage and lock down an offer every time you interview! Read the full article from Forbes here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2011/04/27/top-executive-recruiters-agree-there-are-only-three-key-job-interview-questions/.