Summer Interviewing in Law Firms

Ah, summer time: a season that evokes images of picnics, family vacations to the beach, and lounging by the pool. Although some associate summer with a decrease in work, our experience is that the summer can be the most jam-packed period for associates. In addition to the normal workload, summer associates are everywhere, begging for attention and lunch companions. And, if you are in the midst of the interview process during the summer months, you may find summer the most difficult season to get through the process.

What do I Wear?

On the surface, this is a fairly silly question. Certainly, there are more important issues one encounters during the recruiting process than what color shoes go with a navy suit. However, appearance at an interview should not be overly marginalized. The truth is that lawyers are in the customer service business, and being professional in your appearance and demeanor is one facet of your overall performance as a lawyer. So, while you are being evaluated on the basis of your substantive knowledge, record, and interest, you are also leaving an impression on your audience by the way you dress.

It is for that reason that we absolutely recommend that attorneys interviewing wear suits, even when the firm with whom the attorney is interviewing is business casual. This is just as true during the summer months, when some firms allow considerably more casual attire than they would throughout the remainder of the year. Yes, we know, it is sometimes uncomfortable to be the only person in the room wearing a suit. However, the fact is that you do not know your audience. The partner with whom you are interviewing could be one of those lawyers who simply does not believe in business casual under any circumstances. Although his firm’s policy may not jive with his way of thinking, he or she may have a negative image of you based only on your appearance. While we don’t agree that “clothes make the lawyer,” why jeopardize an opportunity at a firm because you didn’t look the part? In short, no one will raise an eyebrow at a lawyer wearing a suit to an interview. Some may at a lawyer who does not. Why take the chance?

There’s an Exception. We’re Lawyers. There are always exceptions.

On occasions, lawyers are concerned that wearing a suit on their interview day, especially in the middle of a firm’s casual summer, will set off alarms indicating to those lawyers’ current firm that the lawyers are interviewing around. Although this is in no way a general rule, there are times when the interviewing firm will allow or encourage a lawyer to come in business casual attire. If this is the case, each lawyer should still be careful in deciding whether to go in anything more casual than a suit.

First, business casual attire may mean many things to different people. While golf shirts and open-toed shoes may be commonplace in a variety of firms, we do not believe that this is interview appropriate attire. Certainly, you may still see attorneys in the halls dressed way down, but only your most professional business casual attire will do, and only then with express permission from the firm. Appearing too casual may have the effect of causing your interviewer to believe that you are casual with respect to your attitude about them.

But it’s Hot Outside!

Yes, and this can lead to some funny, but disastrous results. We know of one man who, while waiting for his interview to begin, was reading the Wall Street Journal in the lobby. Simultaneously, he was wiping off beads of sweat from his face. Upon beginning the interview, the interviewer said, “you seem to be the type of guy who reads the paper every morning,” and then advised him to run to the bathroom. While wiping his face, the man had gotten newsprint from his hands all over his face. The interview never went anywhere after that.

To our knowledge, science has not yet invented anything that will prevent nervous sweat during an interview. However, if you are likely to manifest your stress by excessive perspiration, be prepared. Bring a handkerchief, leave yourself plenty of time to get to the interview so you won’t have to rush, bring a cold bottle of water. Your linen suit may be the favorite thing in your closet, but are you going to look like a rumpled mess after the first 10 minutes?

Margaritas are Not Your Friend

At least not the night before an interview. Even if you are only going in for a quick screening interview, and load up with coffee, you should still never appear tired or worn down for your visit to a potential new firm. Aside from the obvious issues an interviewer would have with a candidate who still smells like tequila, being tired or talking about a big night out the night before leaves the impression of someone who really doesn’t care whether they get the job for which they are interviewing. And, as stellar as you may look hung-over, and despite a good shower, we still know lawyers who have walked into interviews with the remainder of a bar’s hand stamp that couldn’t be washed off, who had to excuse themselves to get sick in the bathroom, and who arrived late after sleeping too late. None of these lawyers got the job.

You’re Getting the Point, Right?

It’s summer! Time to have fun and kick back - summer seems to bring out the silly and laid-back part in all of us. Casual is fine for everyday life, but not while interviewing at a firm. Even though the lawyer on the other side of the desk may be leaning back in his chair after a two hour lunch with a summer associate, his feet propped up on the desk, you must make sure that you remain as professional and engaged as you would in a stark conference room full of suits.

Laid off? Here’s what you should say about it…

Dealing with the fact that you were laid-off in a subsequent job search and/or interviews is always difficult. In many cases, it raises red flags to a potential employer because they inevitably question whether the lay-off was actually a performance-based firing. The one silver lining in today’s current market—lots of people are in the same position. With the number of lay-offs currently taking place across the country, most prospective employers will understand (and believe) that your situation was the result of the current economic downturn.

With this in mind, the last thing you want to do is give a prospective employer any reason at all to doubt the circumstances surrounding your lay-off. Thus, it is best to be straight-forward about your situation and, you should address it in your cover letter. In most cases, it is not necessary to go into great detail or to provide a lot of background information. You only need to state that you are looking for a new position because you were laid off as a result of the economic downturn. If you have strong references from the firm that laid you off, make sure to mention this fact as well. Offering references at the outset is a good way to let prospective employers know that your previous firm did not have concerns with your performance.

As for the interview process, the same guidelines apply. Be straight-forward about the fact that you were laid off and resist the urge to sound apologetic. In the interview setting, it may make sense to discuss some more of the details surrounding your firm’s lay-offs. For example, were a large number of people let go? Everyone in your specific practice area? Such pieces of information may help to alleviate any lingering doubts or concerns.

While being laid-off is never easy to handle, employers are encountering numerous well-qualified attorneys who have been laid off. Thus, your overall goal should be to focus on demonstrating to a prospective employer that the lay-off was related only to economic conditions and not connected in any way to performance-related concerns. Be ready to discuss facts in a straight-forward manner, have references ready to go, and let the manner in which you address the situation instill confidence in your qualifications.

Uncertainty in the Interview Process

On many antiquarian maps, there is a simple, chilling statement scrawled at the edge of the known world: “Here be monsters.” This is the mapmaker’s rather dramatic way of saying, “No one is quite sure what lies here, but it is almost certainly bad.” But a hedge of this sort is not nearly as evocative, nor as indicative of human nature, as a miniature pictorial of ravening mythological beasts. From a psychological perspective, this three word warning symbolizes how humans have dealt with uncertainty from time immemorial: with a keen sense of dread. And returning from a law firm interview that was difficult to read can fill you with a similar sense of foreboding. With no quick feedback, this can rapidly deteriorate into worry, followed by full-blown panic, and finally, despair. Meanwhile, your recruiter could be negotiating a lavish salary package for you with the firm. Who knew?

The interviewing process is punctuated by uncertainty. Indeed, uncertainty is perhaps its defining feature for everyone involved. Let’s take one example. Particularly in the early stages of a recruiting cycle, interviewers often present a ‘poker face’ to everyone. Needless to say, this is unsettling — especially for their spouses — and even more so when you contrast it to the sometimes fawning (by comparison) courtship process that you may have encountered in law school. The normal cues that accompany friendly human interaction, such as body language, tone of voice, and facial expression are either intentionally obscured or altogether absent, as if you were meeting someone who missed the audition for Invasion of the Body Snatchers by several decades. Why is this?

To overcome the tendency to feed into the mythic nature of the interview, and to get a realistic grasp of the hiring process, the first thing that you need to do is try to understand the law firm’s position, however hard that may be. Try to get perspective. In the case of poker-faced partners, it is likely that they will be meeting with a number of candidates. Many will be unsuitable, for a variety of reasons. Others may be ideal, but uninterested in the firm. So the partners (and sometimes associates), realizing that a preliminary meeting is only that, choose not to ‘invest’ in the meeting to a great degree. It would simply be too frustrating to do so. Furthermore, no one likes to reject someone they truly like - it is too emotionally taxing - so they erect walls designed to limit any kind of rapport (at least initially). I have seen candidates walk out of a screening interview like this utterly mystified. The next day, they get a callback. I have also seen candidates blow the screening interview because they misunderstood that the frosty reception was not something they were supposed to try to overcome. Through a variety of antics, some taking place literally in front of the elevator doors, they try to ‘break through’ and light up their interviewer’s interest. This is almost guaranteed to backfire. The lesson is: don’t panic, and try to make peace with uncertainty, because that is where true confidence and competence lie.

If confident candidates often react in the same way to unwelcome news — or no news at all — by keeping their cool and taking things in stride, candidates who have a phobia of uncertainty react in a variety of self-destructive ways. They may pester the hiring partner with phone calls, faxes, or emails (beyond the obligatory thank you note), which is a bad thing to do. Or they start harassing their recruiter for feedback, which is really doing the same thing at one remove. Although ideally the recruiter will have the sense not to start harassing the hiring partner in turn, or other members of the hiring committee, there is a danger that they will. This is definitely a case of less is more. Put yourself in your recruiter’s shoes - in all likelihood, he wants you to get the job as badly as you do. The recruiter who does not care about finding a job for her candidates is a rare breed - and a non-existent one at BCG Attorney Search.

Furthermore, when a firm is still soliciting feedback from different interviewers, and possibly meeting with other candidates, they may not show their hand to the recruiter, no matter how close the relationship is. They may simply not know enough yet to take a position. If it is a definite ‘no,’ they will usually say so. But there are others who are maybes, and this is where the wait and the lack of information can get very frustrating very quickly. What to do?

First of all, keep a firm grasp of reality. If the firm wants to make you an offer, it will. If you’ve met with the firm, there is very little chance that you have slipped between the cracks - and if you did, they probably were not intent on hiring you. Much of the worry that accompanies the interview process is generated by an unhealthy focus on the self. It’s essential to strive to be your best -well-prepared, well-presented, punctual, and so forth. But even then, your ability to control other people and their reactions to you is limited. There are extraneous factors that you simply can’t control - perhaps the firm has just lost a major client and won’t be hiring anyone — and it is unhelpful to focus on them. This heightened focus on the self is often what leads you to imagine the worst. To imagine monsters where a simple question mark would do.

In fact, depending on current market conditions and your practice area, recruiting is almost always a time-consuming process for everyone involved. It is also heavily subject to Murphy’s law, as anyone who has been involved in it can attest. At any stage in the process, things can go wrong, sometimes in bizarre ways. The horror stories that you hear from your friends are shared by the firms themselves, only in reverse. The gal that everyone loved turns out to be a grifter who never went law school. The guy you just hired was caught in flagrante delicto with the hiring partner. And so on.

So, what to do? First, understand that even the most ideal interview process will have its moments of uncertainty. Second, do not use that uncertainty to construct elaborate, macabre fantasies that are the stuff of nightmares. Third, realize that no matter how much you want the job, this is partly a numbers game for you, too, and you must not despair. Work with your recruiter, be at your best, and use that feeling of uncertainty to give yourself a little extra juice to climb the next mountain, which is getting that ideal job you want with what Hemingway defined as courage - grace under pressure. And finally, most important of all: stay positive and keep focused on what you want - getting the job - not what you fear. The great explorers, after all, had those primordial fears too, but they were able to overcome them.

Or else those maps would have never been finished.