The Psychological Battle of Interviewing

Yesterday I received a letter from the firm at which I interviewed last week. When they contact you by mail, it’s not usually a good sign:

While your enthusiasm and academic credentials will certainly be an asset to any firm, [this one] cannot extend you an offer of employment at this time.

I have no doubt that many law students across the nation receive similar rejections in similar circumstances; maybe lines like that are standard, like those annoying lines women use to reject men while ostensibly telling them how great they are. (Can you feel the love?)

The proper attitude to have is not to take it personally, to recognize that it’s a competitive field, and that some well-qualified candidates will always be rejected. However, as you may have inferred from the previous paragraph, my attitude is not quite there yet. Life continues, though.

Yesterday also saw my round of interviews with one of the larger, more prestigious, and longest-established firms in this area. For a little over two hours, I met with nine different people: one human resources manager and eight attorneys. It was exhaustive and exhausting. It put a chip on my shoulder, too; at least half of my interviewers yesterday made a comment that went something like this:

“Your LSAT score was really high and your grades are excellent. Why aren’t you at a more prestigious school?”

Unfortunately, the conventions of the professional interview setting do not allow for the kind of response that would have satisfied me. The most pointed but mostly polite answer I was able to come up with was the one I gave to the managing partner: “I would rather stand or fall on the merits of my own work, not on the name of the school I attended. You might say I am averse to manufactured prestige. Maybe that’s a foolish risk, but it’s mine.” He was difficult to read, so I may have misunderstood his response, but when he raised his eyebrows, widened his eyes, and smiled just so, the look on his face said to me, Wow, kid, that’s a damned audacious thing to say. Yeah, I can be a firebrand sometimes.

Most of the interviewers yesterday were very nice people, with whom I had no trouble conversing. Many of them seemed to find me a rather puzzling character, but that does not really set them apart from the general population. It probably makes me less desirable as an employee though. (Good thing I already have a job.)

After two hours of talking to a bunch of different people who subjected me to a wide variety of interviewing styles while questioning the validity my life decisions, past, present, and future, my hackles were raised and my ire was drawn. How did I decide on law? Why did I decide not to be a teacher? Why am I not attending a more prestigious law school? Which areas of the law interest me the most? Why did I take a class on tribal sovereign immunity? Where do I want to be in five years? ten? twenty? Do I have political inclinations? Do I plan to run for office? Do I want to be a judge?

It was all I could do to provide calm, articulate answers to those questions. I wanted to stand up and let them have it, to harangue the entire legal profession for its pettiness and hypocrisy.

But there were more run-of-the-mill questions, too. Do I have good writing skills? Strong work ethic? Do I pay attention to detail? Yes, yes, and yes. It was not all bad. It was probably mostly good. I just had to struggle against the urge to argue with them. Despite being nervous and feeling like they were running me through the wringer, I did not feel intimidated. Maybe I should have felt intimidated. Who knows? I can imagine all of these people meeting to discuss my performance in the interviews and wondering, “What the hell is wrong with that guy? Can you believe some of the things he said?” (A couple of them asked me why I decided, after substitute teaching for a few years, not to become a full time teacher. I made no bones about it; I have no love for the public educational system and think it ruins our children. “That’s a pretty dim view you have,” said the managing partner. “Yes,” I replied. “And maybe it’s inaccurate, but it’s what I saw and how I feel.”)

Perhaps next week I will get another letter with another annoying rejection masquerading as a compliment. However, just as the Supreme Court does not have to provide its reasons for denying certiorari, employers do not have to provide their reasons for denying jobs to candidates.

At any rate, I am still currently employed and in a mood to step up my performance so I can prove to myself and all observers that yes, names will be taken and asses will be kicked.

Sex is Good

And there you have it.

Even Bigger Interview

On Thursday afternoon, I will spend two hours at another of the larger, more prestigious law firms in Fresno. The human resources manager just emailed me my schedule. During those two hours I will interview with no less than eight different attorneys.

Yes, I am already nervous.

Turnabout

Are you one of those misinformed people who believes the American Civil Liberties Union is an evil, anti-religion organization? If so, you should look at this site.

First Big Interview

About forty minutes ago, I walked out of my first callback interview with one of the larger firms in the area. It was interesting. When I stepped out of the elevator, I was impressed by their offices. Everything looked rich. I tried to look like I knew what I was doing.

At first, the receptionist had no idea who I was or what I was doing there. I would have thought that a technologically sophisticated firm, as this one claims to be, would have some vast calendaring database that would allow her to pull up the necessary information. Apparently not. So I had to sit and wait. Maybe that was the plan, though.

After a few minutes of sitting, trying to have a zen moment, pulling myself together, a young associate came to greet me. Probably younger than I am. He took me into one of the three glass-walled conference rooms that ringed the waiting area with the receptionist’s desk. We chatted for a few minutes. Then another young associate came in; she was what you might call “easy on the eyes.” We chatted for a few more minutes and the conversation was interspersed with comments about their not knowing whether the third member of the recruiting committee was coming or not. Then, a few minutes later, she showed up and completed their interrogatory triumvirate.

The conversation was interesting and balanced. I asked several open-ended questions and did my best to put them on the spot. I figured that would show confidence and interest. Plus, it made for less time that I needed to talk and struggle to answer open-ended questions.

When I left, my spirits were high and it was the first time in over twenty-four hours that I did not feel ill. Now all I have to do is wait for the results so I can decide whether I should treat future interviews similarly or do something completely different.

Interviews

This morning while I was at work, at the job I love, I received a phone call from someone at one of the law firms with whom I interviewed on Friday. (Remember? That was the one whose interviewer did not impress me much.) They are giving me a callback interview on Thursday afternoon.

A callback interview is no on-campus interview. It won’t be just me and an unimpressive low-level associate sitting in a classroom. There will likely be a panel of attorneys, including partners and associates. Time to crank up the verve.

Then on Friday morning I have on-campus interviews with two of the biggest law firms in town. If all goes well, I will find time to actually do some research on the firms, so I don’t have to sound like an idiot again. (My partner said she would make information cards for me, but she is too busy to do that kind of thing, so I won’t hold her to it.)

On the other hand, I still feel like a bit of a traitor doing these interviews when I already have a job I love. It’s just interviewing experience, I tell myself; pressure for fun, right? Who knows. Maybe I will decide that a Big Firm job is what I want. We shall see.

Life and Law School

For those of you who are beginning to think that I do nothing but spew vitriolic tirades against religion, I thought I would give a little update regarding my other activities:

This morning, I interviewed with two local law firms who participated in our on-campus interview program. The recruiter for one of the firms did not impress me much (nor did I impress him, I think). He was bland and boring; even if his firm offered me a job, I don’t think I would take it. But the guys from the other firm were friendly, enthusiastic, interesting, and supportive. They didn’t have a position to offer, though; they just thought my resume and transcript looked good and wanted to meet me (and one other student from our school).

In between those two interviews, I enjoyed a little conversation with one of the first year students, helping him understand issue-spotting and legal analysis. After the interviews, I helped one of my own classmates nail down his understanding of “piercing the corporate veil.”

In the afternoon, when I went to work, the office manager told me that I will be getting my own office — with a window! — at the end of the month, when we expand into the space next door.

After work, I deposited my paycheck then went to Starbucks where I seized an hour or so to do some pleasure reading (Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion). I also ended up on the phone with my partner for a little while; she wanted to know how the interviews went. What could be more relaxing than drinking a maple macchiato, talking to the best partner in the world, and reading a book about the idiocy of religion?

So, all in all, things are going well. My current employer is going to give me my own office (with a window!) and another firm says I have great promise; my classmates are stopping me in the hallways to ask questions (for which I actually have answers!); and I am still finding a little time to enjoy a book.

Plus, three weeks from tomorrow I am doing a Saturday morning “survival skills” seminar for first-year students, focusing on tort law. That should be fun. It’s been about a year since I’ve been at the front of a classroom and I am eager to try it again. People seem to think I am good at explaining things (or at least my partner does; she insisted I take this assignment) but I am selfish — I know that getting up and teaching something is a great way to review it for yourself.

At any rate, I should do some reading for Constitutional Law, or maybe get some sleep.

Freedom Dies a Death of a Thousand Blows (and this is one of them)

This is ridiculous:

French lawmakers have approved a draft law making it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians in Turkey nearly a century ago were genocide.

It doesn’t matter if the genocide actually happened; you don’t legislate such that people are not allowed to say it didn’t. The moment people lose their freedom to be wrong, they lose their freedom to disagree, and they lose their freedom to think. What next? Legislate that people can only think approved Christian theology? That people can only say nice things about France?

Ridiculous. With a law like that, the people of France should just start publicly denying the Armenian genocide, even if they believe that proposition to be untrue, just to show their stupid government that thought cannot be legislated.

Gestures that Make Things Happen

Once again, science and technology manage to accomplish what thousands of years of religion could never accomplish: something that looks like magic.

And the Horse You Rode in On

So I was reading this lousy review of Richard Dawkins’ fantastic book The God Delusion and there was this one line, standing out in a paragraph of its own:

Accordingly, Dawkins does not understand why social etiquette requires respect for those who believe in God.

Huh? Social etiquette does not require respect for those who believe in God; those who believe in God require respect for those who believe in God. Outside of just not wanting to piss off people who are too infantile to give up their Big Imaginary Friend in the Sky (“BIFITS”), there is no good reason to respect those who believe in God.

However, I suspect that what this particular reviewer meant to say is not that people deserve respect just because they believe in God; rather, people require deference on account of their beliefs, because apparently all the people who believe in God these days are so lacking in conviction that they can’t put up with disrespect.

Sorry, but if you really believe that your BIFITS is the Supreme Creator of All the Universe and Keeper of All Power and Wisdom, then what the hell do you care if we don’t respect you and your mentally ill deity? There’s no good reason why we should afford you any deference or respect, that we should avoid making scurrilous remarks about your pathetic, irrational, intellectually bankrupt religion, because if we’re wrong and you’re right, then you can rest in the solidity of that satisfaction, can’t you?

Stop whining about people picking on you and your God. If your God is so great, then what do you need to worry about? If your God is so jealous of praise and so intolerant of opinions like mine, then what am I doing here? Where is this BIFITS to come clean my clock?

You want respect? You’ll get it for just being a human being; not for which BIFITS you choose to placate with your blind love and devotion. No free passes for believing in God (just like I would never demand a free pass simply because I don’t believe in God; that would be stupid).

If you want to believe in your BIFITS (or that Son of a BIFITS, who was nailed to a piece of wood), you have every right to do so. But have some balls. Admit it: “Yes, I believe in the same God who demanded that a man be beaten to a bloody pulp and nailed to a piece of wood in order to set the universe right, and I am not ashamed to say so.” You have something like eighty percent of the population on your side. I’m the one who would have a good reason to keep his mouth shut; people get killed for saying the kinds of things I say. That doesn’t shut me up, though, because I know I’m right. Why don’t you? (Hint: Maybe it’s because you’re wrong and you’re afraid to admit it.)