Reflections on OCI, week 1

So... so far I have 3 callbacks, one from a major DC firm's New York office, two from a major NY firm's DC and NY offices. This is 3 callbacks out of the 10 interviews I had last week. How does my ratio stack up against the others? I have no idea.

On our career services website, they say that the typical student accepts 5-7 interviews. This means I need another 3-5 interviews, especially given that I am not sure about the DC firm's New York office. The woman who interviewed me, while very nice, also looked listless and exhausted, which I'm not sure bode well for the overall experience at the firm. But, we'll see.

Overall, I have been singularly unimpressed by the interviewer I have met so far. A few seem like the prototypical law firm jerks: male, white, jock-ish, arrogant. The 2 London offices interviewers seemed utterly distant and uninterested and even vaguely hostile, but that could just be a cultural thing. On the whole, the women interviewers were a lot better, usually warm and friendly, though the younger associate interviewers are almost suspiciously perky. The male partners tended to be older, and more serious, and more formal, and ask a lot harder questions.

What do I think of the whole process? It's not hard, not stressful, especially given that everyone going into it knows that he or she will get a job, and it's just a matter of "which one?" On the other hand, it IS mindnumbing, and time-consuming, and boring. Just the daily trek back and forth from the law school and the downtown hotel where the firms all do their interviews takes 15 minutes each one, so if you have 3 interviews scheduled at different times during the day, that's 1.5 hours walking!

On the way to and from the hotel, we meet other absurdly well-dressed classmates carrying leather portfolios, and give each other a knowing smile. The other students and townspeople must think that we are exceedingly weird, or they are used to the yearly ritual. Some of the hotel guests look bewildered at the number of suited students on each floor, standing right outside of room doors, perusing firm literature or reviewing their resumes. To outsiders, it must be a very comical sight.

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In other news... lots of work this weekend, as usual. Editing Professor JH's manuscript and looking up cites for him took up most of today, pushing my comparative con law reading completely out of sight. Tonight, Boyfriend, who is in town, and I met up with ABS and his boyfriend C, who is also in town visiting from Chicago. We had Indian food, which was lovely, and then spend 2 hours chatting in this nice little dessert place with yet another couple, JJ and his girlfriend M (visiting from Michigan). All the out of town significant others bonded and had a great time chatting. I arrived home shortly before midnight and still need to put in 1-2 hours of solid work!