Interviewing

As you plan for the 1L Virtual Mock Interview Program next week, you may be starting to think about interviewing for legal jobs. Take some time to listen to our short podcast on Acing 1L Interviews. This joint OCS/OPIA podcast covers what to expect from 1L summer job interviews and gives concrete tips on how to succeed.

Remember, if you have not heard back from a firm where you did a callback interview, you can and should follow up, particularly if waiting is holding up a decision on another offer.

Some firms may offer or suggest a “second look” or post-offer visit. This may be a second visit to the office after an in-person callback or visiting the office for the first-time following virtual interviews.

If you had a callback interview and have not heard back after a week or so, it may be time to follow up.

If you have an offer from Preview and asked for an extension until August 19 in order to participate in EIP, with that deadline fast approaching you may find yourself wanting more time to finalize your decision.

If you have received an offer that you know you want to accept, or if you are otherwise no longer interested in a particular firm, the firm would prefer you cancel your callback than spend their time and resources on a callback interview.

After a long week of interviews, preparation, and high hopes, you may ultimately feel disappointed in your EIP results, even if you do have some great callback options. Take charge of the process in front of you – start ramping up your research, knowledge and enthusiasm for the firms with whom you’ll be interviewing.

With EIP behind you, it’s time to get serious about evaluating the firms where you are attending callbacks. Before you get too far into the process, review the OCS webpage on Evaluating Firms for Your Own Success.

When asked about your interest in practice areas are you able to answer with some level of knowledge? As your research becomes more involved in anticipation of your callback interviews, don’t forget to brush up on practice areas, including subspecialties within the areas of corporate law, litigation and regulatory law.

If you have an offer from Preview, be sure you understand our policies on holding offers. If you asked for an extension until August 19 in order to participate in EIP, you will need to plan your EIP callbacks carefully, and be mindful of that upcoming deadline.

For in-person callback interviews and post-offer office visits, most firms will reimburse you for your reasonable travel expenses incurred with your trip to their firm. However, the question often arises: What is “reasonable?” Some firms have written guidelines they will give you when you begin the scheduling process, others will handle them on a case-by-case basis.

We ask that you please update your EIP Interview Tracker one last time as we wrap up our callback tracking tomorrow.

If you participated in EIP last week, we want to hear your feedback. Please take this short survey. Your feedback will help us improve the program for next year. If you’d like to discuss anything in more detail, please email ocs@law.harvard.edu to let us know.

If you have received multiple callback invitations, just as we advised during bidding, we urge you to keep your callback schedule balanced: have at least one firm on your schedule where you feel relatively optimistic that you will receive an offer.

If you have not heard back from a firm where you interviewed, there is no need to panic. While many firms have started extending callback invitations, many others have not.

Preparation is the key to a successful callback interview.  Make sure you’ve done everything you can to prepare. Our Callback Interviews Podcast as well as our callbacks page (bit.ly/hlscallbacks) give you all the information you need to turn your callback into an offer.

If you have received 5-6 callbacks or more in any one location, as a general rule, you could feel comfortable beginning to decline or cancel callbacks.

Make sure to update your EIP Interview Tracker tonight and through next Wednesday. Your responses are crucial as we crowdsource information to maintain the list on our website of firms that have extended callbacks.

You are in the home stretch with one day left in EIP Week. Take a moment tonight to reflect on your interviews so far: What has gone well? Which responses seem to resonate with interviewers? What questions are you asking and are those questions engaging your interviewers?

It’s exciting to receive numerous callbacks from your hard work this week. If you have offers from Preview, you should only schedule callbacks you are genuinely considering at this stage. If you are no longer interested, it is appropriate to decline or cancel a callback.

Some firms may offer the opportunity to do your callback interviews in-person or to visit the office after receiving an offer. The callback and travel arrangements page in the callbacks section of our website (bit.ly/hlscallbacks) has detailed guidance on how to handle expenses, including how to handle trips where you may be meeting with more than one employer.