Bad Law Job Interviews - How Can We Avoid Them?

I was inspired to write this post by an article I recently read on how to exit an insulting job interview gracefully, called “Why Don’t More People Walk Out of Bad Job Interviews?” I started thinking, how can we avoid bad interviews in the first place? Interviews are a necessary part of finding and filling legal positions. What can we do as both interviewees and interviewers to improve the job finding process, especially in the current legal market?

Interviewing for any job is very stressful, but particularly so for new law grads. Many have massive law school debt and the market is still pretty bleak.  I meet with a lot of new unemployed lawyers or lawyers that are in-between jobs. Anecdotally, I've witnessed that the average time for a new lawyer to find a law job is between 6-12 months. That’s a long time. These lawyers feel like their lives are on hold. They also sometimes get excited about a job and after months of waiting and follow-up interviews find out the position went to someone else. They start the job-hunting process over again. With these added pressures lawyers are going into interviews already super stressed. 

And, being the interviewer can be equally stressful. Especially if this is the lawyer’s first time hiring an associate or law student. They will be spending a lot of time, energy, resources, and money on this individual, what if they choose the wrong candidate? Also, the associate or student will be working under the lawyer’s firm name and a brand the lawyer probably spent a long-time building. Can they trust the candidate to represent their firm?

I half-jokingly tell people I have my own law practice because I’m just really bad at interviews. I’ve had a few good ones, but I have also had some that were extremely embarrassing.

For example, in law school, during a full day of on-campus interviews I developed this nervous tick of licking my lips. Every. Few. Seconds. I. Would. Stop. To. Lick. My. Lips. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop! I probably looked like a lizard.

Then, later in my career, I once ended an interview with: “Thank you for this, I love talking about myself!!” What?!? “I love talking about myself?” Where did that come from? Who says that? I was mortified.  

I’ve also had interviewers behave poorly. I was once interviewed by a panel of three people and the lead interviewer began by holding up the written component of the application, saying: “You do know that if you worked here I would have re-written this entire thing.” Another member of the panel would snort and roll her eyes every time I gave an answer. When they gave me a “situational” question involving a “big, burly client” I referred to the client with a male pronoun. The lead interviewer held up her hand and said: “I didn’t say the client was a HE, gender stereotype much?” The two women looked at each other, laughed, and started writing furiously in their notes. I was so confused by their behaviour.  The third interviewer seemed just as puzzled and he kept giving me sympathetic looks. I knew I had absolutely no desire to work for these toxic people. I should have exited gracefully by thanking them for their time and telling them I didn’t think it was the right fit. Instead I sat there politely listening to their snorts and put-downs for a full hour trying to answer their questions to the best of my ability. I was holding back tears by the end. To this day I’m not sure if it was an interview technique to weed out people who couldn’t handle hostility or whether they genuinely thought I was completely useless.  

Besides abolishing interviews altogether (is that possible?) what can we do as both interviewees and interviewers to avoid negative interview experiences and improve the process of finding a job? Although I am not an expert (as evidenced above), for what it's worth, here are my thoughts:
​
For interviewers:

• Starting with the obvious: Don’t break the law. Know what questions you can and cannot ask during an interview.
• Put yourself in the interviewee’s shoes. Try to remember how stressful it is to be looking for a job in today’s legal market. Be polite. Respect their time. Be on time. Read their resume. Be prepared. Stay off your phone. 
• Try to keep the application process as succinct as possible. A long drawn out process that takes months (from the initial application to interview to decision) can be very stressful, as some candidates have their life on hold waiting for an answer.
• Recognize your own biases. When I interviewed students in Big Law I had to check myself. I would immediately love a candidate who worked several part time jobs to put herself through university. I would rank her above a candidate whose only work experience was as a camp counselor and who was fortunate to not have to work to pay for school. Why did I do this? Because I saw myself and my past experiences in that first candidate. I had to stop and remind myself to not let this cloud my judgement.
• Show some compassion. Don’t write people off for the odd nervous quirk. I am forever indebted to those law firms that saw past my lizard tongue and offered me in-firm interviews.
• If you know right away that they are not the right candidate due to lack of qualifications, you can say that politely. End the interview. I am sure that they would appreciate it.

For interviewees:

• Starting with the obvious: Be prepared, do some research on the firm, arrive on time. Remember that above all else law is a service industry, show that you understand the importance of client service.
• Be the best version of yourself. You can’t, and shouldn’t, change who you are for a job (just ignore those silly articles that tell women they must wear dresses and heels to a law firm interview – good grief!), but maybe be “lawyer you” rather than “relaxing at home you”.
• Recognize that interviewers have biases (see above) and no matter how prepared you are, and how perfect for the job you would be, some individuals (unfortunately) choose not to see beyond those biases.
• Be compassionate: the lawyer interviewing you is likely extremely business. Maybe they read your resume but forgot details or didn’t get a chance to respond to your “Thank You” email right away. Cut them a little slack. Also, interviewers are likely nervous too. Most want to make a good impression as well.
• Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions about equality, diversity and inclusion. For some great examples see the article “At The End Of Your Next Job Interview, Ask (At Least) One Of These 10 Questions About The Firm’s Commitment To Diversity” by Suhuyini Abudulai, Atrisha Lewis and Mariam Moktar.
• Trust your gut. It is okay to walk out of an interview if you are uncomfortable or are being treated poorly. You don’t have to put up with abuse. Exit gracefully. Just think, if the interview makes you uncomfortable, imagine what working there would be like?

Do you have any tips for improving law job interviews?

---