Anonymous Lawyer

On recruiting trips I sometimes take part in panel discussions at law schools, where students can ask questions about the hiring process. The most common question I'm asked is what my "favorite interview question" is. I usually make something up that's pretty generic, like "why this firm in particular?" or "why should we hire you and not the guy we just saw who has better grades, more extracurriculars, and a nicer smile?" I don't want to give away any hints at these things. It's all for promotion; I'm not going to provide any rewards for coming.

The real answer is that I like to ask them to tell me the names of the people they've interviewed with. It's shocking to see how few of the students I interview can even give me one person's name. Almost unheard of to get the complete set correct. But it's important. It's important to pay attention to detail. It's important to know what's going on around you. That question can make or break someone in my mind. If you can just rattle them off, I'm impressed. If you get flustered, and start grasping for straws -- or, even worse, make some dismissive comment about the question being a joke, which happens a lot more than it should -- I don't like you, and I don't want you working here. I want associates who have their eyes open all the time for pieces of the puzzle. I don't want people who walk through life with a blindfold on.

I had one candidate completely self-destruct on this question, when he answered, to my open-mouthed shock: "Well, there was this really Jewish woman. And this Asian guy with a really Asian name I can't remember. And then some normal dude." I actually ended the interview right there. I told him I had a lot of work to do, thanked him for coming in, and had my assistant lead him out. I happened to run into him that summer at an event that our firm had on the same night as another firm nearby. And at first I could not believe they had hired him. And then I thought about it, and realized it actually made pretty good sense.