Before you start reading this post, let me warn you, if you have not already noticed, it is quite long. Written by Shouvik Kumar Guha from the graduating batch of NUJS, this post will take you through different steps of a typical campussing/ job interview exercise in Shouvik's ecstatic English. What should you expect from the post? A lot of law school sarcasm, some idea about a job interview with a tier-1 law firm, and a perspective to understand the upcoming post where he shall discuss his secrets of getting picked up as a specialised IP lawyer by one of the biggest law firms in India.
Well, this post is the hastily-scribbled product of the efforts of the owner of this blog pestering me for long for ‘sharing’ my ‘job-interview experience’. My ‘experience’ as it is has been extremely patchy, sometimes bordering on downright weird. I can't say if this is going to improve your chance at an interview.
Here it goes, with the stipulation that the names and designations and assorted who’s-who information will be cloaked in anonymity [after all, I don’t want to lose the job I’ve already got, nor alienate the other recruiters from venturing anywhere near our university ;) ].
I would first write about recruitment by the hallowed law firms. The previous batch had fallen victim to the economic recession big-time. This time, we had vowed, would be different. As early as the previous summer during internships post-4th year woes, we were getting the drift that recruitment season may have to begin earlier this time. Reason? The other law schools were contemplating the same – an early recruitment season to beat the recession. A ‘vicious circle’ if I’ve ever seen one.
Well, our Campus Recruitment Committee rallied within a few days of the beginning of the 9th semester and soon cv-s were getting dispatched. Where to? To the ‘top-tier’ law firms, of course. Without delving into the depths of the highly complex process of how such coveted destinations were chosen (apparently objective factors such as salary, previous recruitment history vis-à-vis the university, and fame were a few to had been taken into consideration), it suffices to say that we were all set to welcome the giants of legal luminescence into our humble abode.
First jolt: Firm X, one of the top-tiered ones, said it was going to come within 2 days! While not entirely forthcoming with the rationale behind the tearing hurry putting the Gold Rush to shame, its motives appeared plain enough, it wished to have the pick of the crop of its choice before anybody else (read, ‘other occupants of the top-tier’ with whom the university had a cosy history not entirely demolished by the recessive downturn) and to be honest, who can blame it? To their credit, they gave almost equal chance to a lot of people irrespective of rank/CGPA (that’s really rare, that is).
CRC was given a 24 hours notice that Firm X will take a written test of all the people who had applied, make a shortlist from them within an hour and interview those. Again, it was really good of them to let us know of the procedure beforehand; few recruiters actually bother, some I believe getting positively sadistic pleasure out of keeping the hapless and nervous students in tenterhooks.
But a test? On what? Within 24 hours? How on earth can we prepare for one, which can contain basically anything legal (of which, apart from a minuscule part, we have managed to remain blissfully unaware of in these 4-and-a-fraction-of-one years) and even worse, even non-legal matters?
“Prepare for Contract Law and Corporate Law”, advised a helpful alumnus. Hurrah for shortening of the syllabus to a positively desperation-inducing scale! While listening to the grumblings of fellow applicants that night, I made an important decision, something which I repeat before almost every end-semester examination, viz. not to study.
In short, it was to be seen as a sort of test-run, what’s the extent to which one can progress armed with bare wit, nonchalance and logic and almost everything other than legal knowledge. Well, nothing beats being thankful for and proud of the lack of something (read, preparation) that you don’t have anyway, does it?
The day dawned.
I got to know several of the batch-toppers are sitting out of this one. Why on earth, with the market being so enigmatic? Well, some of them were waiting for other top-tier occupants, whose wrath, according to the informed, educated guess-makers and CRC foresight, would indeed be something to behold, once they become aware that they have missed being the recipient of the very first garland of welcome and red-carpet and other associated perks we could offer.
And pray why do you await them? Have they given any assurance of recruiting, say ‘y’ number of people? Had they done so, probably the top-rankers could have taken heart. Alas, such was not the case! However, when those other firms do get to know, CRC intended to appease them saying that most of the toppers still await their arrival with bated breath!
Now this display of selfless courage on their part (i.e. those who intended to let go of their chance of getting a job at Firm X in favor of a chance of having a crack at firms-to-come) almost overwhelmed me! Who said that students at law schools are as a rule fiercely competitive and cut-throat? Here were these heroes, bravely refusing their shot at the game just not to render CRC’s promise false ;)
Some, of course, simply preferred one firm over another and could afford to be choosy or thought that they could be at any rate, which came down to pretty much the same result. A few didn’t want to appear owing to lack of preparation as well as lack of the stoic courage of the unarmed Christian facing a den of lions. All-in-all, it was a mixed scene.
The time came at last. We were facing a question paper, about an hour of staring to be done and some wishing he/she had had one more look at the Avtar Singh for contract law or Taxmann/Ramaiya for company law last night. How was the paper? Most of it included basic concepts of contract and company law that ought to have been easily answerable except for those who professed of a state of being totally out-of-touch with the same, viz. Myself.
Well, I couldn’t sit idle for an hour and sadly, the paper didn’t have enough space for doodling either, something that I felt was rather amiss of Firm X. Some questions were weird, including problems based on foreign direct investments and provisions and notifications and press-notes involved therein. I mean, unless somebody had worked on that subject in the course of his/her internships, there was no way he/she could have answered it. I even spent half the allotted time wondering the possible rationale behind including such a question, not that I’d the inclination or the ability to indulge in doing anything else.
When the exam ended, I went off with a couple of friends, joking about the terrible state of our answer-scripts and the amount of shock the representatives of X would get on seeing them. Away from the CRC room, the mood was rather light, with most of us wondering who are the people to be shortlisted. The ones whose answer-scripts were in a less worse state than ours? The ones who had interned at X before? (I hadn’t, ever, although I’d one lined up for the next break). The topmost rankers? The one or two who claimed to have answered that FDI-question? It was anybody’s guess. We didn’t know how many they were going to shortlist or recruit.
An hour later, I was just on the verge of starting to wonder whether my time would be better spent in catching up with reading the book that I’d left halfway between at one corner of my room and whether I should make a beeline for the exit from the Academic Block. I got a call from the CRC. Apparently, I’d been shortlisted and so had been the one person whom I knew had given at least as bad an examination as myself.
Rank-wise, the short-listed people were a motley group, there were those among the top 10 and those in the 30s. Honestly, till date I don’t know how the short-listing was done. One person who had done a good internship at X before and had certainly given a better exam than me hadn’t been shortlisted; he shrugged at me, I shrugged back, wondering meanwhile whether my answers have been so out-of-the-line that they didn’t wish to give up the chance of seeing the creator of those pearls of wisdom in person.
Some jokes were being made all around, most of the 14-odd people who had been shortlisted seemed pretty nervous. I was more in a bemused state! The interviews started one-by-one. The people were taking a wide range of time. One of my fellow batch-mates having already done an internship with X at its head office and having worked hard there and got good reviews and having been shortlisted and having been interviewed for close to an hour (which included sport-related discussions and soccer team preferences and so on and so forth), we were pretty much sure he would be getting an offer.
Apparently, the interviews did not involve questions of law! Thank god they had seen the light, breathed I; for after those papers, if they actually wanted to question me on my legal knowledge, they could only have been gluttons for punishment with a distinctly masochistic bent of mind.
So what were they asking? The few who had their interviews before me informed me of the ‘usual standard ammunition’ they were using for fire, viz. what were one’s strengths, weaknesses, reasons why they would choose one over the others etc etc. Frankly speaking, these questions had always succeeded to irritate me in the past and the present is no exception either.
With 30 minutes of preparation, one could have well-rehearsed answers to them that are so far away from the truth as to be antipodal in relation to its position. Such answers would even make seem the most degenerate procrastinator of a law student like a well-oiled machine raring to have a go at the firm’s clients and start billing aggressively within 30 seconds of signing the offer letter.
Let’s have a gamble, thought I! Instead of telling them what they want to hear, of the interviewee being unafraid of Everest-sized obstacles, undaunted by tasks befitting Sisyphus and always striving to find new limits of endurance, skill etc, why not try to be truthful for a change? This was, after all, supposed to be a test-run. So, let’s explore all the avenues, opening the throttle all the way, let’s tell them I was a decent worker, who could work hard when exploring disciplines that he liked, who’s aware of his limits (which may mean either I knew how hard and long I could work while balancing the quality with the quantity, or I knew how hard and long I could work for them while balancing the quality with the quantity; the result ought to be the same, anyway, as far as the output they were going to get from me was concerned) and took up responsibilities accordingly and lived up to the same.
The fact is, apart from a scarce few workaholics, most of the people I know and certainly most of my batch-mates would perhaps have said the same were they being entirely truthful. Well, for those who are getting tempted to follow this line of action, one word of advice: don’t! My interview was one of the shortest ones, it lasted about all of 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Truth, as Oscar Wilde had said, is rarely pure and never simple and pretty much always unpalatable. ;)
I might have jolted them out of their comfort zones a bit giving such answers and that’s never desirable if at the end of the day, you want to get that job. Truth be told, I simply thought it would be a nice experiment and the results and the reactions of the interviewers were indeed interesting to perceive.
Several of my batch-mates made it through though, marking it as a significant opening of the year’s recruitment. Some had been unorthodox to the point of having exhibited their interest in the energy sector, Firm X seemed to like that. An interesting assortment of people were finally chosen, Firm X didn’t at least discriminate on basis of rank, which is a pretty heartening thought for most of those seeking employment.
In fact, if anything, the interviewers seemed pleased at them being given an equal chance with the others to be the first recruiter and even promised to return subsequently for another bout of rounding the strays up at a later point of time ;) Hopefully, that’s not mere wishful thinking on our part. For those who are yet to get the drift, I didn’t land up with a job at Firm X, although at present, my days of being an unemployed idle lay-about are ‘thankfully’ over. The details of subsequent and more ‘successful’ interviews and the colourful tid-bits behind the scenes may be revealed at a more suitable point of time.
Till then, I bid adieu to all the faithful followers of the blog and hope to avoid the owner’s retribution for all the intended and unintended levity introduced in this serious place :D
By the way, a friend had referred to this write-up on the usual law firm interview questions, their traditional answers and what one may be thinking instead while parrot-ing off the former, it may be good for a laugh and certainly a must-read on the night before the interview.
Well, this post is the hastily-scribbled product of the efforts of the owner of this blog pestering me for long for ‘sharing’ my ‘job-interview experience’. My ‘experience’ as it is has been extremely patchy, sometimes bordering on downright weird. I can't say if this is going to improve your chance at an interview.
Here it goes, with the stipulation that the names and designations and assorted who’s-who information will be cloaked in anonymity [after all, I don’t want to lose the job I’ve already got, nor alienate the other recruiters from venturing anywhere near our university ;) ].
I would first write about recruitment by the hallowed law firms. The previous batch had fallen victim to the economic recession big-time. This time, we had vowed, would be different. As early as the previous summer during internships post-4th year woes, we were getting the drift that recruitment season may have to begin earlier this time. Reason? The other law schools were contemplating the same – an early recruitment season to beat the recession. A ‘vicious circle’ if I’ve ever seen one.
Well, our Campus Recruitment Committee rallied within a few days of the beginning of the 9th semester and soon cv-s were getting dispatched. Where to? To the ‘top-tier’ law firms, of course. Without delving into the depths of the highly complex process of how such coveted destinations were chosen (apparently objective factors such as salary, previous recruitment history vis-à-vis the university, and fame were a few to had been taken into consideration), it suffices to say that we were all set to welcome the giants of legal luminescence into our humble abode.
First jolt: Firm X, one of the top-tiered ones, said it was going to come within 2 days! While not entirely forthcoming with the rationale behind the tearing hurry putting the Gold Rush to shame, its motives appeared plain enough, it wished to have the pick of the crop of its choice before anybody else (read, ‘other occupants of the top-tier’ with whom the university had a cosy history not entirely demolished by the recessive downturn) and to be honest, who can blame it? To their credit, they gave almost equal chance to a lot of people irrespective of rank/CGPA (that’s really rare, that is).
CRC was given a 24 hours notice that Firm X will take a written test of all the people who had applied, make a shortlist from them within an hour and interview those. Again, it was really good of them to let us know of the procedure beforehand; few recruiters actually bother, some I believe getting positively sadistic pleasure out of keeping the hapless and nervous students in tenterhooks.
But a test? On what? Within 24 hours? How on earth can we prepare for one, which can contain basically anything legal (of which, apart from a minuscule part, we have managed to remain blissfully unaware of in these 4-and-a-fraction-of-one years) and even worse, even non-legal matters?
“Prepare for Contract Law and Corporate Law”, advised a helpful alumnus. Hurrah for shortening of the syllabus to a positively desperation-inducing scale! While listening to the grumblings of fellow applicants that night, I made an important decision, something which I repeat before almost every end-semester examination, viz. not to study.
In short, it was to be seen as a sort of test-run, what’s the extent to which one can progress armed with bare wit, nonchalance and logic and almost everything other than legal knowledge. Well, nothing beats being thankful for and proud of the lack of something (read, preparation) that you don’t have anyway, does it?
The day dawned.
I got to know several of the batch-toppers are sitting out of this one. Why on earth, with the market being so enigmatic? Well, some of them were waiting for other top-tier occupants, whose wrath, according to the informed, educated guess-makers and CRC foresight, would indeed be something to behold, once they become aware that they have missed being the recipient of the very first garland of welcome and red-carpet and other associated perks we could offer.
And pray why do you await them? Have they given any assurance of recruiting, say ‘y’ number of people? Had they done so, probably the top-rankers could have taken heart. Alas, such was not the case! However, when those other firms do get to know, CRC intended to appease them saying that most of the toppers still await their arrival with bated breath!
Now this display of selfless courage on their part (i.e. those who intended to let go of their chance of getting a job at Firm X in favor of a chance of having a crack at firms-to-come) almost overwhelmed me! Who said that students at law schools are as a rule fiercely competitive and cut-throat? Here were these heroes, bravely refusing their shot at the game just not to render CRC’s promise false ;)
Some, of course, simply preferred one firm over another and could afford to be choosy or thought that they could be at any rate, which came down to pretty much the same result. A few didn’t want to appear owing to lack of preparation as well as lack of the stoic courage of the unarmed Christian facing a den of lions. All-in-all, it was a mixed scene.
The time came at last. We were facing a question paper, about an hour of staring to be done and some wishing he/she had had one more look at the Avtar Singh for contract law or Taxmann/Ramaiya for company law last night. How was the paper? Most of it included basic concepts of contract and company law that ought to have been easily answerable except for those who professed of a state of being totally out-of-touch with the same, viz. Myself.
Well, I couldn’t sit idle for an hour and sadly, the paper didn’t have enough space for doodling either, something that I felt was rather amiss of Firm X. Some questions were weird, including problems based on foreign direct investments and provisions and notifications and press-notes involved therein. I mean, unless somebody had worked on that subject in the course of his/her internships, there was no way he/she could have answered it. I even spent half the allotted time wondering the possible rationale behind including such a question, not that I’d the inclination or the ability to indulge in doing anything else.
When the exam ended, I went off with a couple of friends, joking about the terrible state of our answer-scripts and the amount of shock the representatives of X would get on seeing them. Away from the CRC room, the mood was rather light, with most of us wondering who are the people to be shortlisted. The ones whose answer-scripts were in a less worse state than ours? The ones who had interned at X before? (I hadn’t, ever, although I’d one lined up for the next break). The topmost rankers? The one or two who claimed to have answered that FDI-question? It was anybody’s guess. We didn’t know how many they were going to shortlist or recruit.
An hour later, I was just on the verge of starting to wonder whether my time would be better spent in catching up with reading the book that I’d left halfway between at one corner of my room and whether I should make a beeline for the exit from the Academic Block. I got a call from the CRC. Apparently, I’d been shortlisted and so had been the one person whom I knew had given at least as bad an examination as myself.
Rank-wise, the short-listed people were a motley group, there were those among the top 10 and those in the 30s. Honestly, till date I don’t know how the short-listing was done. One person who had done a good internship at X before and had certainly given a better exam than me hadn’t been shortlisted; he shrugged at me, I shrugged back, wondering meanwhile whether my answers have been so out-of-the-line that they didn’t wish to give up the chance of seeing the creator of those pearls of wisdom in person.
Some jokes were being made all around, most of the 14-odd people who had been shortlisted seemed pretty nervous. I was more in a bemused state! The interviews started one-by-one. The people were taking a wide range of time. One of my fellow batch-mates having already done an internship with X at its head office and having worked hard there and got good reviews and having been shortlisted and having been interviewed for close to an hour (which included sport-related discussions and soccer team preferences and so on and so forth), we were pretty much sure he would be getting an offer.
Apparently, the interviews did not involve questions of law! Thank god they had seen the light, breathed I; for after those papers, if they actually wanted to question me on my legal knowledge, they could only have been gluttons for punishment with a distinctly masochistic bent of mind.
So what were they asking? The few who had their interviews before me informed me of the ‘usual standard ammunition’ they were using for fire, viz. what were one’s strengths, weaknesses, reasons why they would choose one over the others etc etc. Frankly speaking, these questions had always succeeded to irritate me in the past and the present is no exception either.
With 30 minutes of preparation, one could have well-rehearsed answers to them that are so far away from the truth as to be antipodal in relation to its position. Such answers would even make seem the most degenerate procrastinator of a law student like a well-oiled machine raring to have a go at the firm’s clients and start billing aggressively within 30 seconds of signing the offer letter.
Let’s have a gamble, thought I! Instead of telling them what they want to hear, of the interviewee being unafraid of Everest-sized obstacles, undaunted by tasks befitting Sisyphus and always striving to find new limits of endurance, skill etc, why not try to be truthful for a change? This was, after all, supposed to be a test-run. So, let’s explore all the avenues, opening the throttle all the way, let’s tell them I was a decent worker, who could work hard when exploring disciplines that he liked, who’s aware of his limits (which may mean either I knew how hard and long I could work while balancing the quality with the quantity, or I knew how hard and long I could work for them while balancing the quality with the quantity; the result ought to be the same, anyway, as far as the output they were going to get from me was concerned) and took up responsibilities accordingly and lived up to the same.
The fact is, apart from a scarce few workaholics, most of the people I know and certainly most of my batch-mates would perhaps have said the same were they being entirely truthful. Well, for those who are getting tempted to follow this line of action, one word of advice: don’t! My interview was one of the shortest ones, it lasted about all of 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Truth, as Oscar Wilde had said, is rarely pure and never simple and pretty much always unpalatable. ;)
I might have jolted them out of their comfort zones a bit giving such answers and that’s never desirable if at the end of the day, you want to get that job. Truth be told, I simply thought it would be a nice experiment and the results and the reactions of the interviewers were indeed interesting to perceive.
Several of my batch-mates made it through though, marking it as a significant opening of the year’s recruitment. Some had been unorthodox to the point of having exhibited their interest in the energy sector, Firm X seemed to like that. An interesting assortment of people were finally chosen, Firm X didn’t at least discriminate on basis of rank, which is a pretty heartening thought for most of those seeking employment.
In fact, if anything, the interviewers seemed pleased at them being given an equal chance with the others to be the first recruiter and even promised to return subsequently for another bout of rounding the strays up at a later point of time ;) Hopefully, that’s not mere wishful thinking on our part. For those who are yet to get the drift, I didn’t land up with a job at Firm X, although at present, my days of being an unemployed idle lay-about are ‘thankfully’ over. The details of subsequent and more ‘successful’ interviews and the colourful tid-bits behind the scenes may be revealed at a more suitable point of time.
Till then, I bid adieu to all the faithful followers of the blog and hope to avoid the owner’s retribution for all the intended and unintended levity introduced in this serious place :D
By the way, a friend had referred to this write-up on the usual law firm interview questions, their traditional answers and what one may be thinking instead while parrot-ing off the former, it may be good for a laugh and certainly a must-read on the night before the interview.
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