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Sometimes a messy interview is a gift—it shows you exactly what you’d be walking into.
Truth ❤️
I had a coffee meeting once with a partner when I wasn’t looking to lateral. He really impressed me and I changed my tune and ended up coming to work with him. We’ve been working together for years now, and he was a big help when I made partner. He happily shares in managing our team and is very selfless (even though he has a huge book). I’ve now built m my own book and will still do whatever I can to help him because he would do the same for me. The importance of finding the right leaders to follow cannot be overstated. It can make a huge difference in your career.
100%. I just made a similar move, and I'm very excited about the potential even though there was a compromise. It's moving me under a different umbrella, and my professional growth potential is so much greater. Sometimes you've got to do the old pros and cons on paper and let that result guide you.
Yeah that’s a major red flag. My biggest low key red flag is “we work hard but we play hard” 🚩🚩🚩 It’s like the Gen X saying that “we have no boundaries and your WLB is gonna suck.”
And the weed was terrible!
I had an interviewer once tell me that 9 of the last 10 associates they hired quit because they couldn't hack it as lawyers. I looked a few up on LinkedIn. They were all working for other firms as attorneys. My office also would have overlooked a cemetery. There was a headstone about 6 feet away from my window.
I had a summer associate candidate tell me that they wanted to come to my firm to pay off their loans and then go do what they really wanted to do. I know, and I guess I appreciate the honesty, but the lack of judgment required to say that out loud. At least try to fake it a bit.
Hahaha many years ago, I had a summer candidate tell me the exact same thing during a phone screen! Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Now anytime a student or intern reaches out for advice, I tell them this anecdote as a what-not-to-do.
Interviewing for a privacy/AI attorney role. Everything was going great, everyone on panel told my referral they loved me….. and then the very senior partner didn’t like that I told him firms shouldn’t be feeding client data into AI. Interview went downhill from there. Ended up getting a job that paid 70k more the next week
Good for you. Right on! YOU WON!
I once interviewed at a boutique firm, and the founder made a point of telling me how gracious he was by letting one of the associates go to Disney World with his family. I realized then that his worldview was that he owned all the associates' time, and was generous in giving some of it back. My worldview is quite different, in that all my time is my own, and I will sell my employer some of it.
Soon after I interviewed, there was a mass exodus from this firm. Most of the associates left and started their own competing practice, which did not surprise me.
I think your instincts are dead on. People don't realize that not only is the employer interviewing you, you are in turn, interviewing THEM. Unless one is really desparate, most of us would def. red flag this and wonder about the daily work culture of this place. Actually sounds kind of entertaing, but to me, also very telling; this screams unprofessionalism, chaos, and an around feeling of Ick. If they hire you, tread cautiously, if not, you, my friend, dodged a big bullet.
I once had a guy say he didn’t expect me to meet his expectations. I don’t think he understood the meaning of the word.
I would take it as, they are not ready and are learning as they go along or they are not organized.
The day to day is going to be exactly like what you witnessed. Run!
Being asked why I wasn't married yet. Seriously.
This is a huge red flag for me. They have communication issues with eachother and will have those issues with you.
If you cant get clear standards from them because they don’t know how to effing communication then you will always be below the standard.
They probably treat their clients the same way and you will be dealing with that as well. Their hourly collection rate is probably garbage.
When the attorney I was interviewing with said to me "I don't know why they keep sending me you people" that was a huge red flag for the type of posse would be. He got exactly what he advertised for too. I almost collected all of my writing samples and walked out on him. But I didn't because I didn't want to burn bridges in the tight knit legal community. However, when his office did call an offer me the job, I was happy to turn him down. I was polite and didn't let them know why, but I'm not going to work for that.
A partner told me in an interview he likes associates to respond to his emails within 30 minutes because that’s what he considers a “good associate.” Like god forbid I respond within 24 hours….
Not responding to an email for 24 hours is insane
They’re not trying to impress anyone, they think they are giving you a gift.
I had a partner so some ambiguous question like “What’s the best skill/quality of a lawyer.” And then went on a 10 minute tirade about how millennials were entitled and wanted immediate gratification and didn’t want to work hard for anything.
I said something like “quickly synthesizing new information and adapting their views of issues” as I was doing a lot of contentious court appearances. The answer he wanted was “preparation,” which is true also to an extent, but not mutually exclusive. Anyway, I went on to do much better things than work there and for that guy.
yes, this. It's such a boomer business model, and it doesn't work anymore. I've had potential employers complain that they can't find good candidates, implying that I'm a good candidate, then refuse to budge on dumb stuff that's a deal-breaker for me and could easily be handled by support staff.
I had a virtual interview with a law firm in 2020 (I was looking for my first job). I joined the Zoom call when I was supposed to and it was a legal assistant telling me to hold on, she was trying to get a hold of the managing partner. He joined the call very late, clearly sitting outside his palatial home, reclining in a chair while he asked me questions for 10-15 minutes. He asked if I had any questions, and I asked about billable expectations. Then, he vented about how when anyone asks this question, he knows they don't want to work and they're going to put in the bare minimum. He never answered the question! I've always been on the lookout for any interviewer who won't be clear with you what their expectations for work and schedules are.
Not as big a red flag as those, but I asked about work and whether associates were meeting their hours, only to be told that the ones who aren’t meeting their hours aren’t doing so because they aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Not the worst thing to say, but something that could have more tactfully been delivered.
Massive red flag not just for the reasons you imply but because it shows they didn’t prepare or care and most likely didn’t take it seriously. I had a few interviews back in the day more like that, not quite as bad as yours, and each of those would have been horrible to work at.
Listen to those red flags, and walk away if possible. I had to take a job like last year when the economy was weird. Thank God rates dropped and normal companies are hiring again, because every fear occurred.
Red flags: new owner, inexperienced in industry, rapid growth, top heavy management, unclear task ownership, unnecessarily complex progress (micromanagement), bad combination of insecurity and authority from the owner, indecisive owner, major cultural differences. I quit last Thursday effective immediately and via text message.