Google Search of the Day - 7/24/08

After several days without one of these posts, I ran across a brand new search string that has led to hits on our blog several times lately. This one was not in the list the last time I checked a few days ago, so it has resulted in 11 hits in a relatively short period of time.

Google search of the day:

"i seriously got a biglaw job offer because of my breast implants"

I could not make this shit up. Congratulations. You are a whore in every sense of the word. You are the reason men are convinced that attractive women take a significant portion of biglaw jobs simply because they are attractive females. You are the reason hot girls in the bottom 5% of the class are still seen interviewing for the most lucrative associate positions and prestigious clerkships with horny old judges. You use your newly perky and unnaturally large double-Ds on your 110-pound frame to game your way into the legal market like other people use a resume and cover letter. You don't see anything wrong with using the body god (and your plastic surgeon) gave you to your professional advantage. Soon, you will sleep your way to partner at your new firm in record time. I hope you enjoy throwing your ankles into the air while old guys put it in you and motorboat those implants. At least have the decency to get on top. That's the whole point of breast implants anyway, right?

All of that is not to say that I find women with breast implants attractive. On the contrary, I prefer the boobies on my women to be natural rather than fake, rigid, and pointed.

Google Search of the Day - 7/11/08

Today's search string is near and dear to my heart.

Google search of the day:
"what does top third meanin law school"

The quote is verbatim, including the lack of a space between "mean" and "in." Being in the top third probably means that you are more intelligent than most of the people ahead of you, but you are likely unmarried, not to mention lazier than the students in the top 10%. Top third in law school means you have a reasonable shot at making it onto your school's law review if grades are a factor, but you'll have to bust your ass on your student comment and Bluebook exam. It also means that you'll be infuriatingly close to the top 25%, which is the point at which some firms roundfile resumes. Being in the top third also means that you'll struggle in OCI because the big firms won't hire you, but smaller firms won't interview you either because they think the big firms WILL hire you.

Students on Tour

I am sitting outside the CSO office. A prospective student and her mother just passed me on tour. The law school's better son just passed me and was glowing about the effectiveness of the CSO office to the student.

I love my law school and I would sell it to anybody looking but to compliment the CSO office borders on the fraudulent. It's a good thing she won't learn the elements of fraud as a defense to contract formation until her second semester when the CSO office has already failed her.

Another Great Moment in CSO History: Oblivion

I received a follow up e-mail from CSO the other day urging me to come in and speak with them. It amazes me and how disconnected they are from the job search process. Here is the mindset of CSO: you have one job offer for the summer, you have no reason to complain because you are ahead of 90% of the rest of the class.

This troubles me that a Tier 1 school CSO has this mindset. It troubles me that we boast a high 90% job placement, but yet 90% of our class doesn't have an offer. I'm even more discouraged because the one offer I have may not necessarily be the job offer I want. Yet, since I have one offer, I should not look for other employment that I may actually prefer over the offer I have. The irony is not lost on me that the counselors in CSO left practice because they were not happy with their jobs as attorneys (or so the stereotype goes), yet the seem to place no value on potential job satisfaction.

They try so hard to make lemonade out of lemons that it is absurd.

CSO kind of reminds me of our old friend, Baghdad Bob

Yeah, I got it the first time.

Dear Law Firm Recruiting Co-ordinator,

I would like to thank you for your letter of October 12, 2007 congratulating me on my academic success and expressing your firm's poor fortune by not being able to offer me a position with your firm. I would like to thank you, as well, for your letter of November 9, 2007, again, wishing me success in my future endeavors and expressing your deep sorrow and the massive amounts of well qualified applicants like me to which you are unable to offer positions. If I did not get the point the first two times, I would like to thank you for your third letter of December 3, 2008, again, refusing to employ me this summer. I know that well qualified candidates like myself can be very persistent and likely have a sense of self-entitlement when it comes to submitting resumes to third-tier insurance defense firms, but your policy of taking "baby steps" and breaking the news to applicants with outstanding credentials gently and over a long period of time seems to be very effective in getting your point across. Programs which involve multiple steps (See generallyAlcoholics Anonymous) tend to have a life changing effect, and I am very proud that your recruitment has three stages of rejection: Step 1. Flat Out Rejection; Step 2. Again, Flat Out Rejection; Step. 3, Again, Flat Out Rejection Again. Over the past 6 years of my higher education, many inspiring professors have preached the magnitude of the written word and its power to evoke a response from mankind. I never would have imagined that 2 pages of a cover letter and resume on 24 lb. ivory bond paper created in a mail merge to 321 other law firms would inspire you to send me three different letters on three different dates. It really touches me to know that my single letter inspired you so. I thank you for that feeling, it is something that I could never attain from any other summer clerkship program.

As well, next time you have your secret backroom meeting with other law firm recruiters, I would very much appreciate it if you could discuss the importance of exercising discretion in your letters. While many students spend hours trying to figure out who was hired in their place, it tends to take away from in-class web surfing when you tell us which students you hired in your rejection letter. While you may take pride in telling students that you passed over hiring a student from a top-tier school to hire a student from a JuCo law school, we too take pride in knowing that we have been rejected from better firms.

Do Your Friends Speak Hindi?

If anyone reading this blog has an Indian friend, for the love of god...you MUST watch this video:

Bad Indian Music Video With Humorous (Even Worse)
English Subtitles

Dear...god. I can't stop watching it, and I don't know why.

Sanjay, I'm probably going to call you Benny Lava for the duration of holiday break. I'm sorry, but I'm sure you understand.

How Bad Is It...

...when you interview with a firm and receive a rejection letter three business days later? Actually, that isn't so uncommon, especially at firms with quick turnaround times.

How about this...how bad is it when you know that same firm was still interviewing people at the time you received the rejection letter? Not only that, this is the one private firm in which you were genuinely interested through two cycles of OCI and dozens of mail merged resume/cover letter combos. It's essentially like they said "we so desperately do not want to work with you that we're willing to take the chance that the ten remaining candidates we haven't met yet are just as terrible as you."

I'll analogize it to dating, which is the only convincing analogy I've heard for the job search process. It's a lot like meeting a beautiful girl at a bar (I'm a guy here, not going to use the gender-neutral terminology), getting her phone number , and going on a date with her. You hit it off, have everything in common (including some rather unusual interests and qualities), and you end the night by taking her to your place to engage in some extracurricular activities. When you get to the door, she suddenly kicks you in the shin, throws a left hook into your ribs, knees you in the face, and runs away down the street. Two weeks later, you see her out at the bar with a short, fat guy who works as a janitor at the local Denny's.

It just can't be easy, can it?

Another CSO E-mail Full of Failure

Taken directly from a CSO e-mail subject line:

FREE Opportunity to Expose Yourself to Employers

I sincerely do not want to expose myself to employers (or most other people). That's usually considered indecent exposure and might get me arrested. Phaedrus might have gotten one of these opportunities when he went out to the bars with a young female associate from a New Orleans firm.

Other Admissions of OCI Failure

Our career services office is admitting defeat again. They just sent out an email:

"What else can I do with my law degree?"

At least it isn't another career fair they want me to go to so I can learn all about the exciting career opportunities at Waffle House.

I finally got a callback in the city I now call home. It is in a smaller firm but I like them. Maybe it will work out!

Oh, the Irony

So I've been compiling a list of firms to which I will be sending resumes very shortly. Very few firm web sites contain any information about recruitment or employment, so I was elated to finally run across one that had a whole section entitled "Employment Opportunities." Here is an actual screenshot of what I found:


The page is fully loaded. It pretty much sums up the job search so far.

Today's Self-Esteem Builder

I got a rejection letter today from a firm to which I did not apply. I even double checked to make sure I didn't drop a resume for their OCI visit. What's worse, I didn't even drop for or apply to a firm in this firm's ENTIRE CITY.

Today's absurd conspiracy theory: CSO has software that generates rejection letters on letterhead from imaginary law firms. They also monitor students' job search from black helicopters such as this one:

False Alarm

My phone started ringing in Professor Hairclub's class. It was an unknown number with an area code from the city I really want to work in. Thanks to the helpful tips I recieved from my career services newsletter, I knew exactly what to do. I let it ring. After class I went to a quiet spot to return the call so as to avoid being near friends shouting profanities. I took a breath, hit redial...

And it was a wrong number. I still don't believe these callbacks exist.

On the bright side I had an interview with a group from the Big Easy. I could work there. If not, I'll have another letter in my mailbox telling me how proud I should be of my academic progress.

Great Moments in Career Services and OCI History

1. In the midst of spring interviews, CSO sends an e-mail to 1L's offering "opportunities" to work for free to those who have a "sense of outrage at injustice." See this post for details.

2. Phaedrus interviews with a firm from the same city that is overflowing with cheesy tourist attractions, mascots with huge foam heads, screaming children, and Imagineers. The interviewer tells Phaedrus that one of the best things about the firm is how open-minded they are. Phaedrus seizes this opportunity to score brownie (kissass) points by talking about how social justice begins with the legal profession. Phaedrus also mentions that he disagrees with his private Baptist undergrad school's reluctance to add sexual orientation to their anti-discrimination policy. The interviewer spends the next 20 minutes describing his experiences with coming out of the closet. Phaedrus furiously backpedals by mentioning his GIRLfriend (emphasis added by Phaedrus). The interviewer touches Phaedrus on the arm and says, "Oh honey, I was married for 20 years."

3. Big Corporate Firm schedules 10 minute interviews all day. The interviewer proceeds to tell all candidates that the firm "likes to interview as many people as possible," and that they're only hiring for two clerk positions. Big Corporate Firm is also interviewing students from at least two other schools that we know of. The firm sends an e-mail rejection letter to at least one candidate.

4. Big Firm #2 schedules on-campus interviews with approximately 20 students. One day before the interview date, Big Firm #2 sends the following e-mail to the Career Services Office (CSO): "We have filled our positions for next summer and will not be conducting on-campus interviews." Guy Fawkes registers the firm's address on the NAMBLA newsletter mailing list.

5. Guy Fawkes arrives for back to back interviews with Firm 1 and Firm 2 a few minutes early. An interviewer approaches Guy Fawkes and says, "We're running a little early, would you mind coming on back?" Guy Fawkes accepts because he is actually early for the interview, so it is reasonable to assume that the interviewer is from the correct firm. Immediately after finishing the interview, Guy Fawkes learns that someone didn't show for an interview with Firm 2, which is why they were running early. Guy Fawkes is mortified because he almost dropped the firm's name during the interview. Only the grace of some higher power (or for you nihilists, pure dumb luck) prevents disaster. The people with whom Guy Fawkes should have been interviewing have a good laugh at Guy's expense and get the impression that he is clueless.

6. Describing the events in #5 drives me to learn how to refer to myself in the third person so I can sound more like a tool.

7. Big Firm #1 (see supra, item 3) distributes a form letter at the end of each interview. The letter says "please do not send a thank-you note." Most candidates have trouble containing their laughter.

8. An interviewer from a small firm in a smaller city market interviews roughly 15 people without asking a single question. He spends the entirety of each 20 minute interview droning on about how wonderful it is to work for a firm without any established clients because "you never know what kind of work you'll be doing when you get to the office." Guy Fawkes understands his perspective, but thinks that isn't the best way to sell one's firm to candidates.

9. CSO e-mails for almost every job fair contain the following as the first several lines (scaled down so it doesn't dominate the post): *ATTENTION* LEGAL CAREER FAIR *ATTENTION* The substantive information in each e-mail takes up less space than the attention line.

10. A CSO employee with "Assistant Dean" in his/her job title is photographed at various bars around town while hammered and hitting on undergrads. The pictures make it to Facebook shortly thereafter.

11. Much-beloved CSO employee inexplicably quits the job. It is rumored that she found a large amount of porn on another employee's computer, prompting her abrupt departure (see supra, item 10). This rumor is unconfirmed by the blog contributors, but somehow, it's not surprising.