September 24, 2004

Interviews Redux

I wrote a post last year about doing on campus interviewing for a local law school and the hilarity that ensued. For non-lawyers, on campus interviewing (informally known as OCI) is a process where law firms send a couple of lawyers onto the school's campus to interview law students for summer clerkship positions at their firms. Some students actually do get summer jobs through this process (though when I was in law school I never did) and it is a nation-wide rite of passage.

This year, the school that enrolls the students I interviewed asked us to conduct on campus interviews off campus because their facilities are currently under construction. This was a wonderful turn of events for those of us doing the interviewing, who only had to run into another office to conduct an interview instead of across town, and could get some work done in between interviews.

I interviewed with a male partner who I didn't really know very well until yesterday. He's a great guy and we made a good interviewing team. We interviewed five people throughout the day, and the sixth candidate was our last, arriving at 4:00 p.m.

I read the candidate's resume and it was excellent. She is in the top 5% of her class, has travelled the world and done some really interesting stuff. When she entered the office where we were holding the interviews, I nearly fell out of my chair.

She was wearing a seersucker suit which had white and green pin stripes. The suit didn't fit very well, but for that, she can be forgiven. Underneath the suit (which was too casual for a job interview) she wore a pink negligee. No, I'm not joking. No blouse, just a negligee. It was pink silk with lace across the top and spaghetti straps. It perfectly matched her lipstick. She wore no pantyhose and shoes that matched neither the ill-fitting suit nor the negligee.

It should be clear by now that I work for a defense firm. Defense firms generally are known for being conservative. If I were going to interview at one (and indeed, I've interviewed at many), I would err on the side of being too conservative. Not this woman. The guy who interviewed with me kept looking at me, looking at the floor and looking at the ceiling -- anywhere but at her. Note: if the interviewer can't even look at you during the interview, it isn't going well.

I am absolutely floored that anyone would consider wearing their underwear in plain view during a job interview of any sort, much less one to practice law at a large defense firm. After she left, the other interviewer and I were talking and I said, "Was it my imagination, or was she wearing a negligee and no stockings?" and he said, "I didn't notice the lack of stockings. I was trying too hard not to look at her negligee."

Posted by Kitty at September 24, 2004 09:58 AM

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