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Lateral Ding

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:22 pm

About a week ago I had a 3rd (and final) round interview for a lateral position. I found out yesterday that the firm decided to pass on me because of my grades.

I'm curious why a firm would waste the time of its attorneys and the expense of flying me across the country for an interview and paying for my hotel as well, when the thing they dinged me on was something that they knew about before my first screener interview? FWIW, it seems like everything else in the process went very well, I have strong ties to the area, have been told by a bunch of different people that I interview very well, and the firm was honest with me that they passed because of the grades.

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unlicensedpotato

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Re: Lateral Ding

Post by unlicensedpotato » Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:49 pm

Assuming the firm is being honest, everything else went well but not well enough to overcome your grades. And/or, they had another candidate who they decided was better, either personality-wise, grades or a combination.

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Re: Lateral Ding

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Oct 19, 2018 5:04 pm

Similar thing happened to me. The firm dragged its feet for like 3 weeks, then finally told my recruiter that they were going to pass. My recruiter had reached out THREE times before they gave a response.

They said it was because of grades. I don’t really believe that’s the real reason, but, when you don’t have sterling grades, it’s an easy cop-out.

At least you found out within a week and weren’t dragged along for 3 weeks

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Wild Card

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Re: Lateral Ding

Post by Wild Card » Fri Oct 19, 2018 8:59 pm

Profoundly depressing that firms still care about grades at your juncture.

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Re: Lateral Ding

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Oct 20, 2018 6:06 am

Anonymous User wrote:About a week ago I had a 3rd (and final) round interview for a lateral position. I found out yesterday that the firm decided to pass on me because of my grades.

I'm curious why a firm would waste the time of its attorneys and the expense of flying me across the country for an interview and paying for my hotel as well, when the thing they dinged me on was something that they knew about before my first screener interview? FWIW, it seems like everything else in the process went very well, I have strong ties to the area, have been told by a bunch of different people that I interview very well, and the firm was honest with me that they passed because of the grades.
Speaking from my experience on my firm's hiring committee.

"Grades" is likely an incomplete answer on the firm's part (assuming they're telling the truth and not just using it as an excuse). unlicensedpotato is probably close to the truth: you were good, but not good enough to overcome your grades at the final stage. So it's not like grades doomed you from the beginning, but you might've needed an A+ interview performance and delivered something below that. Rather than say people disliked you or they didn't like your personality (or someone was just better), "grades" is the easy fallback answer.

Occasionally someone with no chance will slip through and get a hopeless interivew, but that's highly unlikely if you passed 2+ screeners and the firm had to commit to flying you out. Again, that's not always the case - nontraditional candidates in particular get a lot of "no hope" callbacks - but assuming you weren't one of those, they're probably just using grades as a cop out.

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Re: Lateral Ding

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Oct 20, 2018 7:09 pm

It means that you weren't a fit, they preferred to hire someone else, and you move on. As others have mentioned, the grades were just what they hung their hat on to justify the decision. I had experiences like yours when I lateraled. The key is not to fixate on the rejection and to power through additional interviews. I found lateraling to my desired market to be a stressful, grueling process, particularly when managing the demands of your current job, but you can't be overly critical of yourself if don't get an offer. Keep looking for additional opportunities; not sure if you're corporate, but there are tons of openings all over the country right now.

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