Interview questions that surprised you

[nana]

For those with experience interviewing for legal positions, are there any questions you remember that surprised you or that you hadn't prepared for?

I haven't had the opportunity to interview with many firms, and with Toronto interview week coming right up, it would be good to be prepared for oddball or difficult questions beyond the typical "Tell us about yourself", "Why do you want to work here", "Describe a challenge you had at work", etc. 

[anontofu]

what fruit would you be and why. lol

[Phaedrus]

This interview I had with a rural firm was a strange experience. Three-person panel, the eldest asked whether I had a romantic partner. I indicated no, not at that time. They asked what happened; I wanted to keep it light and semi-joked "well, you know how they say law school can make or break relationships..." which got a chuckle. Then they asked what my ex-partner was up to/doing these days.

Later in the interview, after talking about the law school's legal clinic, the eldest decided it was story time. They talked about how the clinic, in their days, used to be located near a "gay bar". Except, they didn't realize it was such until they went to it with their friends after drinking and found themselves particularly unsuccessful with the patrons. The two co-panelists were mortified and showed visible discomfort (the conversation topic was quickly changed after story time finished).

I politely declined their offer when they contacted me a few days later. 

[Gerwulf]

Not a question per se, but something weird that happened to me during an interview was NOT being asked questions:

After the introductory formalities, the main partner just kept asking if I had questions for them. I was quite surprised as I was expecting them to ask me questions – not the other way around. I did have some questions for the firm and asked them. However, once I was done, they basically just kept asking me if I had more questions. They would not ask me anything and just starred at me while I was wondering what to do or ask next. Needless to say it felt rather uncomfortable and awkward.

[erin otoole]

27 minutes ago, Gerwulf said:

Not a question per se, but something weird that happened to me during an interview was NOT being asked questions:

After the introductory formalities, the main partner just kept asking if I had questions for them. I was quite surprised as I was expecting them to ask me questions – not the other way around. I did have some questions for the firm and asked them. However, once I was done, they basically just kept asking me if I had more questions. They would not ask me anything and just starred at me while I was wondering what to do or ask next. Needless to say it felt rather uncomfortable and awkward.

Was this by chance a "smaller" oci firm in Toronto? I had the most disastrous OCI that was exactly like this. It was my first one in the morning, they didn't ask me a single question only answered the 3 canned ones I had prepared. Interview lasted 9 minutes... 

 

To half answer Nana the toughest question I got was "do you actually want to be a lawyer?" It's a fair question to ask a 1L student but man it put me on the spot. 

[Gerwulf]

3 hours ago, erin otoole said:

Was this by chance a "smaller" oci firm in Toronto? I had the most disastrous OCI that was exactly like this. It was my first one in the morning, they didn't ask me a single question only answered the 3 canned ones I had prepared. Interview lasted 9 minutes... 

No, my interview was with a firm on the west coast. It lasted about 30 minutes. They eventually asked one or two questions, but only after multiple long and very akward moments of silence. Your interview seems to have been even worse than mine. It must have been 9 very uncomfortable minutes!

[Twenty]

I made it pretty far in a 2L recruit and after several OCIs and in-firms, I sort of let my guard down because at a certain point people just ask the same things over and over. However, one in-firm in particular asked more "substantive" questions, which in retrospect would have been easy to prepare for, but did catch me off guard. Questions like: "why were you not working the summer before law school?", "aside from pay and prestige, how do you know you want to do Big Law?", "why did you stay as long as you did in your prior career?" and "describe how you solved an issue at the workplace". 

My most favorite "non-traditional" interview question though that I have been asked was "what do you think separates good lawyers from the best lawyers?" (this was at a different interview). 

[CleanHands]

This will be a controversial pick from me. Hopefully people understand that I don't take issues with the values underlying this but rather the context of it being an OCI question.

"Why is diversity important?" - Asked by the Vancouver office of the DOJ a few years back.

Okay, you don't want to hire racists in a public service role. That's all well and good. I agree with that. It's still an absurdly idiotic OCI question because:

1) It can be succinctly answered in a single sentence.

2) The Vancouver DOJ has strict rules to only ask three questions (the same three for all candidates) so this is a giant waste of a question.

3) Given points 1 and 2, there were something like 7 minutes allocated for each question, and that's a ridiculously long time to answer that question. Basically the only way to do so would be to yammer on and on with virtue signaling about how woke you are.

I refused to play that game and gave an honest and sincere answer (we live in a multicultural society and the public service should be reflective of the needs of the constituents it serves, etc) that was a few sentences long and involved me talking for only about 30 seconds (resulting in the interview as a whole being very short as well). I wasn't going to bend over backwards trying to convince them I'm not some bigoted hick and the more I talked the more cringeworthy the situation would be. Even by that time I had done a decent amount of volunteering in law school helping marginalized people but trying to bank on that felt gross so I didn't want to go there.

My natural reaction to the question was that I wanted to roll my eyes, and I did manage to stifle that but I'm sure my face, tone and body language betrayed the fact that the question irritated me. I received second round interviews for other DOJ offices, but not Van.

I was also annoyed because, the CSO being the typical CSO and caring solely about BigLaw and not caring about government, their guide was completely inaccurate about what the DOJ interview would entail, saying it would involve substantial questions and that I should be prepared to brief a case. There wasn't a single substantive question and I had wasted my time prepping.

[123]

3 hours ago, CleanHands said:

7 minutes allocated for each question

Considering brevity is a virtue in a busy criminal courtroom, it's particularly galling that their selection criteria favours windbags. 

Edited August 9, 2021 by realpseudonym

[Psychometronic]

23 minutes ago, realpseudonym said:

Considering brevity is a virtue in a busy criminal courtroom, it's particularly galling that their selection criteria favours windbags. 

They don't expect us to spend all the allotted time actually talking. I was told I'd be given more time than I need to answer questions. A friend of mine who landed with the DOJ in Vancouver used some of the time to plan his response before actually answering. I suspect the extra time is for accessibility reasons, but that's just a guess. 

[JustinCredible]

"Why is the manhole round?"

[BlockedQuebecois]

51 minutes ago, JustinCredible said:

"Why is the manhole round?"

That's actually a great question to test someone's reasoning skills. The obvious answer is that a round manhole can't accidentally fall into the hole, whereas every other reasonable shape could. There are a couple of less obvious explanations as well, though. 

I assume for that type of question they want to see how well you think on your feet, and that there's no "right" answer. 

[epeeist]

1 hour ago, JustinCredible said:

"Why is the manhole round?"

 

8 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

That's actually a great question to test someone's reasoning skills. The obvious answer is that a round manhole can't accidentally fall into the hole, whereas every other reasonable shape could. There are a couple of less obvious explanations as well, though. 

I assume for that type of question they want to see how well you think on your feet, and that there's no "right" answer. 

To channel South Park a bit...

Actually, there are square and rectangular manhole covers, and even triangular manhole covers also, thus making your question a charade.

Note: it should go without saying, but criticizing the questions you're asked is not usually the best approach, but it might be in some rare cases.

[JustinCredible]

47 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

That's actually a great question to test someone's reasoning skills. The obvious answer is that a round manhole can't accidentally fall into the hole, whereas every other reasonable shape could. There are a couple of less obvious explanations as well, though. 

I assume for that type of question they want to see how well you think on your feet, and that there's no "right" answer. 

thats what i said but thats not the reason lol. i googled after 

[canuckfanatic]

I was asked why my first year undergrad grades were so poor. Only one firm asked me that out of the dozens of firms I interviewed with.

I was honest about it, just said that I wasn't prepared for the transition to university after managing to coast through high school with a high GPA. I then pointed to how my grades trended upward and that I learned my lesson and made sure the same thing didn't happen with the transition to law school. They were happy with that answer, and said it was the type of answer they expected/wanted.

On a 2L Summer application, one of the questions asked what I would do if I won the lottery (and you weren't allowed to work at all). I think I said something about running a non-profit indie film production company for aspiring writers/directors.

[cherrytree]

Anything that requires explaining or giving anecdotes about failures can be hard to navigate. In particular, anyone still looking for jobs after formal recruits are done may be asked to talk about whether they participated in the formal recruit, why do you think things didn't work out if you did participate, etc. Have stories prepared and avoid rambling due to over-explaining.

[halamadrid]

On 8/8/2021 at 7:52 AM, anontofu said:

what fruit would you be and why. lol

So...what was your answer?

[Homosapiens]

This one felt offensive and inappropriate - background: visible minority. last round of interview (the 4th round). I thought it was a good firm. Last interviewer is the same ethnicity (so, also a visible minority).

He asked, "[our ethnicity] is known to be subservient. Can you tell me how you plan to overcome your subservience?"

[Pantalaimon]

YIKES.

[BlockedQuebecois]

2 hours ago, Homosapiens said:

This one felt offensive and inappropriate - background: visible minority. last round of interview (the 4th round). I thought it was a good firm. Last interviewer is the same ethnicity (so, also a visible minority).

He asked, "[our ethnicity] is known to be subservient. Can you tell me how you plan to overcome your subservience?"

U of T’s students have a not-so-secret list of misogynistic law firms that participate in OCIs. It’s basically a list of firms where interviewers have done or said shit that betrays their misogyny or where students working there have reported serious misogyny. 

All that is to say, I wish there was a place where students from all schools felt comfortable naming and shaming firms like this. Instead, which firms have shit cultures (racism, misogyny, or just plain toxicity) is information that’s only passed on to applicants based on connections. 

[Thrive92]

2 hours ago, Homosapiens said:

"[our ethnicity] is known to be subservient. Can you tell me how you plan to overcome your subservience?"

Please tell us the name of the firm so that any future applicants may avoid this experience. This is incredibly fucked up.

[Twenty]

On 8/9/2021 at 3:23 PM, cherrytree said:

Anything that requires explaining or giving anecdotes about failures can be hard to navigate. In particular, anyone still looking for jobs after formal recruits are done may be asked to talk about whether they participated in the formal recruit, why do you think things didn't work out if you did participate, etc. Have stories prepared and avoid rambling due to over-explaining.

As someone who unfortunately found out that they were their first choice firm's back up on Offer Day, this question would trigger me ngl. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Twenty

[Psychometronic]

On 8/10/2021 at 8:23 AM, Homosapiens said:

This one felt offensive and inappropriate - background: visible minority. last round of interview (the 4th round). I thought it was a good firm. Last interviewer is the same ethnicity (so, also a visible minority).

He asked, "[our ethnicity] is known to be subservient. Can you tell me how you plan to overcome your subservience?"

Our CSO encourages us to report inappropriate questions like this, although I’m not confident they actually do anything about it. 

Sorry to hear you had to go through this.

[abogada]

Weirdest interview at a big firm in Toronto, interviewer spent about 10 minutes bragging about a big merger he had done and listing all his accomplishments like he was really trying to impress me. 

Then he asked me "so what is your favourite book?"

I answered, with an explanation why I liked it, and he said "Oh I haven't read that one. Anyways, time is up."

Me: WTF just happened.....

Edit: I just remembered this firm also had a ton of free food and they were very pushy about getting the interviewees to take it, like I'm nervous, I don't want to eat your muffins right now. I think it was part of trying to impress students, like look at our fancy office, we have unlimited breakfast items. 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by abogada

[penguin]

On 8/10/2021 at 1:43 PM, BlockedQuebecois said:

U of T’s students have a not-so-secret list of misogynistic law firms that participate in OCIs. It’s basically a list of firms where interviewers have done or said shit that betrays their misogyny or where students working there have reported serious misogyny. 

All that is to say, I wish there was a place where students from all schools felt comfortable naming and shaming firms like this. Instead, which firms have shit cultures (racism, misogyny, or just plain toxicity) is information that’s only passed on to applicants based on connections. 

Where can I find this list? 👀