I’m a 2L and this is my first UV article. I’ve been to the OCI circus and did not get a position. Please forgive any lack of verbal eloquence – I am in the middle of various assignments, but I thought that writing something would be better than not sharing some of my limited wisdom in the hope of assisting others. I’m a mature student and moved to Toronto from Brussels where I worked prior to my acceptance at law school. I finance my degree with a combination of student loans and financial aid.
I hope that I am not contributing to any sense of anxiety or hype that surrounds the 2L OCI recruitment process. My intention is to suggest that rejection can open the door to a re-evaluation of priorities and objectives. I also don’t want to diminish anyone’s sense of anger, disappointment or frustration. Sitting by the phone on “call day” after in-firms and not being called was frustrating; I would have preferred one of those politely phrased rejection emails over a silent phone. I went into the process with high hopes and prepared a lot for all of my interviews. The recruiters I talked to were all nice and genuinely interested, but I realize that being in a group of highly qualified candidates means that I won’t always make the cut. By the way, even recruiters know how insanely competitive the process is nowadays and many of them have opted to wait until after OCIs to post summer positions.
An unexpected silver lining emerged, which speaks to the nature of our school and program: Encouraging messages from friends, most of them from our law school community, who told me about their experiences and reminded me to put things in perspective. Prompted by their encouragement, I started to reconsider my goals. Ironically, with all the recruitment deadlines, I did not have much time to ponder career objectives in detail or how they would line up with potential placements.
Going forward, I want to explore what I am really interested in (I have a pretty good idea already, but figure the more specific and informed I can be, the better). In my view, this approach has three big advantages, being (1) I will be more convincing at future interviews when it comes to showing a genuine interest, (2) I will actually enjoy working in an area that I am interested in and (3) I will not lose sight of the interests that propelled me to go back to school in the first place.
I don’t want to suggest that reassessing your interests is the only solution, but I have found, numerous times during my academic and working life, that setbacks can be opportunities in disguise. For me, this means figuring out what I enjoy and trying to translate those interests into the law school setting. For instance, I enjoy writing and intend to do more of that as part of various academic and non-academic articles – at the risk of not being overly eloquent. Friends of mine told me that they turned to hobbies and activities to get a break from law school and spend time with a non-law circle of friends. The important thing for me was to detach from some of the hype surrounding recruitment and remember my objectives – instead of running after a ‘holy grail’ of employment that may not even suit my interests. Some may say that this is a luxury in times of job shortages for law students. I think that this makes it even more important to carve out genuine interests and consider a greater number of options. Discussing my ideas with fellow law students turned out to be another way for me to brainstorm and hear about their experiences. In sum: do what is good for you, explore your interests and try to see setbacks as opportunities in disguise.
PS: If there is interest, we might want to think about a support group for law students going through various recruitments, i.e. to exchange experiences. I found that talking to fellow students has been immensely valuable. If any of you want to get in touch with me, feel free to email me (email address is the standard first.last name). Many of you will know this, but I want to reiterate that there are many resources you can go to for more info, including Alexis Archbold and the CDO.
