After the Interview: The Importance of Following Up

By: Kandice Thorn

Many students are starting to have interviews for spring externships, and I have found that while students are typically able to prepare well for the interview, they are often caught off guard by what happens next.  But following up is crucial following an interview.  It lets the employer know you are very interested in the position and shows that you are engaged and proactive, while also putting you at the front of their minds again.

Preparing for an Interview? Practice Your Elevator Pitch!

By: Kandice Thorn

At the end of this month, dozens of Fordham LL.M. students will participate in the International Student Interview Program (ISIP), an annual job fair that brings together LL.M. students and employers from around the world.  For students who will be participating in interviews, a little bit of advance preparation will be crucial.  In this article, I will focus on what I consider to be the hardest interview question: "Tell me about yourself."

This question is the cue to launch into your "elevator pitch."

Making a Positive First Impression

By: Kandice Thorn

A few weeks ago, I wrote that your resume must make a positive impression on a viewer in about six seconds.  Similarly, when you meet someone in person you have a very short time in which to make a positive first impression.

A first impression is developed very quickly and takes an excruciatingly long time to change once it is formed.  Unfortunately, when you are networking or looking for a job, you don't have the luxury of taking the time to correct a negative impression - your first impression has to count.  The good news is that a positive first impression can stick just as well as a negative one.

Here are a few tips for making a positive first impression:

What to Wear to an Interview?

By: Kandice Thorn

I could do an entire month's worth of blog posts about interview attire, but why do that when others have already done it so well?  This week, I'm going to highlight a couple of posts by others who have done a great job explaining proper interview attire.

Preparation is Key for Interviewing (So Start Now!)

By: Kandice Thorn

Imagine the following scenario: You are sitting at home one day studying, when your phone rings. You don't recognize the number, but you pick it up and on the other end is a recruiter from a law firm to whom you had sent your resume. "We liked your resume and we would like to bring you in for an interview. How about Thursday?" the voice on the other end asks. "Of course, Thursday is great!" you reply enthusiastically. You work out the details and you hang up. At first you are elated, but after a moment the panic sets in. You realize you only have two days to prepare for the interview and you have no clue what you're doing.

Over the next two days, you scramble to pull together the right outfit, figure out how to respond to common interview questions, research the firm, etc. You go into the interview a bit frazzled, and the interview goes okay, but you know you could have done much better if you had more time to prepare. Still, they only gave you two days notice for the interview - there's nothing you could have done, right? Wrong! Below are a few concrete steps you can take now so you will be prepared when you get that call.

Practical Tips for a Successful Skype Interview

By: Kandice Thorn

"Can you hear me now?"

When I was a kid, my dad had a car phone. Not a cell phone, a car phone with the handset attached to the fixed base with a long spiral cord. To eight-year-old me, it was incredible. This was before even cordless phones had become commonplace, and now I could call my best friend from my dad's truck. The only catch was that it frequently took 3-4 tries for the call to be connected, and once connected, I couldn't actually hear the person on the other end (or they could not hear me). Never mind that - to me it was the coolest thing ever.

Fast forward a few decades. The iPhone is a vast improvement over my dad's old car phone, and the latest technology today is video calling with programs like Facetime and Skype. Yet frequently when I use these programs I feel like I am back in my dad's truck in 1987. The call quality can be atrocious, calls are often dropped, and I sometimes find myself shouting "Can you hear me?" at my computer monitor.

Nevertheless, employers have embraced this new technology as a way of screening potential candidates without paying for costly plane tickets. This means that job seekers, particularly those who are looking for jobs remotely, must embrace this technology in the job-search realm too. The following tips will help make your Skype interviews as successful and glitch-free as possible and will make your interview feel less like 1987 and more like 2025.

One Question You Should Always Ask in a Job Interview

By: Kandice Thorn

Students frequently ask me when is the appropriate time to follow up after a job interview.  This is a very good question - follow up is important.  It is always good to put yourself back in their minds and reiterate your interest in the position.  But you need not wonder when to do this - you just need to ask the right question in the interview!

Facebook Follies

By: Kandice Thorn

As Google searches become a routine aspect of the interview process, it has become crucial for job seekers to know and control what information employers will be able to access about you.  In particular, Facebook profiles seem to land a lot of candidates in hot water - virtually everyone has a Facebook account, and Facebook's ever-shifting privacy policies make your "private" information difficult to control.  In this post, I will discuss some common "Facebook Follies," and then I will discuss how you can avoid them.

Should I Accept a Position as a Paralegal?

By: Kandice Thorn

"Should I accept a position as a paralegal?"

This is a question I get a lot from students and alumni looking to get a foothold in the challenging U.S. legal job market.  Job seekers realize very quickly how competitive attorney positions are, and those who are especially intent on staying in the U.S. begin to look for ways to broaden their job search.  In this context, the question of paralegal positions often comes up.

Informational Interviews, Part IV: How to Botch an Informational Interview (Don't Let This Happen to You)

By: Kandice Thorn

Rounding out our four-part post on informational interviewing, I thought it would be appropriate to address some of the common mistakes that people make in informational interviewing, so that you can avoid making them yourself.

Below, I give you the top seven ways to botch an informational interview.

Informational Interviews, Part III: How to Conduct an Informational Interview

By: Kandice Thorn

The past few weeks, we have been discussing informational interviewing.  As mentioned in these posts (see Part I and Part II), informational interviews are an incredibly useful and efficient networking tool.  In the previous weeks, we discussed myths associated with informational interviewing and how to set up an informational interview.  This week, we will discuss how to conduct the actual interview.

Informational Interviews, Part I: Myth Busting

By: Kandice Thorn

Networking is arguably the most important thing you can do in your job search, and informational interviewing is an often overlooked, but extremely useful networking tool.

What is an informational interview?  An informational interview is an interview set up for the purpose of information gathering.  You are the interviewer, and the objective is to learn from your interviewee about the job market or about practice in a particular area of law, industry, or practice setting.

The one-on-one nature of informational interviewing has several advantages over forms of networking that involve large groups of people:

• the absence of  distractions provides an ideal setting in which to make a meaningful connection with someone;
• you have the time and opportunity to make a positive impression on the person with whom you are interviewing; and 
• you can learn quite a bit about the field/job market you are seeking to enter.

In short, informational interviewing gives you a lot of networking bang for your buck.  This blog post will respond to some myths about informational interviewing.  Next week, I will discuss how to go about setting up an informational interview and the following week I will discuss how to conduct the interview itself.

What's Your Story? Mastering the "Elevator Pitch"

By: Kandice Thorn

"What do you do?"
"Tell me about yourself."
"What brings you to this [conference]?"
"Why are you interested in [international law]?"

All of the above questions, which may be asked in various settings, including interviews, networking events, or even more casual settings such as social gatherings, are a prompt for you to pull out your "elevator pitch."

Advice for Career Changers

By: Kandice Thorn

Most LL.M. students come to the program as the logical continuation of a career path that has been already well defined. However, we also have a number of students who pursue the LL.M. degree as a way to move their career in a new direction. For these students, the question of how to market themselves to employers can be tricky.

What to Bring (and NOT to Bring) to a Job Interview: A Checklist

By: Kandice Thorn

Keep this checklist handy and refer to it whenever you have a job interview.