hitting the recruiting wall

My post about getting a job prompted some discussion in the comments that I wanted to promote to a separate post. Specifically, I want to talk about discrimination and how to deal with it.

OldWoman, a commenter to the last post, summed up her current situation:

I'm a mother of a [four-year-old], and I'm going through OCI right now. I'm in the top five percent of my class, and had an excellent internship with a judge this past summer. Oh, and I'm also 32. I've mentioned that I'm married in my interviews, but I usually don't mention the mom thing (although if anyone would ask about one of my achievements (family advocate for cleft lip and palate team), it would be pretty obvious). I've been on 18 interviews, and have received only ONE callback. I feel that I'm counted out before I even step in the room. In fact, in one interview, my graduation date from college (1996) was engulfed by a HUGE circle on my resume, although I wasn't asked about it.

Last year one of the best students on law review with did not get any callbacks from OCI. He had decent grades and a continuous work history, but he was a returning student in his early forties. I worked closely with him on one article, and he was diligent and yet also funny and sociable. In other words, somebody who should have had a callback. And yet, nothing. He got a good job, eventually, but not through the on-campus interviewing process. He never broke through the recruiting wall.

Why not?

I believe age discrimination exists. I believe there are employers who have a tacit policy of not hiring older students, even where the older students are proven workers with potentially useful business connections. Throw in perceived financial risks such as maternity leave, summer programs geared exclusively to 25-year-olds, and suddenly you have a firm that circles college graduation dates in the mid-nineties on a resume and doesn't hire law students over thirty.

I didn't encounter discrimination against older students or parents in my interviews, but I interviewed exclusively with intellectual property law practices. IP law is full of first-year associates in their thirties and forties because prior careers in science or engineering are valuable to clients of the firms and to the firms themselves. In fact, if there is age discrimination in IP law it probably runs the other way, against the younger students without IP-relevant work experience. I don't think parental status hurt me, either, but there are a lot of parents in IP practices because they tend to be older.

But I've wondered at times what my reception would have been if I'd been interviewing for a purely corporate law position. Would I have had the same positive reception? Would there have been subtle questions about any more kids, about childcare, about what my husband did? Would I have gradually become angry and bitter, have started questioning my skills and intellect? Or would it have been just the same?

And what would I have done? That's really the point of this post, to ask you for advice on the behalf of OldWoman, who asked for advice in her comment. How do you break past the recruiting wall? And, though OldWoman didn't ask, how do you deal with the personal fallout, the inevitable self-questioning that results from having doors slammed shut? Share your stories, readers, if you have them. What should OldWoman do? What can she do?

Comments

[A]

This is something I am struggling with at the moment -- I am recently graduated and have had a hell of a time trying to find a permanent position. Though I am married, I'm more of the "traditional" age for a law school graduate, and when I went through OCI two years ago I also had zero callbacks despite a good resume for my age, good grades, and numerous interviews for litigation positions. I was engaged at the time and I questioned whether I should even wear my ring at interviews -- I felt like if the interviewer noticed it, he/she would be questioning whether I could cut it. Would I be one of "those" women who cut out after a few years to have a child and never come back? I experimented by not wearing my ring, but it ended up not making a difference.

anyway, I am not sure what advice I have, as I don't seem to have solved my own problem yet. I know now that I don't want to work in a big law firm anyway, but that wasn't much comfort at this point during 2L.

[kristine]

While I am under 30 (though I won't be able to say that this time next year), I think I can speak to some of the concerns of the "older" student. Because my prior career didn't really have any relation to law, I felt I might be at a disadvantage both from my age and from my prior experience. So I prepared myself for the prospect of being grilled on how long I'd been out, why I entered law school, etc. I crafted an intelligent statement of my ambitions and goals--what it was I wanted to do with my life, and why law is better for that than what I was doing before--and I asked the sort of questions that made it clear I was interested in a career with a firm, not just a three-year stint on my way to motherhood.

At times I felt it was unfair that I even felt I had to do those things--after all, I have a proven track record as an employee who doesn't jump around from job to job, and I have the academic credentials that most of the interviewers were looking for. But life isn't fair, and I felt I needed to do what was necessary to get over that first hurdle--getting the callback--even if it meant exaggerating my true interests.

I think people will have different experiences in different markets--firms in big cities with big legal markets are going to be more open to a wider range of students because they have so many slots to fill, and firms in cities with law schools that have part-time programs are going to be more open because they will have experience hiring students who are older and returned to law school during a prior career. Your experience may also depend on how many students from your school a given firm takes--if they tend to take several students from your school, they may be more open to taking older students in that mix than if they historically only take one or two students from your school, because a firm might think you present a greater risk. A strategic ranking of firms based on these factors might result in a higher percentage of callbacks--or it might not. Of course, you hope that those firms are firms that also do work you are interested in.

Finally, I think that for a lot of people, the OCI process is just not the best way to sell yourself to employers who are actually going to value you and the talents you bring. As law students, we tend to measure our self-worth on how we do compared to everyone else--including trying to figure out who got callbacks or offers from what firms and where you stand in relation to them--when there might be better ways for you to find a satisfying job that don't involve the OCI process. It's probably more difficult to get a "biglaw" job that way, but it's not impossible.

[Tab Connoisseur]

I actually didn't see much of this going on when I was interviewing. Indeed, sitting on the other side of the table now as my (biglaw) firm interviews students, I've witnessed some excitement about non-traditional students...a sense that they have a better idea of what working is like, that they'll be bringing more to the table, etc. I was pleased to see that they're even considering students taking nontraditional paths through law school (part-time at night, etc.).

I don't know what the outlook is like for job seekers in their 40s+, but I didn't see the older top students at my school struggling. A mid-30s mother of two ended up with more offers than anybody, and that seems to be the case for a lot of them.

(I imagine a 25-year-old childless woman would be a bigger "risk" in terms of maternity leave/possibility of quitting than an older woman who already has children.)

None of which is to say that people's stories about their struggles don't have merit! I just hope that people don't give up on the job they really want because they think the firm won't be interested....

[bt]

I know this isn't the whole story but I'd like to offer the following as a partial explantion:

I have it on good authority from some of my friends who went straight through undergrad and law school that some, if not many, of the traditional BigLaw firms are looking for smart, young, energetic, non-questioning workhorses that they can work to death 'til they burn out. That's how the profit model survives in many of these firms. In these cases, it's work-life balance discrimination, likelihood of opting for physical health over the 14th billed hour of the day discrimination, etc. Age is often a proxy for wisdom, which would at least put in a good word for work-life balance and physical health. So, according to my friends some of the firms aren't practicing age discrimination so much as wisdom discrimination.

I know, it's a small consolation, but still, it's worth considering.

[bt]

explantion = explanation

[bt]

explantion = explanation

[LawMommy]

I just found this post through the Roundup. As my 'name' may indicate, I'm 31 years old with a child. Yeah, I feel a little discouraged after reading this -- not going the IP route.

[transmogriflaw]

Thanks, all, for your feedback (and I always love to hear more).

It's so hard, figuring out what you can change as an interviewee and what's entrenched in the firms. Some firms welcome older students with open arms (that was my experience). Other firms seem to hire all 25-year-olds.

[Legally Certifiable]

I am a 31 year old mother of three. Before law school I was a SAHM, so no work history. I definitely feel like I was discriminated against for having children. During 2L OCI, I was pretty upfront about having a family and not working for 6 years after college. I tried to play the "I'm done having babies and ready to focus on my career" card. I quickly learned that this was not working for me.

On the advice of several attorneys, I removed all indicators that I have a family from my resume. I do not include my graduation date from undergrad. (I am told by my classmates that I can pass as a younger law student.) My work history begins with my law school internships. There is no longer any mention of the volunteer work I did while I was a SAHM. I never wear a wedding ring anyway.

Does all of this do any good? I don't know. I certainly don't lie if someone asks directly about if I am married or have a family--I just don't volunteer more than I must. In my last interview it didn't come up at all, it was a nice change.

Also, I have finally come to terms with what I really knew all along. I don't want a big firm job. Sure, the money would be great, but I am not willing to work 70+ hour weeks. I want to see my kids grow up. I want to have a life. My focus now is on government work. The money sucks, but at least I would get to see my kids every once in a while.

Yeah, it sucks to be discriminated against, but I don't think I would really want to work for those who are discriminating anyway.

[anon]

I am not a regular reader of this blog, but a friend pointed me to this post because of the blatant age discrimination that I am currently facing. My profile is sufficiently unique that I'm not putting any name identifiers on this post (yes, I'm paranoid).

I currently work as a litigator at a top national firm; I turned 40 last fall, a few months into my first year there. I had a successful career before going to law school, and I have a credible narrative as to the transition. I attended a top 14 law school, had a prestigious fellowship there, and was on law review board (among other accolades). I did not get this job through OCI - indeed, I didn't work at a firm my 2L summer and didn't enter the law firm market until I was a 3L. I interviewed with one of this firm's offices through OCI and didn't get a callback; I got this job because after getting NOTHING through OCI, I papered firms in several jurisdictions. Most wrote back saying how wonderful my credentials were, but their first year classes were full.

At the time, I suspected that age discrimination was part of the problem, but the 3L job market is sufficiently dicey I couldn't be certain. Now, however, I am certain. Every single colleague at my firm and at similar firms gets constant cold calls from headhunters, from the moment their info goes up on the firm website. I have not gotten one single cold call. Not one. And when I sent my resume to reputable headhunters (because for personal reasons I am trying to move to another jurisdiction), only one contacted me. I have so far only gotten dings.

While I can certainly pass for younger than I am (people generally think I'm in my late 20s), because I did have a career before law school I can't exactly compress or erase my past costlessly, particularly since a google search on my name turns up a great deal of my past life.

I wish I had useful advice for OldWoman. I do think that you should not rely on OCI; firms pay a lot of lip service to diversity and non-trad hires, but non-trads really get slammed in OCI screening interviews. Get your friends already at firms to walk your resume in to the hiring partner.

Frankly, I think this is a huge problem and it needs to be exposed on a greater scale.

And yes, I would prefer to practice on a smaller scale, but small firms want people with more experience than I have, so those doors are shut to me too. And government/public interest jobs don't pay enough for someone to live on as their only income.

Anon on the East Coast.

[Marcin Tustin]

Certainly in England, one doesn't expect to find a place to train immediately, even coming from a legal background. Secondly, it takes time to learn how to present oneself for jobs in a particular career, how to please recruiters. So, while I have never had trouble convincing engineers to hire me, it has taken years to learn how to get lawyers to like me. Outside of IP, this is going to be a big factor for those who are retraining.