Looking Back on the 2L Recruit Process
The 2L recruit process is filled with gossip, stress, anxiety, and a sprinkle of fun — just like high school. What follows is my reflection on, and what I wish I knew about the 2L recruit process.
Note: My experience is limited to only the Toronto 2L OCI process, and only as a Western Law student. Each student’s experience going through the recruit is unique, so take the following with the necessary grain(s) of salt as you deem fit.
Feeling the FOMO: Should I even do the 2L recruit?
I believe that this is an often overlooked issue. Due to the close social environment of law school, there is a lot of pressure to go along with what all your peers are doing and participate in the formal recruiting process. Despite being highly logical thinkers, law students are still susceptible to what economists term irrational decision-making, or what I prefer to call FOMO (fear of missing out).
The fact is that only a minority of 2L students get a job out of the formal recruit process. Note that the FOMO issue extends beyond the 2L recruit, to life-changing decisions such as: What city/province do I want to work in? What area of law do I want to practise? Do I even want to be a lawyer?
If you do not plan on practising as a lawyer, think twice about participating in the traditional OCI recruit. The vast majority of positions offered through the formal OCI process are for traditional legal positions, be it at a law firm, in-house or with the government. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it exceedingly clear that life is short, so treasure the opportunity you have to pursue what you truly want.
Be honest with yourself, your goals, and your ambitions, and make your career decisions accordingly.
Doing your homework: Networking and Applications
If you decide to participate in the 2L recruit, welcome to the first stage of the process, networking and applications.
A month or two before applications were due, I reached out via email to students and junior lawyers at firms I was interested in. We scheduled phone calls where I would ask questions about their day-to-day work, what they found most interesting about it, and what they liked about their firm. These coffee chats were a window into a day in their life — I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about the work, and whether I saw myself enjoying that type of work.
I would incorporate these coffee chats into my cover letters. Name-dropping students or associates you have talked to are always a plus — it shows interest in the organization, whether it is a law firm, in-house or government. Always tailor your cover letter to the organization you are applying for, and be sure to do multiple rounds of edits. Suffice to say, a cover letter with any sort of grammatical or spelling error reflects poorly on a person’s candidacy.
Best Foot Forward: OCIs
If all goes well, you get offered on-campus interviews (OCIs), at least for the formal Toronto 2L recruit. For the uninitiated, OCI day is the day employers participating in the formal 2L recruit come down to the city your law school is located in. A conference hall is booked, and each employer will have a designated booth, with curtains for privacy during the interview. Your OCI timeslot and the booth number will be on your schedule, and you will rotate between the different booths with each interview.
Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic changes things for the 2020/2021 recruit. Each interview lasts about 20 minutes. Essentially, you have 20 minutes with each employer to make a good enough impression to be invited for an in-firm interview. The few weeks you have before OCI day is when you should start practising interview skills.
Go through each bullet point on your resume and formulate a quick summary of the experience, including what you took away from it. Set up timeslots with your law school’s career office or helpful 3L students to go through mock interviews. Incorporate the feedback from these mock interviews into your answers. Set up another time for a mock interview, so you get to test your newly refined answer.
Practice makes perfect, and practice is required to interview well on OCI day. I recall getting into the Uber with my roommate at 7:30 am on OCI day. I turned to him and asked, “Hang on! What are your top 3 strengths and weaknesses?” We spent that Uber ride frantically googling for a good answer to that question, a state of mind you should avoid on OCI day.
If you’re well prepared enough, all you need to do on OCI day is relax and put your best foot forward.
Wine & Dine: In-firm Interviews
Before getting to the in-firm stage, there’s call day. Call day is when firms you OCI-ed with call to set up an in-firm interview. Some firms will let you know via email if they are calling you on Call day; others don’t. Call day is pretty straightforward — I got up at 7:50 am and sat by my phone waiting for 8 am to roll around. I had a piece of paper in front of me to pencil in interview timeslots. I was surprised that Call Day was over within 10–15 minutes.
The in-firm week is where the real fun begins. I mean this genuinely, getting to visit law firms and offices and meeting lawyers is a fun experience. Seeing your law school friends around the downtown core made the whole experience even more fun. The in-firm week lasted three days, from Monday to Wednesday. I found myself scrambling around downtown Toronto from street to street over the first two days, quickly reviewing notes on the firm before walking in for the interview. The third day, at least in my experience, was much more relaxed than the first two days’ hectic pace.
Each firm’s interview style differs, and government offices have a more rigid interview style with standardized, substantive interview questions. The large full-service firms usually have an articling student or first-year associate act as a host for each interviewee. I recommend doing some research and asking 3L students who have summered at the firm/office what the interview style was like when they were going through the recruit.
Depending on the firm, you may be invited to breakfast, lunch, dinner, or boozy receptions. Being a good conversationalist helps with these events. I remember being advised by a 3L back then to enjoy the in-firm week; it’s not often that you get wined and dined at fancy restaurants.
The one piece of advice I can give for the in-firm week, at any firm or non-firm office, is to be your best professional self and keep your energy levels high — I found caffeine to be really useful for this. Again, things will be very different this year, given the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hold your breath: Offer Day
Offers came on Day 3 of Interview week. By Wednesday at 5 pm, we were all sitting by our phones, waiting on a call. Needless to say, this was the nail-biting finale to a long and strenuous process. Some of my friends knew which firm(s) would call beforehand, just from the interest that the firm showed them on Days 1 and 2. Some of my friends had no idea which firms or offices were going to call.
If you received a job offer through the recruit, congrats! If you did not, I believe it’s best viewed as a constructive learning experience. Gather some feedback and improve on interviewing skills for the future. Keep in mind that only a minority of law students get a job through the 2L recruit. The recruit is not a reflection of your value as a law student. The recruit is merely a means to apply for a job, just like how any other post-secondary student in any other program would apply for jobs in their field of choice. The only difference is that most other students in other programs don’t get a structured recruit process, while law students choose to participate in one.
My final piece of advice is that if you do get an offer, please do not be tone-deaf. The weeks following in-firm week carried a sense of tension in the air within the law school. Please do not celebrate on social media or brag about getting a job offer from the recruit; it would only tarnish your reputation amongst your law school peers.
Looking Back
All in all, the 2L recruit is a half-year rollercoaster ride filled with ups and downs along the way. If you choose to get on the rollercoaster, try to enjoy the ride while remembering the qualities of civility and courtesy towards your peers.
