 Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP Interview Surveys
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Title of position interviewed for: Legal Word Processor
Approximate date of interview: 3/2003
Location: 825 8th Ave., New York, NY
Submitted on: 24-Mar-04
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Interview
Survey |
| Legal Word Processor |
The hiring process was not an exceptional one. None of the interviewers
were very skilled at this. First, I was prescreened by an agency before
going there. The hiring company, as other large law firms commonly do,
contacted an agency to send qualified candidates to them. The agency
pre-screens potential interviewees by interviewing them first, check
that their resumes boast true skills, do actual skills tests, and check
anything else the hiring company would like. For instance, I took a
timed typing, word processing and basic math and spelling tests as well
as being interviewed twice at this agency according to the
specifications of the hiring company, before being interviewed at their
actual office location. Going to an agency of this kind could save the
hiring company a lot of time. It ensures the candidates are qualified
before they walk through the door. Perhaps they also sorted through
resumes in their mail and called interviewees themselves, but I was
thoroughly pre-screened by an agency first. Nevertheless, when I went
to my first interview at the hiring company, it was as if I was
wandered in off the street. The hiring company spent money on an agency
to save time, but the interviewer asked me all of the information the
agency gave them already. I realize they want to double-check a few
things and discuss things just to get to know me themselves, but I
don??t know why they bothered pre-screening me. It was as if she didn??t
even read or listen to the information the agency gave them. Someone
at Human Resources first interviewed me. While she was friendly enough
at first, she did not have a grasp of how to schedule and coordinate
appointments. She would schedule interviews at varied odd times, such
as Saturday evening, and then reschedule them because she forgot about
a conflict that came up. My first interview was scheduled on Friday to
take place Monday so they could ensure I did not currently have a job,
since they wanted someone available to start right away. Their
insistence that their new employee would have to be available to start
immediately absolutely confuses me, since the interviewing process took
an entire month. The HR interviewer just seemed to want to get the
interview over with. They were hiring several people for this position
at the same time, so she must have been very busy, but it came off as
rude. She treated it as a preliminary interview and seemed to view it
as a waste of her time. When she asked me if I had any questions, she
looked annoyed at me for having a lot. It was because she wasn??t
equipped to answer. She didn??t know a thing about the work I would be
doing or even the people I would be working for. Next, two supervisors
interviewed me at the same time. Although extremely lengthy, at least
one of them knew how to interview seriously. The other one just treated
everything as a joke and kept making light of every question the other
one asked and kept giggling. I was shown around the office and the
exact room I would be working in. The serious supervisor looked as if
she was afraid during the whole interview, especially when she showed
me around. The employees there at the time did not look very happy at
all. Maybe she was afraid they would tell me to run while I still
could. I was pleased with how well this supervisor was able to answer
my questions about the company, the workload and what would be expected
of me if I were hired there. One glaringly terrible thing that kept
recurring during the interview was mentioning the stressful attorneys
there who are off the wall. When asked how I would handle being yelled
at by someone overstressed, I thought it was a hypothetical question.
It became clear that this happens every day and it was their roundabout
way of letting me know that the attorneys are verbally abusive. It was
as if they were begging me to walk out the door! I needed a job
desperately, so I couldn??t, but these two made me want to make an
escape. Two points they kept stressing were how the stressful attorneys
were always bouncing off the walls and the need to show up. They even
offered a monetary incentive to show up to work every day, since it was
so common for employees to not show up and/or call in sick the same
day. You received a bonus for every month you showed up to work every
day as expected! I consider that part of a company??s normal
expectation. I started thinking, how bad is this place? I was starting
to get scared and wonder if it would be better to stay unemployed. When
the interview with them was over, I thought I made a good impression on
them and although it wasn??t a sure thing, I thought they were pleased
with me. It??s too bad they got confused about who was who and couldn??t
keep proper track of everyone they had interviewed and kept getting us
confused after that. I was contacted to come in for another interview
with some bigwig who, like HR, did not know a thing about the position.
On my way out of the elevator one of the supervisors who interviewed me
saw me and laughed as she walked by. I don??t know what that was about.
It was the giggler. As for the bigwig who interviewed me that day, it
was not much of an interview. I suppose she just wants to give everyone
the once-over before they are hired, and she was very busy. This lasted
about 15 minutes and was probably just a formality. She didn??t look
very happy to be working there, either.
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