Interview Horror Stories: What Was She Thinking -- Er, Drinking?

Protip for OCI: know the name of the law firm you're interviewing with.

onAugust 27, 2015 at 12:21 PMSeptember 2, 2015 at 3:32 PM

Johnnie Walker - Blue Label (by Mattes via Wikimedia Commons)

Johnnie Walker (by Mattes via Wikimedia Commons)

In a recent story marking the start of what used to be called “fall” recruiting, titled 7 Epic Examples Of On-Campus-Interviewing Fails, we invited our readers to share their entertaining interview tales with us. We received a few good ones, which we’ll be publishing over the coming days.

Here’s our first, from a law student down in Texas:

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From Ethan Beberness

It’s OCI time. English is my second language (Portuguese is first), and I have to go through 30 interviews in five days. An average of six interviews a day can be pretty tiring and time-consuming, I will tell you that. Anyways, here’s the ending of my fifth interview on probably my third day interviewing, with the law firm of Jackson Walker LLP:

Attorney: “This has been great! Thank you for taking your time to interview with us.”

Me: “It has been my pleasure. I am very happy and thankful for having had this opportunity to interview with Johnnie Walker.”

Attorney: “?”

Me: “?”

Attorney: “Johnnie Walker? The whiskey? Are you a big whiskey fan?” (probably thinking: “Look at you, not even knowing who you’re interviewing with, drunkhead”)

Me: “I wanna die, right here, right now. English is my second language. Is this a good excuse for what just happened?”

Attorney: *laughs* “Yes it is. You’re forgiven.” *laughs again*

Johnnie Walker???? REALLY????? Anyways, it was embarrassing, but guess what? I got a callback! They thought it was so funny, they wanted me back in the office for a second interview.

All’s well that ends well. This candidate received multiple callbacks during OCI and recently accepted an offer from another Biglaw firm.

Have a funny, mortifying, or otherwise interesting interview story you’d like to share with us? Please send it our way by email, subject line “Interview Stories.” We’ll read all the submissions and share our favorites in these pages. Thanks, and good luck to both the candidates and the interviewers in the current recruiting cycle.

P.S. As we explained when we ran a similar series of interview stories back in 2006, “The ‘horror’ in “interview horror stories” is loosely defined. Stories that are somewhat embarrassing or mildly amusing will suffice.”

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