James Bond Got Me My First Job, and Now I Know Interviews are About Finding the Right Fit (Part II of II)

(continued from Part I)

I have a friend who had understood the importance of a fit even when I didn’t.  He had a specific field of law that he focused on not only in law school but also in college, so he applied exclusively to law firms that specialized in that field.  Not surprisingly, he successfully landed a job at one such firm.

As for me, I landed an offer from a New York law firm that had over a dozen offices worldwide with more than half of the attorneys outside of the United States.  It’s a place where many colleagues had linguistic abilities quite like mine.  The interview process successfully worked to find the right fit despite myself.

The fit isn’t just about abilities, though.  As my James Bond story shows, it’s about the intangibles, too.

I recall this one candidate I’d interviewed who graduated from Harvard College, returned to Korea to do his military service, came back to America to attend Yale Law School, and had impressive internships along the way.  His resumé was impeccable.

But in the first five minutes of the interview, I could tell he was going to be a terrible fit just from his demeanor and his personality.  It was an obvious case of a “No” notwithstanding his impressive credentials, and my boss came away with the same impression. He would have made a fine lawyer somewhere, but not where I was at.

Based on these experiences, now that I’m often on the side of conducting the interviews, I look for the intangibles in the resumés and try to discuss them in the interviews.

Where did the candidate attend college, the most formative four years in that person’s life?  I don’t care much for law school credentials; that’s almost always just a reflection of how well he/she did in college and in standardized tests.

What was the candidate’s major?  If the person studied something unrelated to law, there’s likely an interesting story on how the person ended up doing law.

What is the candidate’s career history?  If the person has worked in a  different industry or been in unusual positions, there should be a good conversation about interesting learnings from diverse experiences.

I want to ask those questions because I want to get to know the person, and in turn, learn whether the person would fit.

I now think that’s what interviews are about.