{"id":32,"date":"2018-04-04T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/?p=32"},"modified":"2024-01-05T11:20:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T16:20:08","slug":"interviewer-personal-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/04\/interviewer-personal-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing With an Indifferent Interviewer: Personal Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Landing a job with a legal firm as a lawyer is a moderately challenging process as it involves all the work you’ve done academically, passing a pretty stiff bar exam, and preparing a resume<\/a> that’s interesting enough to get you an interview at the firm of your choice. The interview itself can also be pretty grueling, especially if there are numerous sessions, and several of the partners want to learn all about you personally. More often than not, you may even have to face more than one interviewer, with one of them engaging you as the others observe your reactions and responses.<\/p>\n

Of course, it doesn’t always work out this way in face-to-face interviews for a legal position, and instead of a battery of razor-sharp professionals grilling you, it’s also possible that your interviewer is someone who happens to be somewhat indifferent to the process. It could be your luck to draw the one partner at the firm<\/a> who is not a very well-spoken individual, and who has so little interest in the interview process that they appear to have difficulty staying awake. While this may not happen often, you should be prepared for the eventuality when it does.<\/p>\n

Make a Good First Impression<\/h2>\n

That old saying about not getting a second chance to make a good first impression is entirely true of the face-to-face job interview. Those first few minutes of engagement with a job interviewer are critical, and you should make every effort to appear friendly and responsive so that you can help set a positive tone for what follows.<\/p>\n

It just might be that your cheery and talkative demeanor rubs off on your interviewer and gets him\/her into the moment much better. This doesn’t mean you have to carry the conversation or drive the direction of the interview, but you should cheerfully respond and be prepared to take up the slack if your interviewer appears to be a somewhat dry conversationalist.<\/p>\n

Do Your Own Background Check<\/h2>\n

You will likely know who’s going to interview you by name before the actual meeting takes place, and that means you should have the opportunity to find out information about them. It’s a simple matter to go on the firm’s website and look up information about the partners<\/a> which you can use to stimulate conversation.<\/p>\n

If it turns out that your interviewer has difficulty with sustaining dialogue, you can liven things up by asking questions about academic background or case history of the person. Not only will you be maintaining a more favorable atmosphere and tone for the interview, but you will be demonstrating that you were interested enough to do some prior research before the meeting.<\/p>\n

Make a Personal Connection With Your Interviewer<\/h2>\n

It might be even better if you can establish a more personal connection with your interviewer by introducing talking points about their family or hobbies. When you first walk into the interviewer’s office, a quick glance around at the walls and the objects on the desk may provide you with enough information to bring up either or both of these topics, or something else of a personal nature.<\/p>\n

For instance, you might see an award on the wall from a local organization about outstanding service rendered by this particular partner. There might be a golf trophy or a bowling trophy that could provide stimulating conversation. Photos of the family are another obvious discussion point, or possibly pictures taken on a fishing or hunting trip with friends. All of these can serve to keep the conversation going whenever the interviewer seems to be running out of things to say.<\/p>\n

Don’t Take it Personally<\/h2>\n

Make sure you don’t take it personally if your interviewer appears to lack interest in the process, or in you. If you do allow yourself to think that way, chances are it will affect your mindset as the interview progresses, and you will not be presenting yourself most efficiently.<\/p>\n

Regardless of how indifferent your interviewer may be, you still need to bring your A-game and try to handle every question skillfully and accurately. The worst thing that could happen is that you allow the tone of the interview to bog down, and become as disjointed and strained as the questions from your interviewer.<\/p>\n

Be Ready for Canned Questions<\/h2>\n

In situations where your interviewer is having difficulty coming up with questions about your experience, or about anything else relevant to employment, it’s possible that they may fall back on old reliable inquiries that call for little or no thought.<\/p>\n

That means you should prepare for questions about where you see yourself in the next five years, or what your greatest strengths and weaknesses might be. Yes, they\u2019re puffball questions, but if you’re not prepared to give a robust response to them, you could end up leaving an unfavorable impression.<\/p>\n

You should be able to tell in the first few minutes of the meeting whether the partner you happen to be conversing with is of the type that falls into the category of an indifferent interviewer. As soon as you make this determination in your head, try to recall some of the tips mentioned above and be prepared to take a more active role in creating a personal connection during the interview so that you can make the most of the opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landing a job with a legal firm as a lawyer is a moderately challenging process as it involves all the work you’ve done academically, passing a pretty stiff bar exam, and preparing a resume that’s interesting enough to get you an interview at the firm of your choice. The interview itself can also be pretty … Continue reading “Dealing With an Indifferent Interviewer: Personal Connection”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12,10,11],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-candidates","tag-interviewing","tag-interviews","tag-job-hunting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zlegalplacement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}