Screening Interviews - How different is one from the other?

[GuysRea]

For those of you who went through 20- or 30-minute screening interviews on campus (likely through a blind bid process), how different was one interview from the next?

I have a large number of interviews. I am hoping that during each interview, I can hammer home the same three points I want to get across to the firms about my background, while asking a few questions that would be unique to the each firm.

What were your experiences with these screening inteviews? Did the firms ask you the same type of questions, or did some firms toss questions your way that were completely off the wall?

[ANBUDOM]

A lot of the screening interviews are identical.  Most of them will spend the most amount of time talking about your 1L summer job experience and will sometimes talk about your previous work experience, they'll ask you why you choose to go to law school or how you're liking the experience, they'll make a comment about your law review/journal status, ask the all-important "Do you have any questions for us?" and may sometimes ask what you like to do in your free time outside of school.

Oh and if you don't have any connections to the region the firm is located, they will grill you on why you are interested in that particular city/town. 

The strategy you're planning to use worked very well for me.  Hammer home the same few points and ask questions unique to each firm.  I got 8/10 callbacks by doing that and for half of those interviews I forgot the name of the firm because I had so many screenings back to back...

Oh and looking pretty doesn't hurt either... 

[GA-fan]

I'd also add try to appear relaxed and to have a sense of humor. I think most people project their best personality when they're happy, which will increase your odds of connecting with your interviewers. Just don't crack any inappropriate jokes :-)

[amoebalaw]

Hope your interviews have been going well.

I've seen a huge variation in types of questions, so I'll give this advice:

Plan your interviews later in the day. That way you can speak to people who already met the interviewer, and you can feel out if there were any ridiculous questions (and ask how they answered), and prepare accordingly. Everyone was pretty forthcoming about their experiences.

This saved me on several surprising questions where I might otherwise have stammered, but was lucky enough to have prepared good answers.

Good luck!

[GA-fan]

I would disagree from my personal experience/preference... I like going in the morning, where the interviewers are still fresh and you might be memorable. But don't take teh first slot. A lot of firms at my school started five minutes late and the first students lost part of their time or were late for the entire day.

[wardwilliams]

tag

[GuysRea]

This saved me on several surprising questions where I might otherwise have stammered, but was lucky enough to have prepared good answers.

Care to share these questions? I do not have an opportunity to schedule the interviews - the school (or Symplicity) does it for us.

[amoebalaw]

Well, some of the questions I was happy to know about in advance were along the lines of: ask me something you normally wouldn't ask, tell me something about you that isn't on your resume, the always-fun where do you see yourself in five years, what was the topic of the writing competition and how did you answer it, and so on. It was also nice to know if they asked standard questions, or were a "tell me about yourself" type of interviewer.

I just think it's just nice to know in advance what they're going to hit you with, and if you can get that info from your classmates who went earlier, great.

As for morning v. afternoon regarding the "freshness" of the interviewers, I've seen no correlation between time of my interviews and call-backs that I received. Seriously, it's really impossible to predict who/when you are going to connect with these people.