I'd totally take Debevoise over S&C, not that I'd ever in a gazillion years have that choice to make.
Anyway, as for "playing games" v. "conservative business strategies" . . . obviously there is a rationale for firms tiering their offers. But there are two things that some firms are doing that make me feel like I wouldn't want to work for them even if I got an offer in the end.
The less irksome of the two is that when many people expected firms to maintain prior years callback/offer ratios (or have even better ones because of expense), many firms seem to have called back WAY more people than they reasonably needed to fill a second, third, or so on string of potential offers. I understand that they are trying to weed out the best candidates possible but callbacks are extremely time consuming, and even with the firm paying for travel expenses the little niceties of traveling really add up. I mean, I'm not going to present receipts for Starbucks, magazines, etc.
What is especially annoying, though, is that there's a lack of transparency about what firms are doing. I had only one firm tell me explicitly they are doing rolling offers, yet I seem to have ended up on a number of these supposed waitlists. Some firms can't be bothered to let you know your status even after candidates call or email. I mean, seriously, at that point they are just dicking you around. One shouldn't have to call after a month to be told that he's on a waitlist. People certainly shouldn't continue to get silence when they've let a firm know that they have impending acceptance deadlines. I understand that recruiters are busy but some of their behavior is just really rude, especially when you consider how much time is spent barraging the anointed first string offerees with complimentary communications.
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