by James Steiner (L’16)
The search for an internship can get extremely stressful, especially when employers you were really excited about start to reject you. Last year, I spent winter break applying to as many places as I could on Symplicity. I limited myself to patent law, but I started to receive rejections from everyone. I remember most of last spring thinking I would never find an internship. However, I finally got a job offer from the Chesapeake Circuit Court at the end of April, right before finals. I learned last year if your first wave of applications fail, just expand the range of places you would consider working.
I carried that approach over to this year, and applied to as many of the OCI opportunities as I could. I had a few interviews here and there, but received mostly rejection letters. My wife then gave me the best advice: she told me that the job search is like doing a sale, you put out a lot of offers and hope one job decides to accept. At this point, I started to search for law firms in the regions I wanted to work, and by using Martindale I was able to find a few. I continued to contact people at those law firms to tell them I was interested in an internship.
Eventually, a law firm called me back for a second interview, and then offered me a job in October.
I contacted between 75 and 100 law firms before I got my offer. So, if you start getting rejections from your first round of applications, my advice would be to step back and think of a new, expanded search strategy. A lot of times searching only through Symplicity job postings does not help because everyone can contact those employers.
The best strategy can be just to show employers you will take the initiative. Show enthusiasm for the job and show them that you really want to work for them.