Ann Israel is the legal profession's Dear Abby. A New York legal recruiter since 1979, Ann is a past president of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants. Advice for the Lawlorn is updated every week.

Q: I have been on a few interviews with some big firms where I really want to work. The problem is, whether it be the preliminary interview or the call-back interview, there are always those interviewers who act as if you have no place in the firm and don't know why they need to be interviewing you. They make it pretty obvious because they will ask you a simple question, then look off in the distance while you answer or be incredibly condescending.

For example, I once had a hiring partner during a second round of interviews ask me if I thought if my work experience looked terrible. I once had an associate on the recruiting committee come get me for my interview 20 minutes late, and while I was interviewing with her, she was sending out e-mails and had her side turned to me the whole time.

What can one do to deflect this? Or how can I save the situation the best I can? Notwithstanding the glaring question of whether I want to work here or not after such treatment, what I'm really after is how to save an interview when you have the odds stacked against you or when the interviewer doesn't seem to like you from the start. What can one do to change the situation in the 20 to 30 minutes you are allotted?

Need to Change a First Impression

Dear Need to Change: A bad attitude of an interviewer is what needs to be changed. You had an interview with someone who, after arriving 20 minutes late for you, then proceeded to turn away from you and send out e-mail during the entire interview? Where was this individual raised? Apparently, in a barn, based on her behavior during her interview with you.

Listen, I don't know how an interview can possibly be saved when an interviewer is this disinterested in a candidate. The good news is that this has nothing to do personally with you. The interviewer, obviously, has problems that have nothing to do you with you whatsoever. She never should have taken on this meeting with you; however, if she could not get out of it, even at the last minute, common courtesy would dictate that she explain why she kept you sitting there for 20 minutes and why you were going to be spending the next 30 minutes in an interview talking to her side as she sent out these very important e-mails.

I have tried to put myself in your situation, and the only thing I could come up with was to say, "It seems as if this is a very bad time for us to be meeting. Why don't I step outside and ask your assistant to reschedule a meeting for another time that might work for you?"

My first thought when I read your question was that perhaps you were not creating a good first impression and the interviewer was turned off by you. But after rereading your question I realized that probably was not the case because you indicated that you were having this same problem both on initial and call-back interviews. If the first impression you created was off-putting, more than likely, you would not be getting call-back interviews. Therefore, I had to look a big deeper to figure out what might be happening.

Quite frankly, I didn't have to look very far. In Biglaw firms it isn't unusual to find one very difficult partner or one cranky associate who has been thrown (for some unknown reason) into the interviewing schedule. It wouldn't matter who you are -- they simply aren't in a mood to like you. Or so it seems.

I say this because I can't begin to tell you how many times I have had candidates return from an interviewing session completely devastated because one of the interviewers behaved in exactly the same way as you have described. It would seem that he or she was totally disinterested in my candidate even to the point of absolute disdain. And then I do a follow-up call and find out that this interviewer thought my candidate was absolutely fabulous. Go figure.

The best advice I can give to you is to hang in there during those horrid interviews. Some people are just jerks, plain and simple. If someone asks you if you think your work experience is terrible, and you know damn well that it isn't, tell him or her exactly why you are the right person for the job and why your experience is right on target. On the other hand, if it appears that they don't have time for you, let them know that you recognize this fact and will come back at another mutually agreeable time. Don't let the interviewer do this crap to you! If you bust them on their bad behavior, they are liable to stop it right away and start behaving properly.

The bottom line is that if these are firms where you would like to work, or at least continue to interview, you need to work the interviewing system.

Best wishes!

Sincerely,
Ann Israel
President, Ann Israel & Associates