As I have written and podcasted approximately before, Vanderbilt has an extensive expert improvement series designed to help all of our college students — with a particular emphasis on 1Ls — build their non-academic legal competencies simultaneously while also studying more approximately the profession as a whole. While the programming is extraordinarily precious for college students, for me, the 5th new release of a way to excel as a summertime partner is not something I experience pressured to attend, having both heard all of the advice before and having previously lived that wonderful summer season associate life with next put up-commencement employment offers — even though it’s miles always exquisite to peer outstanding Vanderbilt alumni who come returned to campus for these shows. Instead, that lunch hour may be spent catching up on the critical issues of the day, such as #GetReeseToVanderbilt.
But while certain vital subjects are covered each year, occasionally, a brand new presentation will crop up and seize my interest. This happened last month with a professional development event entitled “A Brand New Way of Interviewing: What You Need to Know.” Sponsored using O’Melveny, the presentation featured John-Paul Motley, Managing Partner of the company’s Los Angeles office (Vanderbilt Law Class of 1999), and Darin Snyder, Regional Head of Litigation for Northern California, and perhaps more importantly for the day, the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner. While Motley served as the Vanderbilt hook, Snyder was the show’s celebrity, on foot, the students through OMM’s new approach of finding law school expertise.
Snyder started discussing the two most substantial flaws within the contemporary system of felony recruiting. There is a long way more than two, but this becomes a perfect region to start. First, notwithstanding the enormous financial resources of O’Melveny (gross sales in 2018 passed $800 million), due to the finite nature of the recruiting calendar and the metaphysical fact that their lawyers can’t be on multiple campuses immediately, the company is best able to meet with a tiny percentage of the 111,000+ law students enrolled on campuses across the united states of America.
Like maximum elite companies, OMM tends only to recruit (at least on campus) elite law faculties, given these constraints. Setting apart the difficulty of ways this restrained OCI can perpetuate and entrench privilege, even at the schools O’Melveny visits, they’re simply allowed to satisfy with a confined range of college students. For instance, Vanderbilt’s Class of 2021 is around one hundred eighty college students. A complete OCI interview timetable consists of 18 interview slots. That means, at first-class, OMM is getting a risk to satisfy with 10 percent of the elegance.
And Vanderbilt is a small faculty. When looking at the dimensions of the lessons at law faculties consisting as Harvard, NYU, or Georgetown, except a company is bringing a collection of friends that might rival a World War II touchdown birthday party in size, stated company is probably most effectively reaching a minute portion of the class. So, how can employers restore this difficulty? Snyder informed the assembled Vanderbilt students that he thinks he has a way for the company to thoroughly compare any law student at any law college who is probably interested in working for O’Melveny.
Snyder brought us to Pymetrics. Designed by neuroscientists, Pymetrics payments itself as a bias-free way for employers to assess applicants through a sequence of quick computer games. As candidates play those games, a profile of crucial employment trends is generated. An algorithm then compares the candidate’s profile to a model for that particular agency and determines whether or not that individual could excel in the company. It sounded simultaneously revolutionary and straightforward. Pymetrics is currently being used in Corporate America with the aid of entities together as Unilever, LinkedIn, and Mercer; however, Snyder believes O’Melveny is the first law firm to adopt this recruiting method.
