EIW Bidding and FIP Application Window Now Open!

EIW and FIP Application Windows Now Open

Bidding and Early Interview Week (EIW) employer interviews is now open.  It will close on Monday, July 28th, at 5:00 p.m. sharp — the bids have to be processed and employers have to be given sufficient time to review the resumes of the students on their schedules (which start on Monday, Aug. 4), so there can be no exceptions to, or extensions of, this deadline.

b-Line is also now accepting application materials for employers participating in the first phase of our Fall Semester Interview Program (FIP).  The deadline for applying to Phase 1 FIP employers is 5PM on Sunday, August 3rd.  (The deadline for Phase 2 FIP employers is August 21st).

You can access all of the key EIW/FIP dates via the link to the calendar on the EIW/FIP homepage.

EIW Bidding and Resumes

The maximum number of interviews you can receive as a result of bidding is 20.  After the bids are run, you can add yourself into as many open interview slots as you want.  In the past, students have averaged more than 20 interviews (bids and open slots combined) during the on-campus interview process.

For 2Ls who want to insure that they receive the maximum of 20, you should probably submit bids for something approaching 50-60 employers.  Bidding on more would be excessive for a 2L in our experience.

3Ls — the generally small number of designated 3L interview slots, which had gotten even smaller as a result of the Great Recession, has not increased much since the slow recovery began.  It continues to be a tough truth that the expected demand for 3L interview slots combined with the small number of employers actually interviewing 3Ls means that you will, at best, likely receive only a very small number of interviews no matter how many employers you bid on.  If you find yourself on the job market — or unsure of your status — as of the bidding deadline, you will want to be simultaneously pursuing other job search avenues and not just relying on EIW.  You should meet with a CDO counselor to do some strategizing about this.

You do not gain any advantage by submitting your bids early.  It’s only after all of the bids are in that the b-Line randomizes the order of participating students and begins to process bids according to their rank.  However, do not wait until the last minute either. It may take longer than you think and there is always the possibility of unforeseen connectivity problems.  You should print a copy of your bids for your records because you won’t have access to them once bidding closes.

For more information about the bidding process, visit the Bidding and Bidding Strategy section of the EIW Mechanics webpage.

Selecting A Resume To Attach To A Bid

If you are applying for different types of employers (e.g., private firms as well as government, or NY firms as well as LA firms), you may want to consider having and attaching different versions of your resume (emphasizing different things) to different bids. Ideally, you should upload all versions prior to bidding. You can attach any uploaded version of your resume to each one of your bids.

Just click the “Review” button associated with the interview schedule on the “Employers/Apply” tab to see a Resume drop down window. If you do not detail into the schedule but, instead, merely select a rank from the bid drop down window on the “Employers/Apply” tab, your default resume will automatically be attached to the bid. Your default resume is the one you have designated as such (via the “Documents” homepage of b-Line). If you have not made a default designation, b-Line will use the first version you ever uploaded as your default resume.

Revising Resumes

Once you have selected a version of your resume and attached it to a bid, that selection is “sticky.” Replacing an existing version with a revised one in the Documents section of b-Line will have no effect on the versions that have already been attached to your existing bids. In order to substitute the revised version for the version that you originally attached to your existing bids, you need to go to the “Employers/Apply” tab and individually update each bid affected (via the “Review” button) or, if you are using the same version of your resume for all your bids, click the “Update All” button in the upper center box labeled “Default OCI Resume.” Once bidding has closed, you will not be able to change the resume associated with any of your bids. NOTE: there is no final “submit” button for your bids. Whatever your ranking is as of 5 p.m. on Monday — and whatever resume you selected to accompany those bids as of that time — will be what the scheduler will automatically process.

This — and other useful information about the mechanics of the EIW process — appears on the EIW Mechanics webpage and in the EIW Guide (a link to which appears at the bottom of our EIW/FIP webpage). You can also find answers to common questions involving topics such as bidding for multiple offices of the same employer, the advisability of splitting, how to handle questions about grades, and lots of other things in our EIW/FIP FAQ.

NOTE: If you are looking for all of the procedures, rules, and policies of EIW in a printable, indexed pdf format, follow the link to the 2014 EIW Guide at the bottom of the 2014 EIW/FIP webpage; the Guide is essentially a compilation of all of the content of the EIW Mechanics webpage (plus the spreadsheet with the bidding, callback and offer data from 2013’s EIW).

FIP Phase 1 Applications

Due to the way the b-Line system settings function, when you apply to a FIP employer, you will need to “rank” your application. This rank has no bearing on the application in any way, and the employer will not see the rank of your application.

Be certain to read through the details of an employer’s schedule completely before you apply. Most FIP employers are requesting a cover letter as well as a resume. In addition, some employers have specific requirements pertaining to the cover letter, resume, or the materials you will bring with you, if you are selected for an interview.

Summer Employment Evaluations

Now that bidding is “live”, you are going to need to complete the brief online summer employer evaluation before you will be able to access the OCI section of  b-Line.  If you attempt to bid without completing the evaluation, you will be redirected to the summer evaluation page.

Filling out the evaluation will only take a few minutes and will be of enormous assistance to current and future Boalt students (employers do not have access to the evaluations). Your evaluation will be the most helpful to others if you take a little extra time to thoughtfully complete the questions at the end of the survey that call for a “narrative” type response (as opposed to just a 1 through 5 rating). Note: b-Line permits you to respond anonymously, by selecting “no” in response to the required question “May students contact you for further information about your summer experience?” towards the bottom of the evaluation form.

You will be able to view other students’ evaluations from this past summer and from the previous five summers by clicking on “Summer Evaluations” in the “Career Tools and Advising Section” on the b-Line homepage. Once you are in the “Evaluations” section, click the “Search” tab, enter an employer name and click the “Submit” button.

Flexibility in Targeting Employers

Flexibility remains one of our watchwords.  If obtaining a summer position with a large law firm is a priority for you, it would be a mistake to bid only on firms/offices in the Bay area. The competition for these positions will be nearly as tough as it was last year.  The more geographically flexible you can be, the better your odds.  You can also increase your odds of success by pursuing other avenues in addition to EIW.  Visit our OCI Alternatives webpage for some ideas.