Yesterday, I had lunch with a bunch of friends from my section last year. Some of the conversation was about On Campus Interviewing (OCI).

Things I haven't done yet which apparently other people have, with regard to on campus interviewing:

1. Research the financial stability of firms. Apparently there exist law firms at the brink of extinction. Apparently it's a bad idea to take a job with them because the job, I guess, depends in a large part on the firm continuing to exist. Apparently people have ways of finding out this stuff.

2. Really, really, really think about what makes one firm different from another, and why I'm interviewing in one place and not another. I've already done a little bit of this, with some help from the NALP guide (http://www.nalpdirectory.com), and some help from the Vault guides (which, when I mentioned them at lunch, got less than rave reviews -- apparently those quality of life rankings have some correlation with the "how much did the firm pay Vault" rankings), and some help from the firm web pages. Apparently there are other sources out there I still need to find.

3. "Beat the system" by figuring out the algorithm used to assign interviewees to firms and use to your advantage. OK, no one actually brought this up at lunch, but I couldn't really have a list of two items and feel like I'd accomplished anything.