OCI Bidding and Interview Strategy

OCI means on-campus interviewing, even though the process may be virtual. At schools that use bidding, a bid is how a student expresses interest in interviewing with a particular employer or office.

The word "bidding" makes the process sound like a game. It is really an allocation problem: you have limited interview opportunities and imperfect information, so you need a list that gives you both upside and a reasonable chance of producing actual interviews.

The goal is not to win the most prestigious schedule. The goal is to meet firms you would seriously consider joining.

Start with your school's actual rules

OCI systems vary. A school might use:

• a student lottery;
• employer preselection after resume review;
• ranked student preferences;
• a combination of lottery and preselection; or
• a matching process with school-specific rules.

Some programs guarantee interviews through a lottery. Others let firms select most candidates. Some treat each office separately. Bid limits and deadlines also vary.

Before reading strategy advice, answer these questions from your career office materials:

1. How many bids do you receive?
2. Does bid order matter?
3. Are employers selecting candidates?
4. Are offices separate choices?
5. Can you decline an assigned interview?
6. When are schedules released?
7. What happens to unused interview slots?

A brilliant strategy for another school's system can be useless in yours.

Build the firm list before ranking it

Do not begin with Vault and work downward until you run out of bids. Begin with constraints that affect the job:

• Market: Where are you actually willing to live?
• Office: Does this office do the work that interests you?
• Practice: Are you looking for broad rotation or a specific group?
• Structure: How are summers and juniors assigned?
• Personal reasons: Do you have family, school, work, or community ties?
• Selectivity: How does the office usually recruit from your school?

You may not know your practice area. That is fine. "I want a broad summer in Chicago and would like to test corporate and restructuring" is already more useful than "I want a top firm."

Use the firm directory to compare offices and practices, then read how to tell firms apart.

Use three buckets, but do not worship them

Students often label firms reaches, targets, and likelies. The framework is helpful as long as you remember that law-firm hiring is not a college admissions calculator.

Reaches

These are offices where your grades, school, background, or experience may make an interview or offer less predictable. A reach can still be worth a bid if you have a genuine reason for the firm.

Targets

These are firms where your credentials and interests appear reasonably aligned with past recruiting patterns. Targets should usually form the center of the list.

Likelies

These are firms where you appear comparatively competitive. Do not call them safeties. No BigLaw interview is guaranteed, and office demand can change from year to year.

The point of the buckets is to notice imbalance. If every choice is an aggressive reach in the same market, your list may produce very few interviews. If every choice is conservative and none excites you, you may be wasting access to the program.