Jobs at Law Schools - JDs Not Wanted

Most scam bloggers and our unemployed and underemployed readers would drop to our knees and thank the heavens if we found a full-time job with benefits in the $40k range. A job in the $40k range at a top ten university or law school? At the very least we would no longer have to hide under a rock in shame at the next family gathering. We would still be under massive stress to pay off our law school debt, but we could hold our head up high and tell our relatives that we found a job in academia or at a T14 law school. We could prove to acquaintances on a very superficial level that spending 7+ years in higher education didn't go to complete waste.

Realistically, any full-time job in this economy would be a blessing for the millions of unemployed with a BA, JD, or PhD. Over the years, Angel and I have received emails and testimonials from law students eager to flush down the last remains of their dignity to clean toilets as long as it was a 9-5 job that gave them health benefits and allowed them to put food on the table. That is the tragic reality for the victims of this economic depression. Last week, The New York Time's Paul Krugman wrote briefly on the failure of many college graduates to find employment:

Here’s the question: of college graduates with a bachelor’s degree who aren’t enrolled in further schooling, how many have full-time jobs?

In December 2007, on the eve of recession, the answer was 9083 percent.

By December 2009, it was down to 72 percent.

As of December 2010, it had recovered only slightly, to 74 percent.

To me, that’s a tale of young lives blighted, not just in the short run but perhaps permanently: failing to get a job when you get out of school colors your whole career. And it’s still happening.

Yet unemployment has virtually dropped off the political agenda.

Of the 74 percent of graduates with jobs, plenty of them - and I know a few - are out there working as bartenders, fast food workers, or waiters. People with graduate school degrees who are unemployed are even worse off as we are older and have fewer years to get back on track before we're completely cast off as old and damaged goods.

The irony of all this is that there are jobs out there, even under our noses at the same institutions we graduated from, only we are over-educated to even be considered. Take for instance these two job openings at T10 schools Columbia and NYU:

Columbia University Law School
Job Title: Development Assistant
Salary Range: $43,000-$48,000
Minimum Qualifications: High school diploma and/or its equivalent, plus three years of relevant work experience required, or the equivalent combination of education and experience. College degree strongly preferred. Strong interest in fund-raising and some fundraising experience preferred. Must have excellent verbal and written communications skills and ability to handle highly sensitive and confidential prospect information discreetly. Must be detail oriented, self-motivated, and able to work independently and manage multiple responsibilities simultaneously and meet deadlines in a high-volume environment. Must be able to work a flexible schedule including some evenings and weekends. Proficiency in, Microsoft Word/Excel required, Raiser's Edge preferred.
Quick Link: jobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=123270


New York University School of Law
Job Position: The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is seeking two full-time Research Associates for the Center’s Democracy Program. The Democracy Program seeks to change the ways in which citizens participate in their government by fixing the systems that discourage voting, hinder competition and promote the interests of the few over the rights of the many.
Salary Range: $35,000-40,000
Qualifications: Initiative, drive, and commitment; excellent research, analytic, and writing skills; computer skills; professionalism, reliability, flexibility, and attention to detail. Candidates must be willing to do administrative and clerical work. Experience with democracy issues a plus. Paralegal experience or experience in statistical analysis preferred, but not required.
This is an entry level position; lawyers and individuals with advanced degrees should not apply.

There are so many unemployed law grads out there that any job associated with the law now has to have a disclaimer warning unemployed JDs not to apply. But they will gladly consider your application if you have a GED with job experience. It is very likely your alma mater would rather employ a high school or community college graduate with work experience over you. Why? Because they know that work experience counts a hell of a lot more than someone who was duped into buying one of their worthless degrees but lacks any real world job skills.

Go to Shit Law Jobs on any given day and you will find jobs like these:

Temporary attorney job in D.C. area for recent grad

Thanks to the reader who submitted this:
We are currently seeking (2) additional recent college graduate or JD to work a contract assignment in a Legal Department in a Reston, VA organization through April. Will be reviewing/editing legal agreements. Must be proficient in Mircosoft Word. If interested and qualified please send a resume in a Word Document. Pay is 14/an hour. This is not negotiable.
Location: Reston, VA
Compensation: 14/hour
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/lgl/2207544154.html

Unpaid internship in NYC for recent law school grad

We are a new law firm in Downtown/ Financial District looking for an intern to assist in legal research, writing as well as administrative duties. This is an unpaid internship position that could lead to permanent position in the future open to law students and recent law graduates. Speaking Spanish and/or website construction knowledge is a plus.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/2203980528.html

Again, work experience will almost always trump a useless graduate degree unless you are one of the few lucky people to get a job in academia, biglaw, Wall Street, or consulting. The great majority of graduates will be left out in the cold, either unemployed, underemployed, or in entry-level jobs they could have gotten without the degree and a lot less debt.

Here is a personal example of how work experience trumps education. I am dating someone at the moment around 5 years older. He went to a non-elite university and graduated with less than $15k in student debt. He has no plans to ever attend graduate school. He became interested in computers during high school in the 90s when he began learning on his own about web application frameworks, design, and other computer science subjects which I know nothing about. He did freelance work while he was in school and built up connections, knowledge, and experience on his own. No help from alumni services, career services, or professors. The college degree is merely dressing on his resume as almost all of the skills he acquired outside of school would have been enough for him to do well as a web developer.

He now works in web development in a management role. He has no debt, owns a house, has health benefits, vacation time, and makes a very good salary. The irony is that if the average person met us on the street, I would be considered more accomplished because of a useless JD and the academic prestige of attending a top 14 school. Even my boyfriend believes I'm the smarter one for getting into a top university. If only they knew the real fool is me for believing the hype, taking out massive loans that will take me years to pay back, and probably spending the next decade trying to match what my bf makes today.

The higher education business has successfully brainwashed the public into believing that someone with an advanced degree deserves more respect, is smarter, and automatically more accomplished. With help from their friends in Washington, they have convinced millions of Americans that spending $100k or more for a degree with no guarantee of a good job is a good investment. That the best years of your life are better spent paying a fortune to attend their school than being out in the world making money or starting a family.

As Angel said so well last week, stop listening to politicians and crooks in bed with the student loan companies, banks, and higher education industry. They tell you that education is key to the success of our country then turn around and slash Pell Grants for needy students. Follow Angel's advice. Whether you decide to go to college or graduate school or go out into the work force straight out of high school, be entrepreneurial and learn skills on your own outside of your useless liberal arts major that will help you find a job - any job - if you happen to find yourself without a good job offer. One of my friends works as a bartender in New York and makes a decent living. She has a college degree and never knew that her part-time job at a bar in her college town would someday save her from being homeless or moving back in with her parents.

Lastly, don't spend 4-8 years in school without being in the driver's seat of your own life. Don't put your future in the hands of career services and depend on your adviser to help you find a job. View higher education as dressing. The essential ingredients to finding a job depends on you being equipped with real world skills and connections outside of school. The administration is only there to take care of daily operations and take your money. Once they hand you a degree and shove you out the door, you won't be hearing from anyone other than a lemming calling you for a donation.

Nanny State?

I was watching Fox News.  Yes, I watch it sometimes. I also listen to 770 a.m. so that I can get a daily shot of adrenaline.  I get so angry, but I do it nonetheless.  I'm sure my blood pressure is super high as a result, but I'll never know since I don't have health insurance.  I have three jobs, but no health insurance--it's great.  So, I would love to share the clip with you, but I can't find it.  The title was "Nanny State." There were four talking heads criticizing young people--ages 16 to 24--for being unemployed.  Apparently 1 in 5 people in that age group are unemployed.  That's a whopping 20%.  The reason why they're unemployed is not the obvious reason, because they are no jobs.  Rather, it's because young people can easily move in with their parents upon graduating, can apply for food stamps and are now under their parents' health insurance until they are 26.  So, it's because they're lazy.  One of the guests said that young people would do well by digging ditches like immigrants (his words, not mine) to learn a valuable lesson about life.  Then, the ugly guy from capiltalistpig.com said that it's the minimum wage that's keeping young people unemployed.  I started to nod my head, thinking that the minimum wage is too low for young people to sustain themselves.  NOPE.  It's too high, so that small business can't afford to hire more young people.  Of course, I'm no genius, but I would have loved to be on the show to state the obvious:  young people can't find jobs because older people (like me) are taking those jobs.  Why would you hire a 22 year old to do a job if you can find a 30 something year old with a proven track record to do the same.  Furthermore, most young people don't want to go away to college and then move back in with their parents.  Living with your parents is demoralizing.  Young people don't want to live with their parents.  We need to trust that young people, if given a living wage, will quickly move out of their parents' home.  And as for food stamps: if you've applied for food stamps--please tell me here.  I want to hear about it. I know many people who are unemployed and they have not applied for food stamps--they eat lots of tuna and oodles of noodles and manage, somehow.  We don't have unemployment of 20% in the 16 to 24 age range because young people have too much of a safety net.  What parent, in any crisis, would allow their children to become homeless if they didn't have to?

There's a major disconnect in this nation.  People are so caught up in their own success to understand why others are not doing so well.  Walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you criticize and berate others.

Jonathan Hoenig-the Capitalist Pig.

Hope(lessness) and Change

H/T to Corrente for finding an oldie but goodie by Ian Welsh called the Personal Politics of Hopelessness. I'm sure many of our readers can relate:

As I write this I’m eating a sub I bought from across the street. While it was being prepared I chatted with the young woman making it, and she told me about moving from the Canadian Maritimes to Toronto, to, in essence, get a job that pays a little more than minimum wage. Because out in the Maritimes she had trouble getting even that.

I thought to myself that her experience is one that politicians need to have. Many politicians, of course, have never ever had a bad job. They went straight to a good university and from there to a good job or internship. They probably worked hard for it, and think they deserve what they have, never really seeing all the people whose feet were never on that road, who never had the same shot they did.

Then there are a fair number of pols, though less and less every year, who will tell you about the lousy jobs they had as teenagers, or maybe in their early twenties. But in most cases something is different between them and many working class and even middle class folks.

They knew they weren’t staying there.

When I was poor and working in lousy jobs I used to look in the mirror and see myself at 50, or 60. I expected to still be working at grindingly hard jobs, being treated badly by bosses (because there is no rule more iron than that the worse you are paid the worse your employer will treat you), and still being paid little more than minimum wage. That was the future I saw for myself.

And when I was on welfare, after having failed to find a job for 6 months, and even being turned down by McDonalds (in the middle of the early nineties recession) I wondered if I’d even ever have a shitty job again. I ate cheap starchy food, turned pasty and put on weight. My clothes ran down. When my glasses broke beyond the point where tape would keep them together I literally had to beg the optometrist to make me his cheapest pair and I’d pay him later. (I eventually did.) My life was a daily grind of humiliation.

And that’s what I expected my life to be.

When politicians participate in one of those “live on Welfare for a week/month” programs I’m happy, but I’m also dubious. The difference is that they know they’re getting out in a week or a month. They know it’s going to end. Much as I applaud someone like Barbara Ehrenreich, who lived for months working at lousy jobs, again, she knew it was going to end. She knew that, if push come to shove and she became seriously sick, she could opt out. She knew that if she really couldn’t eat for days, that was her choice.

Living without that safety net, knowing that if something goes wrong, that’s just too bad, changes you. Living without any real hope of the future, knowing that the shitty job you’ve got now is probably about as good a job you’re ever going to have, changes you.

And it changes your sense of what hard work is, of what it means to be deserving. I remember working on a downtown construction site as temp labor, and I’d watch all the soft office workers with their uncalloused hands come out for lunch, and I’d wonder why they got paid two or three times what I did for work that was so much easier (and which, of course, I could do, even if I didn’t have a BA.) At the end of the day they might be stressed, but I’d go home physically exhausted from hard labor and so would my co-workers.

Of course, I got out of that. I’d say “I went back to university”, but even though that’s true, it’s not what got me out, since I never finished my BA. Instead what got me out is that I finally got a couple chances to prove what I could do—I got a temp job in an office, and was one of their most productive workers (they measured it.) Later I got invited to blog, and hey, I can write, even if I don’t have a BA. I got lucky. Like most people who get lucky in work, that luck involved a lot of hard work, but it also involved luck.

But a lot of folks never get lucky despite the fact that they work hard. Perhaps they aren’t really all that bright (half the population, after all, is below average intelligence.) Perhaps they’ve got some personality issues or weak social skills. Perhaps there’s something not quite right in their brain chemisty. Or perhaps they just never catch a break because they aren’t lucky and their parents weren’t well enough positioned to help them get those breaks.

But still, most of them work hard and earn their money, whether it’s barely more than minimum wage or they did get a bit of luck and got one of the few remaining good blue collar jobs.

But when they look in the mirror, they know that the guy or gal looking in the mirror ten or twenty years from now is probably going to be doing the same thing. And they know that they’re one bad break away from losing even the little they have—one illness, one plant closure, one argument with their boss.

They don’t have a lot of hope for the future, except that it won’t get worse. The life they live now is the best it’s probably gonna get.

Living like that changes you. It makes you see people differently. You understand that there are a lot of bad jobs out there, and that someone’s going to be stuck with them. You know that most of those jobs are either hard or humiliating, and often both. You know that for too many people, a shitty job where they’re abused by their boss is as good as it gets.

If this depression and the "jobless recovery" has taught the educated underclass anything it is that connections and luck usually matter more than intelligence, hard work, and doing everything right to get into law school or even a top law school only to find yourself back in the same position you would have been in if you had dropped out of high school. Only now you have student loans so huge that it will take you the rest of your life to pay back.

This is especially painful to many of us who didn't come from a rich family. Maybe your mother was like the woman in Ian's post who moved to Toronto to find something better than a mininmum waged job. Or your parents struggled to pay the bills and the mortgage while putting aside money each month for your college fund. My mother bought used textbooks from the library so she could tutor me at home in addition to schoolwork. She always emphasized getting an education so that my life would be better than hers. Some of you might have had strict parents who forced you to take additional classes and extracurricular activities so you'd have an edge when applying to college.

Your parents or guardians did all of this because they held out hope that all of that hard work and education would someday pay off and you wouldn't have to struggle for the rest of your life or work in a demeaning and low-wage job. Hope for a better life for themselves but especially their children is what keeps most people going through the worst of times. Well, the light at the end of the tunnel has officially gone out and with it the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans who did everything right (emphasis mine):

Meeting 99ers is to tap into a deep well of anger at lives that have been knocked off course, shattering the enduring vision of the American dream that many had felt they had achieved. Just take Donna Faiella, a 53-year-old New Yorker who lives alone in Queens. She spent 28 years working in film post-production and video-editing. She was successful and had a career. Now she is desperate for a job, any job. But she cannot find one. "I will do anything. I will sweep floors. You think I look forward to collecting unemployment? It is fucking degrading," she said, almost quivering with anger.

Faiella is in dire trouble. Joblessness has eaten away at her sense of identity. "I feel like we are worthless. We are lost in the world. I don't know what to call myself. I don't have a title any more. What do we do? What do we do?" she implored. Faiella has one week of benefits to go. Then her 99 weeks will be up. She will have a title again. But not one she expected. She will be a 99er. "I am petrified. Do I become homeless?" she said, adding that she has begun making inquiries at local shelters.

Perhaps the most tragic is to see so many young Americans who have lost all hope and faith in a better future for themselves and for their children. It is tragic to see a generation who should be starting their lives having to move back home with nothing to give their parents - who may very well be struggling with unemployment or early retirement themselves - other than a worthless piece of paper that they and their parents had invested their entire lives to obtain.

I hope for our country's sake that someday we get a President who really had to struggle so they know what it is like to live on the edge with no money and no hope for the future. Someone who grew up on welfare and struggled to find a job during our generation's Great Depression will hopefully have at least a modicum of empathy to invest in job creation and finally end the total looting and destruction of this country by Wall Street and the student loan companies. I'm not holding my breath. Regardless, if or when we get out of mess, there will be inumerous casualties including many of our readers and scambloggers who are part of the Damned Generation.

Infographic by College Scholarships.org

Duke Law: Full of Shit?

Facts and Statistics

Employment at Graduation & Nine Months Later

The quality of our students and of a Duke Law education makes our graduates highly desirable to employers seeking talented new attorneys.

Graduating Class	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004
Employment at Graduation	100%	100%	97.75%	95.7%	95.6%	95.1%
Employment Nine Months Out	100%	100%	100%	98.18%	100%	100%

Does anyone else find it interesting [read: "a fucking lie"] that Duke Law has managed to have 100% employment at graduation during the Great Depression, and not during the boom years (2004 to 2006)?
This is such a ludicrous chart, that it should be disregarded and thrown out.  That's almost honest.  Try harder next time, Duke Law!
Here's more bogus and bullshit stats here.  Enjoy!

An Annual Ritual: Minnesota Lawyer Interviews Unemployed TTT Grads Before the Bar Exam

Earlier this year, I wrote several posts based on the 2009 Minnesota Lawyer interview with Minnesota TTT grads who were planning to take the bar exam.



This is what I had to say about the 2009 interview in April of this year:

None of the graduates in the video seemed to have a job lined up at the time of the bar exam. I hope the guy who failed the bar exam twice passed the third time around if only to save himself from wasting more money on test prep courses. But Ms. Guertin from William Mitchell School of Law nails it when she says at 1:02 that passing the bar exam doesn't necessarily mean you're guaranteed a job.

The bar exam will not guarantee anyone a job right now. The only thing that will be easier is finding doc review work and you can make more money than a law graduate who isn't admitted to the bar. That's it. I hear and read about law school graduates who think passing the bar is the golden key to a great legal job. It isn't. Wiser graduates like Mike at Barely Legal (btw, he started blogging again last month after a long hiatus. Welcome back!) decided to save his money and not take the exam.

People will have different opinions on this but I think the bar exam in this economy is a waste of money and time, especially for third tier graduates who never had a chance at finding a good job in a recession. If you end up finding a great law firm job, let them pay for the exam instead. Don't take out another loan from Sallie Mae or Access Group to take the exam. If you fail, consider it a blessing or buy used Barbri books off of Craigslist if you decide to take it again. You have to ask yourself whether more torture and money down the drain is worth it if you're in a state that has a high unemployment rate and little opportunity to find a good paying legal job. I'm curious to know if any of the graduates in the video found jobs after passing the bar.

What I said in April about last year's bar exam takers remains true today for this year's bar exam takers. Here are some important additional thoughts and statistics provided by Scammed Hard who first reported on the 2010 Minnesota Lawyer's "special report" covering the Minnesota bar exam:

Given that the four law schools in this small market spew out 1,000 new grads every year, things must be especially tough for TTT grads trying to find work. Despite its relatively small population, Minnesota boasts the 12th highest lawyer per capita ratio in the Union, with 11.2 lawyers for every 10,000 people. When even your local T-25, the University of Minnesota, graduates more than half of its Class of 2010 without jobs, one can only imagine how much more awful thing must be down in the TTTs, or especially at the local TTTT, Hambone University School of Law.

How long are these people going to allow themselves to be scammed? After suffering through three years and tens of thousands of dollars' worth of hell, just to end up unemployed, it must feel great to be plunking down for bar review and the exam without having the slightest idea about where you will eventually find work. These folks from the lower tiers are, sadly, especially likely to never find work as lawyers. Nando has already given us a trio of excellent exposés about the dismal employment prospects offered by these law school puppy mills. I must grudgingly admire the irrational optimism that these grads display in continuing on the road toward lawyerdom, but as a scamblogger, I know what awaits them. We've had a smattering of commenters from these schools show up on the scamblogs in the past few months, and none of them paints a rosy picture of their class' employment. In fact, they all agree that most of their former classmates are unemployed, indebted, and desperate. Yet the charlatans and book-cookers who run these institutions are still busy tallying the seat deposits and packing the next 1L class in time for the fall semester.

Yes, how long will thousands of students in over-saturated legal markets allow themselves to be scammed out of thousands of dollars for nothing more than the illusion of prestige of having a JD and passing the bar exam? And why aren't mainstream legal news publications like the Minnesota Lawyer asking serious questions about the employment rates of these recent graduates instead of vapid questions like what they had for breakfast or what time they went to bed the night before? What?!? The real question everyone is dying to know is, have you found a job yet? And, how much money in student loans did you borrow on top of the $150k you borrowed for three years of law school to take the BARBRI course?!? If Minnesota Lawyer actually did their job, maybe more 0Ls and law students would think twice before plopping down another $5,000 for no good reason whatsoever. Or they would start asking their law schools questions as to why three years and $150k still isn't enough to prepare students for the bar exam.

The Geography of a Recession

Doesn't the purple (10% or over unemployment) look like a disease consuming the entire nation? It's frightening to actually look at how much unemployment has grown across the country in the last two years.

In other news, I sprained my ankle while jogging. I don't know what I would've done if my injury had required surgery. Luckily it's not that serious. I went to the free clinic and the doctor said I should heal in a few weeks. That's what I get for trying to be physically active without any health insurance.

I Wonder How Many Unemployed Lawyers Applied to Teach For America

Consider yourself lucky if you were accepted to this year's Teach For America program. Getting into a T14 law school seems easier than getting into Teach For America these days:

Alneada Biggers, Harvard class of 2010, was amazed this past year when she discovered that getting into the nation’s top law schools and grad programs could be easier than being accepted for a starting teaching job with Teach for America.

Ms. Biggers says that of 15 to 20 Harvard friends who applied to Teach for America, only three or four got in. “This wasn’t last minute — a lot applied in August 2009, they’d been student leaders and volunteered,” Ms. Biggers said. She says one of her closest friends wanted to do Teach for America, but was rejected and had to “settle” for University of Virginia Law School.

Hah. "Settling for" law school is one of the first red flags that you do not belong in law school. There are easier and more lucrative professions to "settle for" rather than spending 3 years of your 20s and $150k to enter a miserable and jobless profession. Oh well. Alneada Biggers should feel very blessed. Teach for America might have saved her from the horrible fate of law school or graduate school during the jobless era. I'm going to guess Biggers will have a better chance at finding a job three years from now than her UVA Law friend.

Another plus that TFA offers is an income that most unemployed and shitlaw lawyers can only dream of: a $45,000 yearly income. I'm sure doc review attorneys are drooling right now.

I've heard mixed reviews about TFA. I knew several people who did the program right out of college and were unprepared and inexperienced to deal with the demands of teaching in an urban environment. TFA seems to have gone the way of top graduate and law schools in that it is prestigious in name and all the Ivy League grads want to go, but one can argue about its benefits to the people they are supposed to serve. I've always felt the program serves more as a stepping stone for the participating college graduates to put on their resume to get into a prestigious graduate school or get a good job after they leave TFA.

While Teach for America is highly regarded by undergrads — Mr. Goldberg said Duke recruiting sessions typically attracted 50 students — it gets mixed reviews from education experts.

Research indicates that generally, the more experienced teachers are, the better their students perform, and several studies have criticized Teach for America’s turnover rate.

“I’m always shocked by the hullaboo, given Teach for America’s size” — about 0.2 percent of all teachers — “and its mixed impact,” said Julian Vasquez Heilig, a University of Texas professor. Dr. Heilig and Su Jin Jez of California State University, Sacramento, recently published a critical assessment after reviewing two dozen studies. One study cited indicated that “by the fourth year, 85 percent of T.F.A. teachers had left” New York City schools.

“These people could be superstars, but most leave before they master the teaching craft,” Dr. Heilig said.

Maybe TFA should accept people who are actually serious about teaching as a career and not because they graduated from college (or law school) and couldn't find a job. Did any of you unemployed lawyers out there apply to Teach For America?

Prof. Tamanaha and My Place in the Higher Education Scam Movement

Much has been said throughout the law blogosphere about Professor Brian Tamanaha's thoughts on the law school model and the "vulgar" law scam bloggers. I recommend taking the time to read all of the responses from Jobless Juris Doctor, Exposing the Law School Scam, Outside Lies Magic, and Shilling Me Softly under our blogroll. I especially recommend reading Jobless Juris Doctor's very powerful post, "Student's Pay So Professors Can Play", in response to Professor Tamanaha's admission that he is perfectly fine earning as much as he can with lots of time for research and conferences, even if those costs come from charging students with little job prospects hundreds of thousands of dollars. No mention of actual teaching said students, but never mind that. We all know a passion for teaching is not the main reason why law professors do what they do.

In doing so, Tamanaha recognizes himself and his colleagues on the side of the ruling class who have little to no concern about the masses that struggle to survive in order to make sure that they remain well fed. These accommodationists know they are part of an unjust system and, to his credit, Tamanaha is the first to acknowledge his role in it. The condescension dripping from his admission came at no surprise. This feeling is common for the elites when they are forced to admit that their riches come at the expense of destroying (or being part of a system that destroys) thousands of lives, both literally and figuratively.

Like the BP executives and their chairman who "wants his life back", they care enough about the "small people" to acknowledge that we exist, that they make lots and lots of money off of our existence, but that our lives aren't important enough for them to make any significant changes that could jeopardize putting even a dent into their wealth and fine living. Do I expect much to come from Tamanaha's admission? Not really. But it's a step in the right direction if we get more of the "serious people" talking about the problem, if only to give our blogs more traffic and make more people aware that we exist as a source of support and awareness for prospective law school students as well as unemployed graduates and attorneys.

This is why Angel and I continue BIDER. We aren't "vulgar" and we aren't "angry, unemployed graduates and bloggers trying to write their way out of debtor’s prison". Elie Mystal of all people should know this. He wrote a post in January admitting that he graduated from Harvard Law School with $150k in student debt:

I graduated law school in 2003, owing Harvard University just under $150,000. At the time, I had no idea what starting my professional career $150K in the hole would do to my life. I figured I’d work hard, make money, and pay my loans out of my general non-disposable income funds — kind of like my cable bill.

Seven years, two careers, numerous deferments and defaults, and one global economic meltdown later, I still owe a ton of money. Now, however, I pay it to various debt collection agencies and lawyers. When prospective landlords run a pro forma credit check on my application, they come back looking at me like I’ve been convicted of multiple war crimes. Every raise I’ll ever get will be eaten up by the collection agencies until sweet death allows me one everlasting and satisfying default. And, oh yeah, I don’t even want to practice law anymore — I quit my Biglaw job because, despite the debt, I really wanted to have a job that I enjoyed. So I essentially purchased a $150,000 disposable good. My time working in Biglaw was kind of like a very expensive vacation that I debt financed.

I mention all this because I am the cautionary tale prospective law students never want to think about. I mention all this because it is noble to crush false hope. I mention all this because there are way too many people poised to follow in my financially ruinous steps.

And isn't that what the scam bloggers have been doing all along for little or no compensation? Warning people each and everyday that law school and taking out $100K+ in student loans is a really bad idea, especially in a jobless era? So, it's only cool to leave the law profession entirely with $150k in debt if you attended a top law school. But if a similar fate befalls others, either willingly or unwillingly, we are angry bloggers trying to write our way out of debtor's prison? Sure, whatever.

Here is a little recap. Our regular readers know that I attended a T14 law school and Angel attended a top 30 law school. We have both interned or worked at NYC law firms. Angel was laid off from Biglaw. Maybe I wasn't smart enough to decide against law school, but I was smart enough to have most of my college education paid for with scholarships and financial aid. I owe less than $50k in private loans with low interest rates. I have been underemployed for most of 2009 and 2010 and have a non-law related, full-time job offer that starts in several months. Plenty of my friends and classmates from law school who graduated from both the bottom and top of their class are unemployed. In the end, it didn't matter that they went to Harvard undergrad or graduated magna cum laude from a prestigious T14, because they are still in the same horrible position as the rest of us. Go figure.

So sorry to disappoint the law school cartel and ATL who like to generalize all of the scam bloggers as bitter TTT losers, but a lot of us are quite accomplished, at least on paper. Which goes to show our readers that unemployment, underemployment, and life destroying debt can happen to anyone regardless of law school rank. Debt is debt regardless of who you are or where you went to school. It doesn't matter if you go to Harvard Law or Cooley Law, $150k in student debt will destroy your life unless you are one of the few graduates today who will go on to make Biglaw partner or become part of the law school scam. Don't want to hate your life at the expense of making a Biglaw salary? Then don't go to law school, even if it's a T14. You will never be able to pay off your debt otherwise.

This is why Angel and I continue to blog and maintain a place for the unemployed to vent their frustrations. Get used to us because we are making a positive difference and we expect to blog for a very long time considering that the economy is not expected to get back on track until at least 2015. There will be thousands more joining us in the coming years. At least we know we're on the right side of the fight.

Census Worker Horror Stories and the May Jobs Report

The May jobs report is being touted as good news by the government just like the "good news" that was reported in the April and March jobs report. Haven't found a job yet? Well, it's probably because 411,000 of the 431,000 jobs created in May were temporary Census jobs with little improvement in private-sector employment. So without the crappy Census jobs, only 20,000 jobs were created last month for the millions of unemployed and underemployed looking for a job. The decrease in the unemployment rate was because of a decline in the participation rate. This is not good.

And if you've found a Census job, there is still a chance that you will find yourself without a job within several weeks of being hired to inflate the job numbers. Yes, I know it is FOX News, but listen to one whistleblower claim the Census Bureau is using temporary layoffs to pump up employment numbers. “What they do is hire you, they train you like a few weeks — 35, 40 hours of training and give you six hours of productive work and lay you off.”



The New York Post also published other census worker horror stories that backed up Maria's claims:

* I was hired four times by the Census Bureau: spring 2009 for address canvassing; fall 2009 for general quarters verification; late winter 2010 as a quality assurance clerk; and, spring 2010 [as an] enumerator non-response follow-up. I've just been laid off. In each case I spent more time training and going to meetings than actually working. Please don't use my name, I still may be called back.

* I was hired four times, counting last year and this. There's lots of waste and poor management. I've wondered about the handheld computer (used by door-to-door workers.) I've no idea how many of these were purchased. They were only used last year in one effort and my understanding is there were a lot of problems.

* I'm in south Orange County in Southern California and I'm going door-to-door to people the Census says have not turned in their form. At least 60 percent of the people I speak to swear they've turned it in. We are supposed to visit a residence three times. (If we can't contact anyone) we are supposed to try up to three proxies (neighbors or other people) to get information on a particular resident. So basically your neighbor can report how many people live in your home.

* Everything you reported is absolutely true. I was fired three times and rehired. I earned more going to training classes than (working). Several classmates didn't get any work after completing training.

* I was hired by the Census on March 16 and my last day was April 19 at the bilingual question answering center in Rome, Ga. We had two days of training, of which one was just to get hired officially as a federal employee. I had a total of two people come by my location and ask a question -- costing taxpayers $250 per question.

* I am a Census worker. I, too, can confirm that they are checking and checking. I checked homes that have already been checked by the "enumerators." The next phase is to go and re-check the checks that we already did twice..

* It's not much better in Florida. Our first day of training was a total joke. The supposed crew leader knew nothing. She didn't even open the manual to prep herself. We spent four hours signing six pieces of paper, one of which we signed on the day of the initial test ing. The nightmare didn't end when we got to the field. No work was available so we would sit in a meeting waiting for work for hours, which went on our timesheet.

* I have personally experienced the very same thing (in Missouri)) and have said from the beginning that this is strictly political and for jobs numbers. It is a waste of our tax monies. Our area appears to be very disorganized. However, I believe that it is intentional. Just another way to increase outlays and jobs.

I'm not wasting another year of my life waiting for the employment situation to improve. My pessimism about the future seems to have rubbed off several of my friends who are unemployed or hate their slave wage jobs and they are looking into the few good opportunities abroad that are left. If you're thinking about it, do it fast before more unemployed graduates with student debt jump on the bandwagon and those jobs become nonexistent as well.

LawCrossing Uses Reverse Psychology in Stupid Email

I apologize to the law graduate who forwarded an email from legal recruiting site Law Crossing to me last week for not posting this sooner. My initial reaction when reading the beginning of the Law Crossing email was WTF? before setting it aside until today to make some sense of it. If I had received this email directly from Law Crossing, I would’ve trashed it immediately without reading it because it’s that stupid and nonsensical. Note to boring and humorless attorneys: Do not use reverse psychology in an entire email. You’re not funny and you won’t get your point across, especially when it concerns a moneymaking scheme to swindle unemployed law graduates.

The person who sent me the email is a paid subscriber of this new LawCrossing service through BCG Attorney Search, which places “new lawyers” with firms, I suppose? Our source must have been equally confused with a WTF cloud hovering above his head because these were his thoughts on the email:

What the hell is this? The vultures now descend with riddles?

I would happily give these guys a good percentage of my first year salary and bonus if they could find me a paying job. I see no reason why they should be paid a subscription up-front. The fact that they operate like my gym ($15 every month whether it does you any good or not.) makes it all the clearer that there are no jobs. And another thing: I have no doubt that I'm the target demographic here. I mean, BCG kicked me over to their "new lawyer" department, LawCrossing, because I am, in fact, a recent graduate. But, thing is, I'm not exactly in a playful mood, and the reverse psychology here falls pretty flat. How's this, Harrison Barnes, Esq.: DO NOT go fuck yourself.

So they are charging lawyers money every month even if they don't find them a job? Nice. I'm sure they will find enough new graduates to con out of hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the next several years without ever finding them law firm employment.

I won’t link directly to the email on the BCG site because it would reveal our source’s email address, so here it is below.

Thoughts on the Georgetown Law/NPR Segment

I'm a little late posting my thoughts since I only listened to the interview ten minutes ago. You can visit Fluster Cucked and Attorney to Temp to read what other scam bloggers thought about the NPR segment.

Reader "Minneapolis 3L" made the following comment about the interview in our open thread last night. I think his opinions sum up a lot of the sentiment I've been hearing around the web from scam bloggers and our readers. We all know that T14 and TTT grads can't find jobs. The question the mainstream media should be asking is why is the law school scam and outrageous tuition rates allowed to continue?

As the mainstream media slowly picks up on the story of law school being financial suicide for the vast majority of graduates, I noticed NPR did a story on Friday about underemployed law students. It was a strange format, a five-member panel of Georgetown law students. While the lead-in made it sound like NPR would tell everyone how much of a scam law school is, the piece turned out to be fluff, with all of the students saying something like "oh well, I won't make 160k right out of school, but I will have a decent life in government work." EVEN the 3Ls whose plan was to "move to California and shack up with my solo practitioner pal."

These 3Ls were a bunch of ninnies who were obviously hedging and not placing a toe out of line. They probably were lined up for the panel by GULC's career services office. Despite two or three of the panel members really having NOTHING solid and lined up, they made it sound like they were just happy to "settle" for a job that paid under 160k. No one came flat out and said "we are unemployed and grasping at straws, fuck you GULC for charging us 150k," even though that was clearly the situation for two, and maybe three, of them. Only two of them had real jobs, one with the federal mine safety agency, and one with some legal aid org on the West coast...sounded like volunteer work actually.

Anyway, I had high hopes for this story, but NPR dropped the ball and basically turned it into a fluff piece about how law school can still give you a great job in government or public interest, just not in biglaw anymore. LOL. I'm sure any 0L or their parents listening naively breathed a big sigh of relief and cut a check for their seat deposit in the class of 2013. "Well, I won't be making 160k at biglaw, but at least I will have a decent federal job and it's probably less stressful than biglaw anyway. Law school is a great choice."

I think Minneapolis 3L makes some good points. After listening to the interview, I wouldn't call the Georgetown 3Ls ninnies. Yes, a few of them are more optimistic than those of us who have been unemployed for awhile and have come to the realization that things won't get better soon enough to help any of us. But a few of them made really great points about the problems with the structure of law firms and how they knew they got the rough end of the stick because they'd never get the chance of working at a biglaw firm. You either get a biglaw job offer after your 2L summer or you're out of the game forever. From the transcript:

Mr. LEWIS: I think that a lot of the real problem that's happened at legal profession is that now we're suffering because the economics of the large law firm just doesn't work. You know, I think that's why you see not many of the firms have gone under, but one of the things that I hope that does come out of this is a restructuring of it.

And maybe law students are going to have to realize that coming out of law school after a three-year education and expecting $160,000 a year is just not a realistic business model.

Ms. BOGO: I do think that our generation be it our year or the year behind us and maybe the year in front of us or something like that, I think we did kind of get the rough end of a stick just because we didn't know that the economy was going to take a downturn when we signed up for X number of loans every year.

And if the economy does turn around, which I'm optimistic maybe because I have to be, but if the economy does turn around and law firms start hiring again, they're not going to hire us. They're going to hire the class that's behind us, who are coming straight out of law school, who they can train up in the way that they always have.

SIEGEL: Because this is a career in which you get on the escalator at a...

Ms. BOGO: Yeah.

SIEGEL: ...particular time, in a summer when you're at law school. They look you over and you look them over. And then you...

Ms. BOGO: Yes. Law firms generally don't hire you out of government or out of, you know, being a private practitioner. They generally hire you straight out of law school or from another comparable firm.

I sympathize with these students because they aren't any better off than the rest of us and are in for a rocky year. Just give those 3Ls a few more years unemployed or underemployed in a job that doesn't pay enough to payoff their loans and they'll be a lot more frustrated with their situation than they are now. NPR can find plenty of T14 grads from several years ago who never found a job or were laid off and have been unemployed ever since. Graduates a few years in the real world are likelier to complain about their law school experience and troubles paying off their six-figure debt. But that is assuming the mainstream media wants to question the law school scam at all. As Frank at Fluster Cucked said:

I don't know what NPR is like in other cities, but in my area NPR airs "support for NPR" ads from law schools, including one from Boston University (which airs nationally, I assume). Perhaps NPR doesn't want to risk angering its supporters. I suppose that that is a sensible policy, but it calls into question the network's journalistic independence.

Much of the mainstream media is corporately owned or depend on the support of universities and large donors who are on the board of a university. I'm not holding my breath for the mainstream media to rock the boat if it means angering very rich and powerful people, whether they be in politics, business, or the education scam.

Please post your thoughts on the interview in the comments section below.

Horror News Open Thread

Another day, another sign that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Let's start with the news that 300k teachers could be laid off this summer. Unlike overpaid law professors who fuck (literally) their students and contribute little to the well being of our society, teachers who work in primary, middle, and high schools are underpaid, overworked, yet are essential to an educated safe, and productive community. Schools in my area have already proposed 4-day school weeks and extended vacation. I expect the crime rate to skyrocket. When teenagers have nowhere to go because all of the schools and recreational facilities have been shut down, the only thing left to do is alcohol, drugs, sex, and loitering.

I've been putting off the BP Oil gusher spill because it's just too depressing beyond what we've all read and seen on the news and in photos. I recommend Naked Capitalism and Corrente for updated news and analysis of the cover-up story. Not only have wildlife and jobs been destroyed, but now there are reports that fishermen have become ill from BP's toxic chemicals while trying to clean up the spill.

More and more stories about sick fishermen are beginning to surface after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The fishermen are working out in the Gulf -- many of them all day, every day -- to clean up the spill. They said they blame their ailments on the chemicals that BP is using.

One fisherman said he felt like he was going to die over the weekend.

"I've been coughing up stuff," Gary Burris said. "Your lungs fill up."Burris, a longtime fisherman who has worked across the Gulf Coast, said he woke up Sunday night feeling drugged and disoriented."

It was like sniffing gasoline or something, and my ears are still popping," Burris said. "I'm coughing up stuff. I feel real weak, tingling feelings.

"Marine toxicologist Riki Ott said the chemicals used by BP can wreak havoc on a person's body and even lead to death."

The volatile, organic carbons, they act like a narcotic on the brain," Ott said. "At high concentrations, what we learned in Exxon Valdez from carcasses of harbor seals and sea otters, it actually fried the brain, (and there were) brain lesions."

Despite the environmental disaster in the Gulf, Shell continues to go forth with plans to drill on the Alaskan coast as early as July 1st.

Do you have additional doomsday news to report? This is an open thread. Legal and non-legal news welcomed.

We're Still Screwed But It Was a "Good" News Day

Can we trade in Brian Williams for this guy?

I've been busy with work, plans to leave the country, and Mother's Day shopping so the little news I read from yesterday and today was enough for me to step away from the computer for a while before my head explodes. Don't you feel like you're living in an alternate universe more and more these days when you read or watch the mainstream media all optimistic about what is clearly horrible, horrible employment numbers?

This is why I supplement some of it with bloggers who don't live amongst the elite and have no incentive to lie and tell me that things are getting better when in reality the lives of nearly everyone I know has only gotten worse since 2008. But don't worry you grumpy, permanently unemployed masses. We had good news yesterday. Thanks to census jobs and crappy $8.75 an hour employment for the lowly college and law grads, 290,000 jobs were added in April and the unemployment rate is only 9.9 percent and will likely grow higher. Hooray!

The number of people out of work six months or longer reached 6.7 million in April, a new high. These people made up 45.9 percent of all unemployed, also a record high.

On the legal job front, the Jobless Juris Doctor reports that 2,200 legal jobs were lost in the last two months alone. Be sure to check out JJD's latest post on an Atlanta lawyer who used to make $250k a year now living on welfare and food stamps. The 0L lemmings who still think they can beat the odds are completely delusional.

And Subprime JD once again hits the nail on the head with his analysis that the new employment numbers are "bulllllshhittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt":

Non farm payroll data for the month of April states that the country gained 290,000 jobs. 66,000 census workers and over 180,000 were gains from the birth/death model.

From the BLS report:
"The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised from -14,000
to +39,000, and the change for March was revised from 162,000 to 230,000."

Also, U3 measure of unemployment rose to 9.9% while the U6 measure, which is a broader measure of unemployment rose to 17.1%.

Basically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is uses data that is just as cooked as the employment data that law schools use. Lies lies lies. Congratulations, the USA is following in the footsteps of Mao, Stalin, and other command economy nutjobs. Lets all just lie to oursleves so we can feel better about the present situation.

In reality I wouldnt be surprised if the economy added some jobs from the month prior but with so many high school and college grads entering the job force at the end of the month there just arent any places for these to enter. In addition, considering the trillions of dollars the fed and treasury have pumped into the economy, surely some stabilization would have occurred. However, within 6 months this "liquidity" will begin to dry up.

We are living in scam world people, whether it be government jobs data, inflation data, crime data, law school or MBA program data, its all a bunch of bulllllshhittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Our friend Ian Welsh (thanks for adding BIDER to your blogroll!) had this to say about the grim news both here and around the world. I prefer my journalists pessimistic as long as they are giving it to me straight:

There was an opportunity to break the power of these folks—to wipe them out, but it required calling their bluff, not caving to them. That opportunity has now passed. While the world economy remains very fragile and could go into a tailspin any time if anything goes wrong, best guess is we have another really lousy recovery and economic cycle to look forward to, if austerity measures don’t crash it out entirely. Over 80% of any gains will go to corporate profits, virtually nothing to ordinary citizens, and we’ll have another lost decade in which for virtually everyone the economy sucks.

And to end on an even more pessimistic note, I'll leave you with a quote from Felix Salmon at Reuters. H/T Correntewire.

Remember though that 6.7 million people have now been unemployed for more than six months — 46% of the total unemployment figure. We’ll literally never find jobs for all of them: many will never be employed again. Which is the real underlying tragedy of this recession, and of the jobless recovery.

Clearly all the hoopla over the April employment data was just more kabuki from the media to make really, really bad news sound kinda hopeful and optimistic. In short, those of us who are unemployed or underemployed are still screwed and will be for a long time. And with that I'll go back to selling books and music on Amazon (I'm not the only one!).

Some People Still Don't Get It

Links that were sent to me over the weekend indicate that America's youth continue to hold out hope that the economy will recover by the time they graduate and that internships still lead to full-time jobs when spending $120k and three years in law school isn't good enough anymore. Does anyone take news like this seriously anymore or do they think they will beat the odds?

An example of this is William & Mary. The school saw an increase in applications across the board at all of their schools this year. Looks like we'll be getting more visitors and followers to our blog in the next few years if this is the forecast for what is happening at most schools. There is no way in hell the economy will improve in three years to give the millions of us out of work now and the thousands planning to graduate in the next three years a full-time job. Not gonna happen.

The William & Mary Law School saw a 26-percent increase in applications to the J.D. program, receiving nearly 6,300 applications for slightly more than 200 seats in the Class of 2013. The Law School joins the Office of Undergraduate Admissions as well as other graduate and professional programs at the College in reporting significant increases in applications for next year's incoming classes.

The School of Education is reporting an increase of more than 20 percent in graduate applications. Admissions officials in graduate programs in Arts & Sciences also report an increase of eight percent compared to last year. At William & Mary's Mason School of Business, applications to the MBA program are up 12 percent compared to the same time frame from last year.

"Whether its graduate and professional programs or undergraduate studies, we're delighted that so many people want to join us at William & Mary," said President Taylor Reveley.

This news from the graduate programs comes a few months after admissions officials reported that undergraduate applications topped 12,500, a record number for the fifth year in a row.

I don't know where William & Mary is ranked in USNWR and I really don't care. I think it's a T1 institution and it looks like a lovely place to spend a few years, but that's besides the point. All anyone needs to know for the next ten years is that any institution outside of the T14 probably isn't worth the gamble. When T14 graduates are graduating without any job offers, one can make an educated guess that the majority of graduates outside of the T14 will not get a good return on their three year investment, meaning they will not find a biglaw or government job to pay off their six figure debt. The only exception to this are students who have connections to get a job or rich parents paying their tuition.

Then I came across this story at WalletPop about a 36-year-old husband, father, and business graduate who left his lucrative and intellectually stimulating investment banking job to attend Cardozo Law in 2007. Now he is graduating with no job offer other than an internship which he thinks will lead to a fulfilling long-term career in the law. Good luck with that.

When I got a job at an investment bank right out business school, I was brought in to analyze the impact of Napster on the music industry," recalls the 36-year-old. "That was a fascinating topic. The discourse going around this -- how is culture made, disseminated and controlled -- fascinated me."

By 2007, he started at Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law in Manhattan at a cost of $40,000 a year. While he remains as enamored of the field as before, finding a balance between being a fulltime student, a husband of eight years and a dad of now three kids has been tough. From morning until night, "it's always a balance act that I usually fail but I try to hold up my end as much as possible," he said.

It's become even harder since 2009. To the surprise of many, the legal profession has been hit hard by the economic meltdown. Law school graduates have had to scramble to find jobs. To improve his chances, Abramowitz, president of the Intellectual Property Society from 2008-09, held an internship last fall and is working in another this spring.

"A lot of firms are not hiring straight out of school," he explains. "[With internships] they want to build a certain amount of trust in you and they want you to be more familiar with their operations and systems so if they do take you on full time, you're ready to hit the ground running. And they don't have to extend time paying you and training you at the same time."

Set to graduate in June, Abramowitz remains optimistic that all his planning will provide a solid foundation for his family. "The goal is to build something for the long haul, for 30, 40, 50 years -- something that is fulfilling for me and something that is sustainable and supportive of my family," he said. "If one or two years or three years are a little rocky, OK. Hopefully you end on the plus side of the ledger."

Tips on Being Overqualified

I just came across Ask a Manager and thought the blog was very helpful in answering some of the questions I had about references, cover letters, thank you letters after an interview, etc. One of her articles on what to do if you're overqualified was posted at USNWR back in 2008 but I think the tips she mentions are useful to anyone who hasn't read it yet.

So your job

is to reassure the hiring manager that none of these things are true, and in order to be convincing, you need to explain why. For instance:

• "At this stage in my career, having a job I enjoy is more important to me than salary. I have no problem with earning less than I have in the past."

• "I want to move into this field, and I know that I need to start at a lower level in order to do that."

• "I'm deliberately looking for something with fewer responsibilities than I've had in the past so that I can spend more time with my family." (Or because you're going to school at night or have simply realized you prefer lower-pressure jobs.)

• "I wouldn't take a job I'm not excited about, and I'm excited about this one because ______."

Ideally, the time to address all of this is in your cover letter. Otherwise, you may never get the chance to say it at all, because the manager may simply assume that you don't understand the nature of the position and screen you from the start. And once you get to the interview stage, be prepared to discuss it again, likely in more detail.

If you can successfully put these doubts to rest, many hiring managers will be thrilled to hire your overqualified self. After all, you're a bargain.

Of course, I'm pretty sure she's not addressing people who are overqualified in terms of having a JD or another graduate degree, but overqualified in that they have actual work experience. Maybe we should send Allison a few law related questions. She might have a few helpful tips for law grads looking for entry level careers in other fields.

On another note, I am visiting my friend who is getting her PhD at a top tier school (and has admitted that she'll probably never find a job). Boy did she have plenty of sad stories to tell me. It amazes me how so many smart people remain clueless when it comes to applying to graduate school, taking on mounds of debt, and not realizing that there aren't any jobs to help them pay back that debt. It just shows you that anyone can be fooled and there will be millions more who will join us in the indentured educated class in the coming years.

One of her friends was laid off because her job is being outsourced. What's even sadder is that the company is now paying her to train people in Southeast Asia who will take over her job in a few months. Anyway, instead of learning her lesson she's planning to take out a huge ass loan to go to a third tier business school. Another story she told me was about a mutual acquaintance from college who is attending a tier 1 law school but can't find a job (not surprising). She goes to interview after interview and all of them tell her that as much as they like her, they aren't hiring many new graduates. My question is why then did they offer her an interview to get her hopes up when they knew that she never had a chance of getting the job? Wtf?