Journalist Surprised to Learn She Wasn’t Really Getting a Law Firm Job

Lawyers aren’t the only legal job seekers getting withdrawn or deferred job offers.

Freelance journalist Susan Schoenberger writes in a story for the Hartford Courant that she spent $200 on a J. Crew interview suit, and made it through two interviews for a position in a law firm marketing department. Then the recruiter who put her in touch with the firm called with the good news: She got the job, and a formal offer was imminent.

“This set off the flurry of phone calls and e-mails required to completely rearrange my life,” Schoenberger writes. “I canceled a creative writing class I had been scheduled to teach and started organizing carpools. I got a bus schedule. I ransacked my closet, looking for clothes that would get me through the first few weeks.”

A few days passed, and the formal offer never came. Instead, Schoenberger heard from the recruiter. The law firm was freezing hiring, and the job was on hold. “Needless to say, a job put ‘on hold’ in this economy might as well be a job that never existed in the first place,” she concludes.