Market Leaders Podcast Episode 70: “How to Successfully Interview for Future Rainmakers & Business Developers” with Eva Wisnik

Over the past 26 years, Eva has trained Partners at 88 law firms on how to interview legal talent. The art of assessing talent and selling top candidates on the firm are crucial skills in today’s competitive job market.

Tune in to hear Eva share her thoughts on:
  • Outlining and executing goals for the partner interview process
  • The biggest mistakes interviewers make in ALL types of interviews
  • Why lateral partners fail, and common warning signs to be on the lookout for
  • Eva’s recommended best practices to land the talent pool’s preeminent lateral partners
  • The red and green flags Eva looks for in an interview, having interviewed over 2500 marketing/BD professionals since 2002

[00:00:00.170] – Intro

Welcome to the Market Leaders Podcast, where you’ll find valuable marketing and business development insights from innovative thinkers. The podcast series is brought to you by Ackert, the company behind PipelinePlus. Tired of overcomplicated CRM? PipelinePlus is the easiest business development tool you’ll ever use. It helps you organize and focus on your most important relationships with instructional, e-learning tutorials, and concrete suggestions from our built in AI. PipelinePlus gives you everything you need, to get new business from your existing network. Visit ackertinc.com to learn more.

[00:00:36.280] – David Ackert

Hello and welcome back to the Market Leaders Podcast. I’m David Ackert, and today our guest is Eva Wisnik, who’s the founder of Wisnik Career Enterprises. Eva has placed over 600 marketing professionals and over the past 26 years, trained partners at 88 law firms on how to interview legal talent. It’s very important to be able to assess talent and sell the top candidates on the firm, much needed skills in today’s competitive talent market. Eva, thanks for being with us and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[00:01:07.770] – Eva Wisnik

David, I’m super excited to be here today so thank you so much for inviting me.

[00:01:11.460] – David Ackert

So we’re going to focus on two prongs as we discuss this notion of interviewing for talent. It’s going to touch both on the notion of interviewing lawyer talent like lateral acquisition, lateral talent interviews, but also we’ve seen a great deal of movement on the legal marketing side of the house. So, the tips that you’ll be talking about certainly apply there as well. Let’s keep that in mind as we move through today’s program and I’ll try to ask questions that are broad enough to apply to both sides of the house.

[00:01:41.820] – Eva Wisnik

Absolutely. And I’d love to address both sides of the house because they’re so critical to the success of law firms.

[00:01:47.260] – David Ackert

Well, let’s start with partner interviews. And again, some of these recommendations that you have certainly apply on the marketing side of the house or frankly, any professional business function at the firm. What are some of the things that you recommend firms keep in mind as they’re interviewing talent?

[00:02:04.410] – Eva Wisnik

So, I believe the interview process is really a two pronged approach. You have two goals going on: one is to assess the talent, and the other one is to sell or market to the talent. And I’ve often seen, even when I was in law firms for many years, that sometimes the focus would be one prong, there would even be a borderline interrogation that would go on. Somebody would walk in the door and the questions would start with “how much business can you bring in?” Or “why should we hire you?” Or if somebody had a great resume, then I’ve seen sometimes partners and other people interviewing will just go right into sell-mode. And the truth is, you really need to have both thoughts in mind in terms of evaluating the talent and selling the talent.

[00:02:42.150] – David Ackert

So talk to us a little bit about the evaluation side of the house. How do we know that we’ve got the right person sitting across from us? Because, the last thing we want is to sell the wrong person into the firm.

[00:02:53.930] – Eva Wisnik

Yeah. So I think preparation is really key and communication. Let’s talk for a quick second about the marketing professionals you might be interviewing. One thing I have often seen, more often than you could imagine is that by the time a partner––maybe a head of practice or a major decision

maker––gets to meet the marketing talent, oftentimes they haven’t read their resume and they also haven’t read the job description, so they’re not even sure why they’re hiring this person, right? So I would say anybody who gets in front of a marketing professional at any level, make sure that you actually read the job description so you know why there’s a need to hire this person and that you can address that, because if you can’t, it makes for a little bit of an awkward interview. The other thing in both cases is really becoming familiar with the candidate’s background. So if you really read the resume before the candidate comes in, there are a couple of things that are going to happen. One is, you won’t start the interview by saying “so tell me about yourself.” And I think all of us know that’s a code for I’ve not even looked at your resume. And I’ll talk in a second about why that’s so important. But you will also not get the maximum amount of information out of this person because you are trying to read the resume and interview them at the same time. So I would say the preparation is really key and it’s important to know why you’re interviewing this person. I have seen situations with lateral partners where somebody said, “oh, you got to meet with this candidate they’re a great XYZ lawyer,” or “they have a book of business,” but that person’s background doesn’t actually fit into the strategic plan of the firm, or that firm doesn’t need more help in a certain practice area, or it just doesn’t make sense. So asking, “is there a really good business reason for us to interview this person?” I think that’s a great starting place. But with that David, I think one of the things I have really come to believe, and it underscores every interview training program I do for law firms, is that every interview is a branding opportunity. So what does that mean? That every person that you stand in front of, sit in front of, whether it’s an initial interview, whether it’s a full round of interviews, or a fourth round of interviews, they walk away with an impression of your firm. And, you know, even if you decide you don’t want to hire that lateral partner or that CMO or that marketing manager, they will walk away, and that word of mouth, somebody says, “hey, what did you think of XYZ?” Or “what do you know about XYZ firm?” That reputation gets transferred based on their experience with you. So one of the things I really want everybody who’s listening to think about is when your attorneys or yourself, if you’re a marketing professional, interview somebody, how do you present yourself and the firm, and how candidates leave feeling about that experience, regardless of whether they get an offer or they accept the offer, that goes a very long way. And the last thing I’m going to say on this topic because I feel so strongly about this: I was recently in Miami doing an interview training program for a law firm, and I said, “have any of the lawyers here ever had a bad interview experience?” And the hiring partner raised her hand, said “1987, it was at the Capital Grill…” People have this memory that goes so far back, so thinking about reputation, thinking about how people perceive your firm and how they talk about it, that person across the table from you right now might not be somebody you want to hire, but they could be a referral, a future client, or maybe you’ll want them one day as a senior attorney or partner. So just thinking about it as a long term reputation building process.

[00:06:00.380] – David Ackert

Those are great thoughts, Eva, and I certainly can resonate with that, both having been on either side of that interview table over the years, but also, you know especially in the legal marketing community, it’s a small group at the end of the day and people talk to each other, right? And so, oftentimes folks will ask, “well, what do you know about XYZ firm?” And if the person they’re asking had a bad interview, then that ultimately does a disservice to the firm in terms of their reputation.

[00:06:26.270] – Eva Wisnick

I’m going to hook something else onto it because I’ve seen it more than ever and I know how busy people are, but one thing is the interview process, the other one is the follow up or how you close it out, right? So one of the things that I’ve been seeing happening because everybody’s been so busy hiring for the last two years, both lateral partners and marketing professionals, is that they just ghost people, right? If you decide you don’t want somebody, for whatever reason, it might not be comfortable to tell them that, especially if they’ve invested time and you’ve invested time, but leaving them out there never to hear from you, nobody feels good about that. So just something to think about, like closing out the process, don’t just leave it to, “well, they’ll assume we’re not interested because we saw them three times, but we never got back to them.” That just leaves us feeling pretty yucky.

[00:07:08.400] – David Ackert

Yeah, no question. So, great tip here, be mindful of your strategy and be mindful of their background.

Don’t go into the interview cold, and stay away from opening with “tell me about yourself.” So how should we open interviews?

[00:07:24.420] – Eva Wisnick

Yeah, great question. So here’s what I recommend and I really think this will serve everybody well. Find something on their resume that you are either sincerely interested in or that you can sincerely compliment, and start with an open ended question like “I see that you have a lot of expertise in X-Y-Z, tell me about what you enjoy about that most.” Or “I see you mentioned you have these XYZ clients or you’ve built this practice in this specialty, what about that are you most proud of, or most passionate about?” When you get people talking early on in their interviews about things that they’re proud of, that they feel good about, it just opens up the energy, and I think it makes for a really good exchange. So, in essence, keep things positive and open ended. But, it’s not always easy for lawyers, and I’ll tell you why. I love attorneys. I’ve spent my entire career, almost 35-40 years working with them, and I would never trade that for anything, but as lawyers, they are trained to figure out what’s wrong with things.

So, what that looks like is, if you look at a resume and there is a gap, there’s something that doesn’t make sense, there’s something that sticks out, it is instinctive sometimes to start with, “that firm went under, what happened?” Or “why did you change firms?” Like something that doesn’t fit, or it feels like there’s a piece of the puzzle that’s out of place. If you start the interview with that, the chances of getting to a place of trust, getting deeper and really learning about that person, I think you’re shutting down that door.

[00:08:47.930] – David Ackert

Well, your recommendation makes perfect sense to me. Look at their resume, look at their background, and double click on a strength or something that opens up the conversation, right, and gives them an opportunity to lean into something that they want to talk about. Makes perfect sense in terms of establishing a foundation for trust. But at the same time, this is a first date, and people are really good on first dates at talking about the things that they talk about on every first date, right? And those things are going to be featured in the resume. So at some point, there has to be some vetting, there has to be some discernment that goes into this process. And I completely hear you, you don’t want to start there because that puts us on the back foot, right? But at what point can you transition into that, and in what ways can you transition to that, so that, again, we’re actually effectively evaluating. As you say, there’s evaluating and there’s selling, so talk to us about that evaluation piece.

[00:09:39.240] – Eva Wisnick

So there’s a transition point: you start with something positive, something where they can talk positively about things. But again, if you prepare for that interview beforehand, I want you to actually outline a couple of specific questions so that when you’re going off on that tangent about their favorite place to vacation, or something you have in common like you both went to Michigan Law School, or you both grew up in the same sort of suburb, you can pivot to something like this: “you know, what I was really excited to hear about David, is that you mentioned on your resume that you work extensively in pharmaceuticals. Tell me about how you were able to build that up. How did you get your first client?” And then you go there right. So I am not in any way suggesting you don’t go for some of the deep dives. I’m just saying you have to get enough trust and momentum in the conversation first. But again, if you know what you want to learn about that person, you’re going to get there. And I actually think that you’re better off focusing on maybe one or two areas of the resume and going deeper, rather than trying to cover everything they’ve done. I also have found that when it comes to lateral partner interviewing, I recommend as a best practice that maybe there’s just one or two interviewers who focus on the candidate’s book of business, because otherwise every partner they meet with just starts with the same exact thing and the candidate feels like they’re just saying the same stuff over and over again. So, if every person they interact with at the firm is focused on their ability to bring over business, you’re going to miss a lot of other points, right? I’m not saying don’t go for the deep dive and don’t ask those behaviorally based questions like “tell me how you built that business?” “How do you stay in touch with your clients?” Who do you pitch with?” “Tell me a little bit about what associates are working with you most and if you think they’d be interested in coming over with you?” Yes, you can ask those questions, but make sure that you’ve built enough momentum to ask these questions in a successful way. The difference between an interview and interrogation is the tone and the timing. The tone and the timing. If I ask you questions looking for, ideally positives, but

also uncovering other things, versus asking questions to figure out what’s wrong with you, that’s when people get most offended and turned off, like you’re trying to trap them into something. I agree with you. I don’t think it’s incongruous to spend one or two questions building up momentum, then ask the real substantive questions. Again, as an example, “what I was really excited to hear about is…how did you build this practice? How did you get those clients?” Or for a marketing professional, “that’s so interesting…tell me how you were able to build a whole social media campaign, or build out a business plan for the entire IP practice. What did that take? Bring me through the process.”

[00:12:02.420] – David Ackert

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. To sort of frame what you just said a little bit differently, it comes down to the interviewer’s intention. What is your intention as you’re moving into this interview? Is it to have a great conversation where you identify synergies and areas where both parties resonate, so that at the end of the conversation you can make an informed decision about whether or not this person is a good fit for your team? That’s a very clear intention, which is distinct from “I’m going to have a conversation to make sure that nobody pulls the wool over my eyes,” which is more of an interrogation. And there are certainly a lot of people that approach it perhaps with that more defensive attitude. And of course, it leaks right into the interview itself.

[00:12:42.930] – Eva Wisnick

Yeah, and the firm’s reputation, or how that person walks away feeling about that experience right? I think you can get a lot of information from people if you, again pre-plan, know what your intention is like you said, and identify a few behaviorally based questions. Let’s talk about the difference. A traditional interview question might be…”tell me about your weaknesses.” Or, “I see that you have always been a corporate finance lawyer”…so it’s closed ended. You come in pre-thinking something and you’re looking for confirmation of that, versus something like “tell me about how you hope to use that experience when you join a new firm.” It’s open ended, right, and open ended questions will get you information that you might not have anticipated. They are better for establishing something and going deeper. “Tell me about that, bring me through the process. How did you go about doing that?

You have to don’t have to tell me the name of the client, but how did you build that practice? How many hours a week do you spend marketing?” Because how that candidate behaved in the past is most likely how they’re going to behave when they get to you, right?

[00:13:38.200] – David Ackert Sure.

[00:13:38.790] – Eva Wisnick

So instead of saying “why are you planning to leave your firm? Why do you want to leave your firm?” (That’s kind of a defensive question). What I would recommend saying is, “having had the experiences you’ve had, what does the ideal firm look like? If you went to a new firm, what is it that you would want that might be different than what you’ve had before?”

[00:13:53.870] – David Ackert

Yes. So I want to circle back to your comment about the weaknesses question. This is a trope, right? Of course. We ask what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? And if we do it in that order, we’re starting with a positive and then we’re leaning into something that’s more critical. I’m a fan personally of the weaknesses question when coupled with the strengths. And what I will do is I’ll say, look, nobody’s perfect. I’m not perfect. Here, let me volunteer one of my weaknesses, just so that you know that my goal is not to put you in a vulnerable spot, but to have a candid conversation about where we could offer you additional support, were you to join our company, right. So that’s the way I like to frame that. But maybe I’m doing something wrong? Am I’m taking a misstep here?

[00:14:34.420] – Eva Wisnick

No, I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. I just have a hard time believing that partners are actually going to tell you something like that. So part of it is, most people who work in law firms like- vulnerability is probably their least favorite state to be in.

[00:14:48.010] – David Ackert

Right, sure.

[00:14:48.970] – Eva Wisnick

And I think that there are better ways to ask that question. Let’s say you’re interviewing a marketing professional. I would instead ask them, “what haven’t you had a chance to learn or do that, you know professionally would really benefit you?” Framing it as “i’m looking for your developmental needs, rather than trying to expose your shortcomings,” I think, is a better way to ask the question. I also think that the biggest challenge with all interviews is…well David, I’ll tell you this, I’m getting old. I’ve interviewed about 10,000 professionals since 1989, and the truth is that people don’t ever really lie in interviews, I don’t think that’s the challenge. I think what’s actually going on is that they don’t know themselves well enough.

[00:15:24.070] – David Ackert Sure.

[00:15:24.580] – Eva Wisnick

So what happens is there’s always a leap of faith when you’re hiring people. What they tell you in an interview and what you hear is not necessarily going to be how they perform. So my goal is to narrow that leap of faith to make it as small as possible. And that’s where behavioral stuff comes in better, because then you’re looking for evidence of past behaviors. But I remember, like when I was head of recruiting at Cadwalader many years ago, I was interviewing somebody right out of college. I think she was coming out of Georgetown. And I really, I personally like to surround myself with very organized people, because I’ll be honest with you, I’m very focused, I’m very strategic. I am not a super detailed person. I surround myself with the most organized, detailed people. I’ve developed systems, but it is not how my brain works. It works much more big picture. So I was looking for a very organized, detail oriented assistant, and she came in and she had a day-timer. You know how people used to carry around those big day-timers? And I got so excited, my God, this woman carries a day-timer with her.

She must be super organized! Well, somebody gave it to her as a graduation gift, and I never saw it again. But if you say, how do you track things? Tell me, what’s your system for tracking? How do you keep in touch with your clients? It’s hard to make that one up on the spot.

 

[00:16:34.170] – David Ackert Yeah, right.

[00:16:35.610] – Eva Wisnick

So I think we’re on the same page. We’re just approaching it from different angles. So I think I’d rather do it that way, especially if there’s something I’m worried about. I think one of the best things a firm can do, and I’ve been doing this with the firms I’ve been doing lateral partner trainings with––I’ve been doing more of those in the last year than I’ve ever done before––I make them think about what hasn’t worked. I’ll say, okay, I interview partners before I create the program. And one of the things I asked them is, like think about the people you most enjoy working with, that you trust, that you bring to pitch meetings and describe them to me. Tell me about the characteristics of people that you want to have on your cases. What is it about them so that we try to get the traits. But I will also say especially to leadership, I want you to picture somebody you’ve hired in the last two years that you had great hopes for and they flamed out. What was it about them? Let’s look backwards so we can look for red flags. Like for example, somebody who is me, me, me, I do everything. Like people who don’t talk in we but they talk in I terms. Or people who are super demanding upfront, especially if they’re trying to rush the process. I think that’s made people look back and say, oh, there was something going on. They’re probably being asked to leave their current firm. That’s why they were rushing the process. So you can look back and see maybe some red flags. I also highly recommend that there is maybe one partner who is on, let’s say the comp committee or on leadership, who really is the partner who talks more about the business stuff. I think it’s awesome if you can arrange this, to have that partner shepherd them through the process and be their point person. Because integration starts with the interview process, right. So, does that take a lot of work and coordination? It does, but what’s the price of getting this wrong?

[00:18:07.900] – David Ackert

Yeah, and firms pay it every day. I can so see as you are sharing your perspective, how critical it is that firms invest in some sort of interview training because a lot of these things would not necessarily occur to someone. They would certainly never carve out the preparation time required to reflect on: “where have our historical successes been, our historical failures. Let’s make sure we don’t repeat those mistakes. And also let’s figure out how to structure the interview so that it really is optimized to produce the intended result.”

[00:18:40.070] – Eva Wisnick

And how amazing will it look to a great lateral partner candidate who maybe will end up with a few offers, if they see that you’re all working together and rowing in the same direction. They’re going to go wow, these guys and women are coordinated. They articulate very similar messages. I feel like this is a cohesive leadership team here and I think that’s what people are looking for.

[00:18:58.380] – David Ackert

Do you have any additional thoughts as it pertains to landing the best lateral partners and avoiding any sort of key mistakes or red flags?

[00:19:08.420] – Eva Wisnick

Well, one of the things is I’m a big believer in the six degrees of separation. So obviously you don’t want to jeopardize anybody’s privacy. If they’re going through the process, you can’t call their references while they’re interviewing, but there’s a possibility oftentimes that somebody at your current firm has worked with them or went to school with them and knows them. So if there’s a way to do due diligence during the process I think that that’s really helpful because there’s going to be no better confidence builder that you’re making the right decision then somebody’s saying, “I worked with them, I’ve been on a case with them, they’re responsive, they return phone calls, they’re ethical. I knew that woman from law school, and she was somebody who people really enjoyed working with and led teams.” I think that one of the big mistakes I noticed when I was doing all this due diligence myself with the firms I was working with is recognizing that somebody having great contacts does not mean they can bring in business. So I’m not saying you should never hire somebody who’s coming from in house or from the government or from other things, but do they have a plan? Right, how are they going to leverage their contacts? Because what I’ve seen happen is some people get very enamored with somebody’s resume, the fact that they come out of some prestigious organization, government, whatever, and we just go all the way to “oh, they’ll be a great addition and maybe rainmaker!” And that doesn’t always translate. So great contacts don’t always mean business development. I think if you’re way down the road with somebody, ask them, “what would your 60 or 90 day plan look like business development wise?” This is probably an area where you [David] can help them tremendously too. But knowing that they have a plan and not just a “great idea,” is very important.

[00:20:47.250] – David Ackert

Yeah. No, that’s great. And what you’re pointing at––again, you made this point earlier in our interview––is how they approach this is how they approach everything. This is just a snippet into how they think, how they prepare for things, and how ultimately they optimize an opportunity.

[00:21:02.610] – Eva Wisnick

I love that. And that goes back to––when we’re talking about marketing professionals or legal talent––if somebody doesn’t do their homework, that for me, already signals something, including their professionalism and preparation. So are they prepared? Have they done their due diligence? Do they come in asking good questions? That shows that they’re invested in whatever they’re doing. And they should have a better answer for why they’re interviewing with your firm than, “a head hunter thought it would be a good place to go check out.”

[00:21:29.580] – David Ackert

That’s right. So I want to circle back to the references, if only to validate something that you said with my own personal experience. Whenever someone gives references, you know what you’re going to hear from them. “Oh, they’re great, and they’d be a great get for you. And I have nothing critical to say about them” etc. If anything, those references are just there to make you feel a little bit better about what you’ve probably already decided you’re going to do at that point anyway, right? You’re just

looking to validate any kind of last minute hesitation and you’re not going to find it in the references that the candidate actually provides. The times when I have looked at someone’s background and said, oh, they worked in such and such firm. Well, I know the managing partner at that firm or I know the CMO at that firm, let me go find out what their side of the story is. Does this person check out or not? Because I already have that personal relationship and I can kind of get a little bit more context around it. I understand there are two sides to every story and so I take all of it with a grain of salt. But I do find that if that person, who wasn’t even provided as a reference but who is a contact of mine, and I reach out to kind of check it out, if they say, oh, no, this candidate is great. You should go for it. That is much more meaningful to me than to call the reference that was provided and hear that same thing.

[00:22:45.410] – Eva Wisnick

So I agree with you. I think we just have to be a little bit careful if the person’s employed there. I just did some references for a senior person I just placed and the firm asked me to do the references, which happens occasionally. I think the questions you ask are the most critical piece of the reference. So I will ask them, “describe this person to me, what’s their work style like”: open ended question. I’ll say “in their next job, where do you think they can continue to grow?” Not what’s wrong with them. So what I’m trying to say to you is that I do think references can provide some good information if you ask the right questions. I think obviously, if you know somebody the candidate worked with very well, go ahead an reach out to them, but make sure they’re not still employed at the firm. I just get a little bit nervous because I’ve seen partners pick up the phone and call people’s firms and I’ve seen that stuff backfire when the person is still employed. I think that that is something that happens that is a no no. But I think that what you ask is as important as who you ask. If it’s a peer, if somebody says, call my colleague who sat next to me, my other manager, I mean, that’s pretty useless to me. It has to be somebody they reported to, right. So I agree with you that it’s tricky, but I wouldn’t say going through the references the candidate provides is useless, what I see, if I do three references, I’ll see a theme, there’ll be some of the same words used and at least that gives me confirmation right. But with that, I think one of the things I really want to underscore for anybody who’s listening is, where the biggest mistakes are made in hiring at all levels is when we ignore our gut and we override red flags. And I’ll tell you this because I’ve seen it. So what I’ll do with a firm is I’ll say, “okay,” let’s say for summer associates, because I do a lot of interview training with law firms before they go on campus and start hiring. I’ll say them, “can we look at last year’s files?” Let’s say they had 30 summer associates last year, I’ll suggest, “let’s look at who interviewed them. Let’s see who exceeded expectations by the end of summer.” Oftentimes, when somebody didn’t do as well as they thought they would, one or two lawyers mentioned something, but during the recruiting committee, it was overridden by, “well, but they go to X School and they’re top of the class.” And I think for most of us listening who hire people for our teams or partners who hire, there was something where we rationalized the decision.

[00:24:53.220] – David Ackert Right.

[00:24:53.550] – Eva Wisnick

It is very rare where somebody just completely just doesn’t fit, but we had no clue. It happens, but it’s pretty rare.

[00:25:01.170] – David Ackert

Yeah, that’s right. Our own bias colors that picture a little more than perhaps we’d like to admit sometimes.

[00:25:07.590] – Eva Wisnick

Yeah. And that goes back to, you know, how much you have in common with somebody is not necessarily the best reason to hire them.

[00:25:12.740] – David Ackert

That’s right. “No, we should hire them! I really like them! They’re a great guy!” It’s like, okay, these are not the qualifiers on the job description.

[00:25:21.030] – Eva Wisnick

Right, a hundred percent not. And I also just want to point out and I know we’re about to close our interview here, but I remember at the beginning of COVID when all these interviews were taking place virtually, and I was building out a program for a firm, and the former partner who is now in charge of lateral partner hiring full time, told me that she had never really sat in on all the interviews, but she was sitting in on them, kind of with her screen down, and she could not believe the conversations that were taking place. They weren’t necessarily inappropriate, they just were ineffective. A lot of like, “oh, you know Joe, I know Joe. Oh, your kid plays soccer there, my kid…” etc. and she said she could not believe how non focused, intentional, productive these conversations were. So I think some people are fantastic interviewers, and when you figure out who that is because you see their comments and you see how they play out and how they spot talent and are really spot on in terms of their process, get them really involved with the process and really reward them for that. But just kind of keep track of what’s working and what’s not and keep tweaking those behavioral based questions, make sure people are prepared for interviews, move the process along, and think of every interview as a branding opportunity. I think those are some keys to this whole thing.

[00:26:31.630] – David Ackert

Those are great takeaways Eva. Well, thank you so much. It’s so clear that when a firm works with you, they would be taking their interviews to the next level and the thoughtful ways that you phrase the questions and the intention that you help firms bring to the whole process so that ultimately the outcome is a reflection of what they want and not necessarily what they’ve habitually been doing is really important. So I so appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us today.

[00:26:59.920] – Eva Wisnick

That’s great. Yeah, and our website www.wisnick.com, has all the information on there. And it is a program that I truly love, because at the end of the day, what are law firms if it’s not all about talent? That’s the key to all their success. Whether it’s marketing professionals, future lateral partners, it’s all about the talent. So thank you so much for having me here today, David.

[00:27:18.510] – David Ackert

It’s been a pleasure. All right, everyone www.wisnick.com, check it out! Eva, thanks for being with us.

[00:27:26.960] – Outro

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