Public Interest/Public Sector Career Day

Career Day is an annual career fair sponsored by the Southern California Law School Consortium (“Consortium”). The 2020-21 members of the Consortium are:

• California Western
• Chapman
• Loyola
• Pepperdine
• Southwestern
• UCI
• UCLA
• University of La Verne
• University of San Diego
• USC
• Western State

The 2021 Career Day will be hosted virtually on Saturday, February 20, 2021. The government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private public interest firms that participate will register to (i) promote their openings and solicit applications to be sent directly to their offices in order to coordinate their own interviews and/or (ii) to promote their openings and receive applications through Career Day to conduct interviews at Career Day on February 20. At least 100 employers from throughout the country are expected to register.

Students enrolled in the Consortium schools will have access to the Career Day online portal to view job openings and to apply for Career Day interviews with the registered employers.

To host Career Day virtually, the Consortium will be utilizing two online platforms -- Symplicity and FloRecruit. Detailed instructions with video tutorials on how to navigate both platforms will be sent before key dates; please be sure to review and follow the instructions carefully.

Beginning December 28, the Career Day Symplicity portal will open to students. Through Symplicity, students will have access to the employers’ registration information, which will include basic information about the employer (e.g., website, practice area), their job openings, if and how students can apply to their offices directly, and if they will be interviewing students at Career Day.

To apply for Career Day interviews, students will “bid” for interview slots on Symplicity by uploading a resume and cover letter for each of the employers by whom they would like to be considered. After the student bidding deadline, employers will select who they would like to interview via Symplicity. Once employers have made their selections, students will log into Symplicity to review their interview schedule.

At this stage, students will have the opportunity to cancel any of their scheduled interviews by contacting their Career Day representative(s). Cancelled interview slots will be filled by alternates. As such, students who do not see any interviews when Symplicity re-opens to them should be as responsive as possible to Career Day-related communications and regularly check Symplicity as they may secure interviews as alternates. This also means that if students do not cancel their interviews by the deadline, they will be expected to attend those interviews on February 20. Due to these potential changes, the interview times will remain tentative until February 18.

On February 18, students will receive notifications from FloRecruit about their final interview schedule. FloRecruit is also the videoconferencing platform that students and employers will use on February 20 for the actual interviews. As a browser-based platform, students and employers will simply click the links provided with their final interview schedules to enter their virtual interview rooms. Students and employers will not need to download any software.

Career Day interviews will be 20 minutes each and run from 9:00AM PST to 5:00PM PST on Saturday, February 20, 2021. The recommended attire is business formal (i.e., full suit).

To ensure fairness across all of the Consortium schools, the following policies must be adhered to strictly. No exceptions will be made.

• Employers may interview students at Career Day only for summer 2021 and paid, postgraduate positions. “Paid, post-graduate positions” does not include positions for which students must secure other sources of funding, such as EJW and Skadden Post-graduate Fellowships. The only exception to this policy will be made for district attorney and public defender offices that have post-bar clerkships, which are generally unpaid.
• Employers are required to select at least one student per law school represented in their applicant pools.
• All aspects of securing Career Day interviews will be administered by the Consortium through Symplicity. Students and employers may not communicate with each other directly regarding Career Day interviews. If students apply to organizations directly and for Career Day interviews with that same organization, they may communicate regarding the direct application.
• Students must submit both a resume and a cover letter to be considered for Career Day interviews. However, no other application materials (e.g., writing sample, list of references) may be submitted. Employers may contact students directly after Career Day to request additional materials for consideration.
• The maximum number of organizations to which students may apply for Career Day interviews is 15.
• The maximum number of Career Day interviews students may secure is 8.

To ensure fairness across all of the Consortium schools and as there are many moving parts to scheduling Career Day interviews, the deadlines below will be adhered to strictly.

Beginning December 28, students will use Symplicity to:

1. Review and research the registered employers to prepare application materials and decide to which organizations to apply through direct applications and/or the Career Day interview process.

2. Upload resumes and cover letters.

3. Bid (i.e., apply) for Career Day interview slots by January 27.

Instructions relevant to post-January 27 next steps, such as reviewing interviews and cancelling interviews, will be sent closer to February 10.

To navigate Symplicity, please follow these instructions carefully and review this recording of a Symplicity walk-through: https://uclalaw.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=e046a05a-8c03-4242-93f5-ac950071ffc9.

1. Copy and paste this link into your browser: https://law-scpicd-csm.symplicity.com/students.

2. Log in or create an account:
   1. New Users (those who have not participated in past Career Days): Click “Sign Up” on the right side of the page and enter your law school e-mail address as the username and consortium as the password. Complete the registration form and as soon as you click “submit,” you will be directed to the home page and sent an e-mail with a link to set up a new password. If you do not receive an e-mail, you may have entered your e-mail address incorrectly. Contact your Career Day representative or scpicd@law.ucla.edu.
   2. Returning Users (those who have participated in past Career Days): “Sign In” on the left side of the page with your username and password. If you do not remember your password, click “Forgot Password” and if you do not remember your username, contact your Career Day representative or scpicd@law.ucla.edu.

3. Confirm your profile information is correct, particularly your institution and class year.

4. Review the registered employers’ information by clicking “Events” → “Career Fairs” on the left-hand navigation pane then “SCPICD Registration 2021”. Click the tab “Employers” at the top and scroll through the registered employers. For a tailored search, click “More Filters”. To view individual employer’s information, click on the employer’s name and you will be directed to their details, including their opportunities, hiring criteria, and application instructions.

5. Once you have drafted your resumes and cover letters, upload them to Symplicity as pdf files by clicking “Documents” → “My Documents” on the left-hand navigation pane. Then click “Add New” and follow the instructions. The field “Label” is how you title your resumes and cover letters within Symplicity. This will ensure you are using the correct file for each of your Career Day bids.

6. To bid for Career Day interview slots, click “career day schedules” → “Scheduling” on the left- hand navigation pane. Only the employers interviewing your class year at Career Day will be visible to Confirm that “SCPICD 2021” is selected as the “Session”. Click the “Review” button next to the employer with whom you would like to interview at Career Day. Utilize the “Bid Details” box on the right side of the page to select the rank of your bid using the drop-down menu for the field “Bid” -- your rankings will not be visible to the employers. The schools will use your rankings as a factor in filling cancelled interview slots. Select the appropriate resume with the “Resume” drop-down menu and the appropriate cover letter with the “Cover Letter” drop-down menu then click “Apply”.

7. Reminder: the maximum number of bids allowed is 15.

8. You may change your documents, bids, and rankings at any time prior to the January 27 deadline. Aim to place your bids sooner rather than later and by noon PST on January 27 in case any issues or questions arise.

Regular communications regarding Career Day will be sent from scpicd@law.ucla.edu. Please save this e- mail address to ensure Career Day messages are not sent to spam. Questions may be directed to scpicd@law.ucla.edu and Loyola's Career Day representative, Rebecca Ruschell at rebecca.ruschell@lls.edu.