Department of Justice, Federal Government, Job Searches

Fall Recruiting Open Thread: DOJ Honors Program

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Sure, the U.S. Department of Justice has some issues right now. But a great many talented and dedicated people still work for the DOJ — and aspire to work there:

You should do a fall recruiting thread on the DOJ Honors Program. Interviews are happening for the next [few] weeks. It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of and get information from interviewees, as well as current and former DOJ attorneys. What do you say?

We say: Sure! Here’s the thread you’ve requested. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Honors Program, here’s a description:

The Attorney General’s Honors Program

The highly competitive Honors Program is only way that the Department hires entry-level attorneys. Selection for employment is based on many elements of a candidate’s background including academic achievement, law review or moot court experience, legal aid and clinical experience, and summer or part-time legal employment. The Department also considers specialized academic studies (including undergraduate and post-graduate degrees), work experience, and extracurricular activities that directly relate to the work of the Department.

More details, including eligibility requirements and a timeline, are available here.

To get things started, we toss out a few possible topics, after the jump.

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These are just a few sample topics. Feel free to discuss whatever you want about the Honors Program in the comments.

1. Has the hiring process for the Honors Program becoming more politicized lately? From one reader:

In the past few years, there have been reports that the Bush Administration has put political appointees in the interviews of the AG’s Honors Program at DOJ. (Not only put in, but put in to attack interviewees with any hint of liberalism on their resumes.)

How about a post where people can relay their experiences at this year’s interviews? Maybe we’ll learn if they did or did not clean up their act.

2. What’s going on over at the Civil Rights Division? From another reader:

I’m interviewing with the Civil Rights Division, among others. But after doing some research on ATL, it appears that I’d have to be crazy to continue the application process, especially to the Special Litigation Section. I’m curious to hear what others have to think. Maybe a post on this?

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The Special Litigation section isn’t the only part of the CRD with issues. See also Voting Rights.

3. What’s going on with the interview process?

[T]here was apparently some mix up regarding the appropriate information for interviews. Check this out:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We have just learned that our notification system did not properlly [sic] display the components that selected you or provided interview information for the wrong component. PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE DEPARTMENT AT THIS TIME TO DETERMINE WHICH COMPONENTS SELECTED YOU. You were selected by at least one of the components you applied to. We will correct the problem in the system and resend a notification message next week.

In the meantime, please submit your Travel Survey so that scheduling can begin.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

If any of you have funny horror stories to relate about the Honors Program interview process, from either this year or a past year, feel free to share.

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