<p>“Even if this person didn’t evince any of the skills needed to stay in biglaw, why would he be beaten out by others (presumably many with less impressive resumes) for midlaw or even in-house?”</p>
<p>There are hundreds of reasons why a person might be turning employers off. It might be attitude, it might be appearance, it might be crappy cover letters, it might be that he’s wrecked his reputation in the community with some kind of public error, it might be failing to make any effort besides mailing in a resume…there are lots of ways to screw up your job search.</p>