Entry-level hiring at U.S. law firms was little changed in 2013, according to the annual survey of the National Association for Law Placement.

The organization said that on-campus recruiting efforts were consistent with the fall of 2012, although those law students who got callback interviews had a higher rate of success than in 2012. Third-year law students had a harder time, however, because recruiting volume fell for those in the final year of law school after rising for the past three years.

In contrast, law firms saw what’s known as the “yield” on those offers falling, because there were more outstanding offers from competing firms.

“Anecdotally, many law firm recruiting professionals reported feeling as if they were competing fiercely with other firms for the same small group of job candidates, even though in the aggregate it remains a buyer’s market for law firms,” NALP said.

The survey, which was released Feb. 19, also found that offer rates coming out of summer programs nearly equaled pre-recession highs, but since summer classes were smaller, the overall number of offers remained proportionately smaller as well. The offer rate, the survey found, was 92 percent, two points higher than the 2012 rate and close to the offer rates of 93 percent in 2006 and 2007. In 2009, only 69 percent of summer associates received offers.