Career Services Pros Weigh In On What Impacts Hitting The Job Jackpot

As part of the Introduction to Law School series, powered by Thomson Reuters, we recently examined The View From The Career Services Office. In a follow-up on this topic, we share what students can do once they find their way to the CSO.

Hedging your bets on landing your dream job solely based on good grades isn’t wise. But discounting the importance of high marks — even in the first year of school — isn’t smart, either. How can you be sure you’re on the right path as you look to life after law school?

We reached out to career service professionals at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Harvard Law School, and Vanderbilt Law School. We asked them a few questions about what students should know about their Career Services Office and how it can help.

In fairness, doing well in your first-year classes is critically important to landing a job in the future. I asked the officers about their thoughts on the importance of grades in the job search.

Nicholas Alexiou, Assistant Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt Law, put that plainly:

Grades, especially first-year grades, play a significant role in a student’s employment search, and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing students a disservice. That being said, I often tell my students that grades serve to open doors, but they alone aren’t going to get you the job.

Mark Weber, Director of Career Services at Harvard Law School, said employers were making more holistic decisions on new hires than only looking at grades:

Of course grades sometimes matter, but not as much as one would think. Grades, however, are only part of the complete picture of a student’s value and marketability to a firm. We stress that repeatedly with our students, reminding them that overall “fit” for a particular firm depends on many other factors besides their grades including personality, writing skills, communication skills, commitment to undergraduate and law school activities, prior volunteer or work experience, geographic ties to an area, diversity, language abilities, relevant course of study, and practice area interests.

Ray English, Assistant Dean for Student Career Services at Arizona State, said that same thing: “Grades + Fit + Relationships + Experience = Job Opportunities.” But he also had a good illustration of why grades shouldn’t be the only hard factor firms look it:

[A] few years ago I had a student transpose his first semester GPA on an application for a diversity internship. The application packet included transcripts and one employer noted the mistake… Most of the employers participating failed to notice the mistake and the student was selected to be interviewed. He wowed employers and was offered an internship at a silk-stocking firm. That student went on to transfer to more prestigious law school and complete a second summer at another silk-stocking firm, intern at the White House, and went on to become an associate at a silk-stocking firm. I firmly believe if he had not inadvertently transposed his GPA, he would not have been selected to be interviewed and gotten that internship. I further believe that there is a strong possibility that the course of his professional career would have been drastically different.

My impression, from these CSO officers and many others, is that they believe there is a good job that is the right fit for every student.

Finding it might be difficult, but all these people think their current students are coming into law school now with a realistic picture of the job market. From Weber:

Given the amount of information readily available to students, I think students are well-informed about the market and realistic about their prospects. Presently I think the market is very good for young attorneys entering the practice. We routinely provide students with information about the legal market generally as well as local geographic market issues that arise in the market. At a minimum, students should understand the economic drivers of a particular market, including the client base, the key practice areas, and the size of the practice areas, along with the current hiring demand of each practice.

And if that knowledge leads to students finding jobs that are a better fit for them than perhaps boom-time students who followed the easy path into Biglaw, English suggested that’s not a terrible thing:

Students tend to express a much more realistic view of the employment market than they did five years ago. The first phase of a 1L’s journey is to determine their own strengths and what they enjoy doing. Then they can examine the employment market with a better understanding of the type of employment that best fits their desires and needs. Far too often students focus on a job, rather than the job for them, and end up where they thought they wanted to be, only to find themselves miserable.

Some of those people who made a bad fit will find themselves back at Career Services as a 3L. Or even as an alumnus. I can tell you from experience, career services can still be very useful even after you graduate. When I quit my Biglaw job, Mark Weber was one of the first people I called. He talked about the value CSO can provide to 3Ls and recent grads:

I think this is one of the most important functions of our office, or any Career Services Office. There are many reasons students may still be looking for a job as a 3L or even as a recent grad, and we are here for those students in the same capacity as we are for students in their earlier years. We have a wealth of resources to assist students who are still seeking. All of our advisors are seasoned attorneys with many years of career advising experience who work closely with students still seeking to craft a personalized job search plan tailored to each student’s particular situation. And of course, we have an amazing network of alumni who are always eager to help!

Truth.

And Alexiou was downright bullish on the market for 3Ls and lateral hires:

In the wake of the Great Recession, firms are seemingly being more precise when it comes to their 2L summer associate classes. If the firm needs 50 first-year associates to start each Fall, they could have previously hired 60 summer associates, knowing that some would have offers from other firms, go off to clerk, etc. Now, it appears that firms are eliminating that slack. This means that often times, firms are going to CSO around the country and looking for 3Ls to fill holes in their incoming first-year associate class. So 3Ls without a job should make sure to keep in close contact with their counselor, so that person can pair them with a job opening that might become available on short notice.

In addition, we can continue to provide the services we provided to the student as a 1L and 2L: brainstorming firms/organization to which they could apply, developing alumni contact lists, reviewing résumés, cover letters, and even email text. As for alumni, different schools will likely tackle recent (and even not so recent grads) differently. At Vanderbilt Law, one of the several hats I wear is Director of Alumni Advising. I probably get a couple of calls a month from alumni who are considering making a change in their career or looking to get into a full-time legal job. I work with them in a similar fashion to 3Ls trying to find a post-graduate position.

My message to law students from 0Ls to alumni is simple: Use these people. Use the ever-loving heck out of them. They’re here to help. If someone asks if you are a God, you say yes.

Stay tuned for the next post in our Introduction to Law School, a series powered by Thomson Reuters.