So lawyers, if you’ve recently been laid off or have been out of school for over a year without a job, it’s probably time to look at your résumé and take out any reference to the fact that you’re, you know, “dynamic.”
Sure, you might be. But so is everyone else. And, more importantly, nobody cares anyway.
LinkedIn’s analytics team reviewed 85 million LinkedIn profiles and came out with a list of the most “clichéd and overused” phrases found on people’s resumes.
As they succinctly say, “You know what they are — those ambiguous ones that really don’t tell you anything.”
Here are the 2010 top 10 buzzwords used in the U.S., according to them….
Last week, the people at the Law School Transparency project scored a major victory. They got U.S. News to agree to disclose all of the employment information the magazine collects about law schools, with the release of next year’s influential rankings.
According to stories around the blogosphere, U.S. News rankings guru Robert Morse is even giving the LST people credit for pushing the magazine in this direction. U.S. News, mind you, has more power over law schools than the freaking American Bar Association — but it was influenced by two young guys from Vanderbilt. Check out coverage from the ABA Journal, the WSJ Law Blog, and the National Law Journal (subscription). Major kudos to Team LST!
The changes are good, but they’re not the Holy Grail of law school transparency. U.S. News won’t be collecting any additional information. Schools will still be able to materially misrepresent some of their crucial employment statistics, and U.S. News is not increasing the weight given to outcome-oriented metrics in its rankings methodology.
It’s definitely progress, but as long as the ABA refuses to wield its regulatory power, there’s only so much a magazine can do…
Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to [email protected]
Hi:
I’m an associate at a small firm with a very specialized practice area. My firm shares a client with a Biglaw firm that handles most of the client’s litigation and other work. As such, there are a couple of partners at the Biglaw firm that I work with fairly frequently, when my little niche overlaps with matters they’re handling for our mutual client.
I like these partners – they seem like nice guys – and I think they like me too; at any rate, we have a good working relationship and they seem to respect my work. One of their associates recently left and I’d love to jump into his place. I haven’t seen a posted opening anywhere, so I don’t feel like I can just send them my resume out of the blue, saying “in case you need someone to fill Departed Associate’s position…” – or can I? What’s the best way to go about this?
Also: Departed Associate left without having another job lined up, saying it just “wasn’t the right fit” for him. I know: huge red flag that possibly these partners aren’t the nice guys they appear to be. But not necessarily – right? It would be different for me, right??
– I Want That Job
Dear I Want That Job,
When someone leaves a law firm job without something lined up in this still-shitty economy, there are only three possibilities…
It’s pretty clear that traditional large-firm jobs in big cities are still hard to come by. Even those cushy government jobs sometimes offered as a Biglaw equivalent are, as of last week, slightly less appealing. Well, fear not; the small law firm renaissance is here!
A recent article in Lawyers Weekly suggests that small towns are losing their lawyers faster than they’re being replaced. The article discusses small-town Canada, but based on this report from the WSJ Law Blog (which I previously mentioned here), as well as what I’ve heard from my sources, this observation is also true in the States.
The author seems hopeful that we are on the verge of a “renaissance in small-town lawyering,” and in support he offers a revised look at six of the traditional reasons why graduates and young lawyers often avoid smaller communities. Let’s see if he’s right…
Last week, we reported that Boston University School of Law was warning job seekers not to read (or link to) WikiLeaks if they want to get a government job. The government still regards the documents as classified, and so somehow if you link to them (say on Facebook), you might fail a to get the security clearance needed for some government jobs.
No really, the “classified” documents are now publicly available, and the government won’t even acknowledge that the documents exist, but linking to them can get you dinged from a job (during a terrible job market to boot)? Is George Orwell running the State Department?
(Ed. note: For the safety of our readers, there are no links to WikiLeaks in this post.)
Apparently, common sense is not something the federal government is working with these days, and so the warning against Wikileaks has gone out to various government agencies, and even Columbia University…
UPDATE (10:55 AM): We’ve also added, after the jump, an email about WikiLeaks that went out to employees of the Department of Commerce last week.
If we all try really hard, maybe we can get 2L interviewing season to start immediately after 1L finals.
For the second time in three years, Harvard Law School has decided to start it’s early interviewing program (EIP) earlier in the year. But this time they’ve also decided to push back the start of fall classes. The net effect will be that HLS 2Ls will be able to show up on campus in the middle of the summer, interview and have their callback before their classes start.
So this is really an admission from HLS that the old rule that firms would “hold open” a number of summer spots for HLS students is no longer true…
As if law students did have enough to worry about when trying to get jobs, career services at Boston University School of Law has pointed out another potential pitfall that may terrify its students. According to BU, merely reading the WikiLeaks documents could prevent you from getting the security clearances necessary to get certain government jobs.
It sounds crazy. I’m talking “BU career services has been watching too many Oliver Stone movies” crazy. Basically, I don’t think the federal government is even competent enough to find all the Wikileaks readers and blacklist them from the federal payroll. I mean, if the FBI or CIA or whatever really was the kind of omnipresent force idealized in movies, tell me how Julian Assange is still alive, much less in a position to publish thousands of confidential documents.
But if you listen to BU, it sounds like reading Wikileaks is a risk that already desperate 2Ls shouldn’t take….
Ed. Note: Will the Lost Generation ever find its way back into Biglaw? This new column is written by a member of the Lost Generation who initially was thrown off of the Biglaw bandwagon but was able to get back on, and is now trying to hang on to his Biglaw second chance.
By the second semester of my 3L year, I began to realize that my whining about graduating law school unemployed was no longer an overly dramatic response to having been no-offered. It had become a legitimate concern.
For the first few weeks of the first semester, I dreamt of finding another Biglaw job somewhere in the country. As the rejection letters rolled in, I began to embrace the idea of practicing in the public sector. I imagined prosecuting violent criminals for assault or defending drug-users for minor misdemeanors. I managed to snag a couple of interviews through the meager offerings of 3L O.C.I. But, I stood no chance against my classmates who had been committed to a side of the criminal “v” since 1L year. Also, there was a glaring white space on my resume where it should have read “offer received.” Instead, it read, “I’m here because the high-paying legal employer that just reviewed over ten weeks of my work didn’t want me, and now I’m screwed and desperate.”
The other candidates had PILC and PILF all over their resumes . . . in bold. I, on the other hand, had never even been to that damn auction everyone kept talking about. Even if I could have competed for those jobs, I knew that I was undeserving as compared to many of my hard-working peers who had committed to being A.D.A.s or public defenders from the beginning of law school. Don’t get me wrong, though. If given the chance, I would have taken one of the jobs immediately…
Congratulations to successful applicants to the U.S. Department of Justice’s prestigious and highly selective Honors Program. As noted on the program’s website, the DOJ Honors Program “is the only way that the Department hires entry-level attorneys.” (Otherwise you have to clerk or practice elsewhere first — as I did, before joining the DOJ as an AUSA.)
Offers for the Honors Program have actually been going out for a little while now. We first heard of offers being issued a little over a week ago, around November 12. In the past few days, though, we’ve been getting many more reports. And according to the list of key dates on the program website, now is the time for offers to be issued.
So, which divisions — or “hiring components,” in DOJ speak — are making offers?
Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: [email protected].
Since late last year, things have been booming in Hong Kong / China in cap markets, especially Hong Kong IPOs. M&A deal flow has recently been getting a bit stronger as well. Although one can’t predict such things with any certainty, all signs are pointing to a banner entire 2014 for the top end US corporate and cap markets practices in Hong Kong / China. This is not really new news, as its been the feeling most in the market have had for a few months now and things continue to look good.
The head of our Asia practice, Evan Jowers, has been in Hong Kong for about 10 days a month (with trips every other month to both Shanghai and Bejing) for the past 7 months (Robert Kinney and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong again March 15 to 23), and spending most of his time there meeting with senior US hiring partners at just about all the major US and UK firms there, as well as prospective candidates at all associate levels and partner levels, and when in the US, Evan works Asia hours and is regularly on the phone with such persons, as our the other members of our Asia team. Our Yuliya Vinokurova is in Hong Kong every other month and Robert is there about 5 times a year as well. While we have a solid Asia team of recruiters, Evan Jowers will spend at least some time with all of our candidates for Asia position. We have had long standing relationships, and good friendships in some cases, with hiring partners and other senior US partners in Asia for 8 years now.
Register today for the LGBT Bar’s Meet the Power Brokers: Financial Regulators event, held on Thursday, March 13 from 4:00 – 7:30pm. The event is specifically geared towards financial regulation and features an educational workshop and networking reception. Topics discussed will include the role of financial regulators, new rules and regulations related to the Dodd-Frank Act and developments in nation and international capital market regulation.
A reception will follow the workshop, allowing financial professionals to network and build relationships with individuals practicing in similar areas. The workshop will be streamed live via webinar for those individuals who are unable to attend the event in DC. For more information and to register, visit LGBTBar.org or contact Liz Youngblood at (202) 637-7661 or [email protected].
LeGaL, the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York, would like to cordially invite you to the 2014 Annual Dinner of the LeGaL Foundation on Thursday, March 20, 2014 at Capitale. We are incredibly excited for our event this year as LeGaL celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the bar association and the twentieth anniversary of the foundation (30/20 Celebration).
LeGaL, the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York, would like to cordially invite you to the 2014 Annual Dinner of the LeGaL Foundation on Thursday, March 20, 2014 at Capitale. We are incredibly excited for our event this year as LeGaL celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the bar association and the twentieth anniversary of the foundation (30/20 Celebration).
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today!
So lawyers, if you’ve recently been laid off or have been out of school for over a year without a job, it’s probably time to look at your résumé and take out any reference to the fact that you’re, you know, “dynamic.”
