Opportunities often present themselves when we aren’t looking and when we least anticipate them. It’s important not wait until you’re laid off or financially impacted to consider thinking about your next move and having your career portfolio prepared. You don’t want to be forced to react out of fear, rather than proactively though affirmative and conscious action.
Whether your next legal job comes by way of a recruiter randomly approaching you on LinkedIn about an exciting opportunity, or you see an interesting position land in your inbox from the weekly jobs posted on goinhouse.com, you will want to ensure you’re prepared in every way possible. Below are things to add to your to-do-list for your career arsenal, even if you aren’t actively in job search mode.
Update Your Resume And LinkedIn Profile
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It goes without saying that your legal resume and LinkedIn profile should always be updated and ready to go. However, it’s important to note that writing your resume is a daunting process. You’re introspectively looking at your own career path from a subjective standpoint. While no one knows your career better than you do, drawing out that information and positioning it in a marketable, objective way, is challenging. The job search landscape has changed drastically, and the traditional way of writing a legal resume has also changed.
While I always recommend partnering with a trained and certified legal resume writer who is a former practicing attorney that knows the ins and outs of the profession as well as the proper strategies and current trends for crafting a legal resume (there are a few of us out there), you may wish to also consider hiring a certified career coach to help you understand and acknowledge your best skills and assets so you can market them in a more strategic way.
Review Past Performance Evaluations
For lawyers who may not have updated their resume in a long time, your past performance evaluations are a great place to start. There is often good fodder for your resume within the performance evaluation as it will discuss large-scale projects or major transactions you’ve worked on, areas where you’ve excelled, and areas you need to improve upon. It will include a mix of your own insights as well as your managing attorney’s insights about your work product and skill sets — marrying the subjective with the objective viewpoints.
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Make A Deal Sheet
Another place to gather and provide insights about your legal career is to create a deal sheet, which is a list of major engagements and transactions that explain impact on the company or firm. If you work in Biglaw, your firm may already have a snapshot of your key transactions and select representative engagements on the website right at the bottom of your bio. However, if you haven’t sat down to create a deal sheet, here is how to quickly set it up: list the legal issue, the area of law the transaction focused on, the parties to the transaction (you will remove client names and fill them in with a general description such as “represented Fortune 500 technology enterprise”), and the outcome. Ideally, you will want a blurb of one to two sentences about the project or transaction to provide context to the reader. Pick three to five of the biggest transactions to highlight in your resume.
Speak To Your References
References are still an important part of the hiring process. Make a personal list of four or five references and begin asking them questions about what you did well, projects they provided supervision over, and examples from your time together where you shined in your work and leadership. Again, the goal should not be just to have a name. You want them to be able to provide context about a major transaction or project that will be a talking point in your resume and the interview.
Preparing your career toolkit and keeping it relevant and updated is key. Have a career-related question? Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Wendi Weiner is an attorney, career expert, and founder of The Writing Guru, an award-winning executive resume writing services company. Wendi creates powerful career and personal brands for attorneys, executives, and C-suite/Board leaders for their job search and digital footprint. She also writes for major publications about alternative careers for lawyers, personal branding, LinkedIn storytelling, career strategy, and the job search process. You can reach her by email at [email protected], connect with her on LinkedIn, and follow her on Twitter @thewritingguru.