Monthly Archives: October 2009

Sandra J. Bishop, president of Executive Solutions, is an executive coach and career strategist.

For my next blog, I decided to shift  gears and take you back to basics.  I didn’t have the opportunity to do this initially because my piece on interviewing was duplicated from an event I participated in for “Attorneys in Transition.”

For me, the place to start is a good understanding of the resume.  A resume is simply a brief, descriptive summary of your career-related life experiences, expertise, and accomplishments.  There are two types of resumes to choose from:  The reverse-chronological resume and the functional resume.

This will be part one of a two-part series on resumes.

The reverse chronological resume is the most popular type used today.  A reverse chronological resume summarizes a potential candidate’s professional experience in reverse chronological order, generally covering the last 10 years.  They are most effective when past work experiences are similar to the current career preference and search.

In using this format, please begin with a robust and articulate career summary.  This kind of summary should run no longer than 100 words and must describe your industry, experience, expertise, personal strengths, any distinctive qualities, and education.  Use this opportunity to excite the reader, encouraging him/her to read further  to get to know you better.  A career summary might look like this:

“Articulate, highly ethical, and persuasive attorney with 20-plus years experience in corporate/international banking law serving the financial services industry globally.  A unique combination of high-tech training and experience in international business and transactional legal experience in more than 25 countries.  A persuasive individual possesses strong negotiating skills, oral and written communication skills, as well as I.T. and telecommunications experience.  A history of successfully reducing legal expenses, including the use of appropriate insurance and risk-management measures.  Demonstrated experience in managing outside counsel in litigation matters in hundreds of cases.  Resourceful with the ability to assess all issues to adequately protect clients and complete projects producing professional results while adhering to rigid deadlines. Fluent in Spanish and French.”

The main body of the document is the professional experience section.  This section should be formatted as follows:

• Begin with your current or most recent position.  Your title, company, address, and dates of employment (in margin)

• List core responsibilities.  These are the responsibilities you were hired to perform.  Always detail in the present tense.

• Accomplishments.  Should play off the core responsibilities using the past tense.  Always quantify using a $, %, or #.  A slick approach is to use the words “resulted in …” after the initial statement and before the quantity expressed.

There is a great temptation to list every job ad nauseam all the way back to high school.  Please don’t do that.  No one cares how successful you were as a lifeguard at summer camp or a waitress in college.  Instead, go back and detail only 10 years.  Beyond 10 years, simply list the position title, company, address and dates of employment.  Underline this and do not indicate core responsibilities or accomplishments.

Contrary to what most people think, unless you are a new graduate, detail your educational credentials at the end of the resume.  Please do not share your grade-point average.   Again, no one cares.  Unless of course, you graduated cum laude from  Harvard, Yale, USC, etc … you get my point, right?

Finally, you can end by listing any significant professional associations, all legal licenses, and military service.  Do not list seminar or conference attendance.

A few more things:

• No reference to age, marital status, gender, race, or health.

• NEVER include a picture of yourself.

• No fraternity listings.

See you next week!

Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.

Things are not getting any easier for lawyers in transition.  For those looking for work, the news is continues to be disheartening.  While we are not seeing the mass layoffs of a few months ago, there is an insidious trickle of layoffs, 10 or 12 associates here, five or six associates there.  For those contemplating a solo practice, the idea of finding paying clients is a source of anxiety.

Simultaneously, many people are considering a legal career and are applying to law schools, according to some sources, in unprecedented numbers.  Unfazed by the number of lawyers out of work, aspiring attorneys are studying to take LSATs, signing up for the test, lining up financial aid and in general actively starting down the road to becoming lawyers.

All of us practicing attorneys come across these people in our daily lives.  These would-be lawyers ask us for advice.  So, what would you say to these people?

I was curious about this phenomenon and so I have been conducting an informal poll among my colleagues.  And the results of my poll are both surprising and surprisingly consistent.

Almost unanimously, the lawyers I asked answered with a resounding, “Yes, law school is a great idea!” I know, you are shocked, so was I.  I expected some positive responses, but I also expected just as many lawyers to exclaim,  “Are you crazy, have you read the news lately?”

Those I asked did have qualifications to their affirmative answers, but their positive attitude reaffirmed my profound love of the profession and my steadfast belief that I picked the right career, in spite of the current circumstances.

This group of lawyers, all hit hard by the financial downturn, were still extremely committed to our profession, still love the law and wouldn’t do anything differently regarding their careers.  The economy will rebound at some point, we will all still be lawyers and will emerge out of this downturn to continue our work.  I am not sure there are many other professions where you would get the same response.

One more thought.  I think the current economic difficulties are making people more sympathetic toward lawyers.  A person I met at a fundraiser told me that she doesn’t hate lawyers so much any more in view of what they are going through in this economy.  Additionally, she found a lawyer that did wonderful work for her and she is now a fan.

And, finally, I realized that I have not heard a single lawyer joke in the last year, have you?  Now, that’s progress.

Sandra J. Bishop, president of Executive Solutions, is an executive coach and career strategist. She will periodically answer questions that can help lawyers get that next position.

The bottom line:  It’s all about full-contact networking!

• Never fail to get into the office of anyone who  is mentioned to you.

• Never depart with less than three new names.

• Never leave follow-up solely in the hands of the person you just saw.  Always keep the ball in your court!

• Remember, never try to reschedule a repeat performance with this networking contact — unless one of his or her leads pans out and you would benefit from this person’s continued guidance.

• When the dust settles and you have your great job as a result of this person’s referral, let’s just say more than a thank-you note is required.

Should I work with a recruiter?

Why not?  We already know that you are better off getting to the employer or law firm on your own, but if you haven’t landed a job yet, I encourage you to work with anyone who will extend the hand of friendship to you.  It is extremely important to understand that as a job candidate, you NEVER pay a fee for anyone to get you a job.  All fees are the responsibility of the hiring organization.

If you get far enough into the process with a  recruiter, you must in good conscience pursue every opportunity only through the recruiter who introduced you to the professional opportunity.  If you try to go around the recruiter, you risk falling out of favor with the prospective employer.  Why?  It is because you didn’t respect this process.  If you are willing to disrespect this process, the employer may project that you would be willing to disrespect processes within the organization or partnership.

If a recruiter calls you with an opportunity and you are not interested, the polite response is, “No, thank you. I would prefer to find my own opportunities.”  Realize that recruiters will call you with an opportunity without revealing the name of the corporation or partnership until you are scheduled for an interview.  So if you decline to work with a recruiter, you may never know who he or she was a recruiter for.

To help you understand the  types of recruiters out there, I offer the following:

Internal recruiters

Internal recruiters are members within a company or firm who typically work in human resources. They are multi-functional serving in an HR general role — negotiating, hiring, recruiting or in a specific role of recruiting.  They tend to be either permanent employees or hired contractors.

Executive search recruiters

Retained search

High-end executive search firms get a retainer (up-front fee) to perform a specific search for a company officer or other senior executive position. Typically, retained searches tend to be for positions that pay upward of $100,000 and often far more.
Retained recruiters work for the organizations that  are their clients, not for job candidates seeking employment.

Delimited search

An additional aspect of the executive search is the delimited search, which is similar to the retained search, although there are distinct differences.

Like retainer firms, delimited search firms expect an initial fee before engagement of the search.  However, delimited search contracts require a date set forth by both parties for when the project must be completed, or the fee is refunded.  This is becoming a popular tool today.

Victor P. Henderson will discuss his legal career and the lessons he’s learned along the way at our Oct. 28 event.

He is the executive partner in charge of the Chicago office at Holland & Knight and a partner in the firm’s litigation department. He took some time to answer a few of our questions.

What will you be discussing at the event?

That Chicago is a great town for lawyers whether they want to practice law or not.

What do you hope people get out of your portion of the event?

That now is a good time to be looking for a job and that the right job is out there.  Plus, use this opportunity to search for your dream job.

What is the biggest piece of advice for those attorneys going through a career transition?

Be optimistic.  Persevere.  Be patient and pray.

How can lawyers best position themselves to find their next job?

Networking.

Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.

When I had my law office in Waukegan, most of my clients lived or worked in the Lake County area.  My communication with them was usually through office visits, by snail mail  or by phone.  I could easily control what was said and, more importantly, what was recorded for posterity.

About half of my clients used e-mail, but no serious legal discussions were communicated via electronic mail.

The practice of law has changed drastically in the last 10 years.  I was surprised to learn that a majority (70 to  80 percent) of new clients look online first when they need a lawyer. Through websites, blogs and professional networking sites like LinkedIn, lawyers can vastly expand their marketing and networking reach.

It is all pretty intimidating to me, not from the standpoint of the technology, because I have always been a technology lover and, for an untrained user, not bad at it, but from the “things-that- you-write-may-stay-there-forever” standpoint.

Many years later, I still feel uncomfortable when I think about a letter I wrote a friend when I was angry at her for choosing other friends over me. If I had posted that letter on Facebook or another social networking site, it might still be there to haunt me. As it is, that letter only stands out in my own mind as a specter of my poor judgment.  I am sure my friend threw it away years ago.

The scary thing is that it is difficult sometimes to separate our professional and our personal lives, because ultimately we have little control over what happens online.  An online presence can provide name recognition, establish your brand and expand your network of contacts with clients and colleagues — wonderful things in themselves.  But I keep thinking about that letter I wrote a long time ago.  I am glad that it didn’t get on Facebook for all the world to see, and that it only lives on in my memory.  I know of attorneys who have gotten into serious difficulties because of using the Internet to increase exposure and communication.

As lawyers, when we use the Internet we have to ask ourselves whether any of the ways we are using such communications can get us in trouble.

When what we wrote was on paper, there was more time to deliberate over wording and to make sure that what we were communicating was appropriate.  Now things move very quickly and Internet communication is much less formal, so the potential for serious error is much greater. And if such an error occurs, usually you can’t take it back.

Legal recruiter Tamara S. Klein will be one of our speakers at our Oct. 28 event. She took some time to answer a few of our questions.

1. What will you be discussing at the event?

I will be talking about finding jobs.  How to make a resume stand out, how to search for jobs that aren’t posted on traditional websites, how to network, and how to interview.

2. What do you hope people get out of your portion of the event?

I hope people will understand that there ARE jobs out there; they just need to know how to get them.

3. What is the biggest piece of advice for those attorneys going through a career transition?

The biggest piece of advice I can give is this:  Every “death” is a birth.  People need to take this time to determine if they are truly doing what they really want to do, and not just what they’re supposed to do.  Oh, and never trust a headhunter — except for me, of course.  Headhunters are DEATH to associates in this economic climate.

4. What practice areas are hot right now for finding a job?

Partners with business are always in demand.  For associates, the hottest areas are intellectual property, ERISA, and bankruptcy.  But things are changing — litigation is picking back up again.

5. What is the biggest challenge facing unemployed lawyers today?

The biggest challenge facing unemployed lawyers is the sheer plethora of them.  They need to learn how to stand out from the pack — and how to look in unlikely places for jobs.

6. How can lawyers best position themselves to find their next job?

Lawyers need to have an outstanding resume (or resumes) ready to go, their transcripts (no matter how long they’ve been out of school), and the skills to interview well.

Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.

Last week I wrote about the need to communicate in person as well as online through social sites. Personal communication is also a good thing in the workplace.

In a few places I have worked, people do not talk to each other.  There’s a “cool” thing going on, where some people ignore co-workers they see every day, walk past them in the hall and don’t bat an eye or say a “good day.”   What is particularly confusing is in some cases, these same employers have provided monetary rewards in the form of pay raises or bonuses at year end.  All you can do if you find yourself in an environment like this is to focus on doing the best job possible while at this firm, but look to make a move.

But what is the “cool” treatment issue about? I do not understand that behavior.  I know you don’t build successful teams by ignoring people and making them feel less valued than a fly on the wall.  Watch for this kind of behavior if you are interviewing so you don’t go to work for a company that has this type of culture.

Study after study has shown that the most powerful motivational force in the workplace is  feeling that you are valued and that successful organizations foster that feeling in their employees or associates.  People actually value their self-esteem at work above their level of compensation.  We all need and deserve to have our presence and our contributions recognized.

If you recognize these tendencies in your own behavior, shake it off, and say “hello,” or “how are you?”  You are not divulging state secrets. The people you say hello to are not likely to begin stalking you, and incredibly, you might make a new friend.  And friends are what we all need.

If you are a boss, take care how you communicate with your subordinates.  Your behavior will be emulated and will set the tone for your entire organization.  You can create an atmosphere of good will and collaboration or a little hell of resentment where your employees will throw you under the bus at the first opportunity.

Networking is not only about meeting people at a function and exchanging business cards, it is about getting to know people, even those you work with, and helping them reach their goals and having them help you achieve yours.

As attorneys our “person” is very important. Our “person” is our product.  People hire lawyers they feel they know and feel positive about.  This holds true whether you are working for yourself, or for a firm, or are transitioning in some way.  How you communicate with people isn’t only about what you say, but it will also determine how people feel about you.

Sandra J. Bishop, president of Executive Solutions, is an executive coach and career strategist. She will periodically answer questions that can help lawyers get that next position.

How many jobs are attained through networking sources versus internet/media advertisements?

Before the economy went into a slump last fall, for a number of years the prevailing wisdom suggested that 80 percent of the jobs obtained were through people that you knew.  Currently, that percentage has gone up to 90 percent.

Remember, it’s not what you know, but who you know.

Here are some networking tips:

— Sit down and write a list of all potential networking contacts, from your place of business, club, church, gym, neighbors, child’s PTA, etc.  You will be happily surprised by how easy it is to get your list up to 100.

— I encourage you to network in person.

— Make sure that your crisp resume (which should be no more than two pages) is sent via e-mail to the networking person before you meet with him or her.

— Many people think that the point of networking is to ask the person in question to give you a job or direct you to a job.  I submit that is not always the case.  I think that a more effective way is to make it clear  that you are coming to them to review your resume and seek guidance.  Here, once again, humility and candor are the order of the day.

— I suggest you purchase business cards with your name, area of expertise, and all contact information.  Also, a box of monogrammed stationery to be used as thank-you notes.

— When you request time, suggest you will take no more than 30 minutes of their time.  Also make it clear that you will not be coming back to them with your hat in your hand.  Consider this networking meeting as a one-time shot.

— Show up looking professional, energetic, and willing/able to listen to the guidance you receive.  Let’s not forget they are doing you a favor.

— When you conclude the meeting, it is okay to say, “Moving forward, if you meet or know of someone who may benefit from my services, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

— As soon as you get home, take a few moments to write a handwritten thank-you note (yes, I said handwritten) to the person you just met, enclosing a business card.

It’s all about full-contact networking!

— Never fail to get into the office of anyone that  is mentioned to you.

— Never depart with less than three new names.

— Never leave follow-up solely in the hands of the person you just saw.  Always keep the ball in your court!

— And remember, never try to reschedule a repeat performance with this networking contact.  Unless one of his or her leads pans out and you would benefit from this person’s continued guidance.

— When the dust settles and you have your great job as a result of this person’s referral, let’s just say more than a thank-you note is required.

Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.

It is a wonderful thing when you get vindication for an opinion that seems to be the minority opinion.  The topic of last week’s blog post was the contradiction that exists in our communications, where we have numerous electronic communication means available but little real communication  among people. The same week a  widely read daily publication sponsored a celebration, a “tweetup” for people who use the social media to meet in person!

At the same time, I read about a writer who had set out to investigate whether sitting at Starbucks actually fosters “community,” which would be a reasonable assumption given all the people who frequent the coffee shops on a regular basis and have the opportunity to meet each other and form such a community. He found that no such communities had formed.

It is hard to know what to make of these  stories.  Twitter, one of the most-used social networking sites, actually reverts to face-to-face contact.  Starbucks creates an environment that should be a prime community-building “site” but apparently fails to fill that role.

Ultimately, what I get out of this is that we have to be ever vigilant about our humanity and that includes talking to each other, either face-to-face or through electronic media which allows for personal communication.

It also includes prospective employers treating interviewees with simple respect, like letting them know where they stand in a timely manner. I cannot come up with a single reason why they can’t do that,  considering the numerous, hassle-free communications available to all of us.

I understand  employers are busy and that they receive  hundreds of resumes for each opening, and I wouldn’t expect them to respond to every resume submission.  In fact,  job applicants should take the time to follow up on their own resume submissions. (I have not had much success doing that, precisely because employers are so overwhelmed with applications nowadays.)

But I do recall that once, when I was hiring more than 60 people for a corporate relocation, an applicant called me to follow up on her resume submission. I actually found her resume in the piles on my desk, and she got an interview. Had she not called, her resume might have been lost in the shuffle.

But I digress. My point is that if someone shows up for an interview, with all the time and preparation that takes, not to mention the anxiety and expectations, they at least deserve a response, no?

Sandra J. Bishop, president of Executive Solutions, is an executive coach and career strategist. She will periodically answer questions that can help lawyers get that next position.

What can I do to initially impress the interviewer?

Dress professionally.  For men, this means a suit and a tie, polished pair of shoes, fresh haircut, cleanly shaven and a ring and watch only.  For women:  suit — preferably with a white blouse, skirt length at least to the knee, neutral hose, and polished pumps with no more than 2- to 3-inch heels.  Your makeup should be modest with a professional haircut.  Pearl earrings/necklace will round off your attire.  You of course may wear a ring and watch.

You can walk in and immediately set the tone.  How?  Be positive, gracious, and project a good energy.  We know the interviewer is in charge, but … you are in control.

Most people judge a book by its cover.  Right or wrong, human nature directs us to make initial or snap judgments.  Remember, first impressions are important.  “You never have a second chance to make a first impression.”

No fish handshakes — ladies or gentlemen!  Firm handshakes always.  Look the interviewer in the eye, and maintain good eye contact throughout the interview.  Do not take a seat until directed to do so.  If you have a choice, choose to sit in a straight chair at a table, but not on a sofa; the temptation is to fall into a casual manner.  Your demeanor must be professional.

These may seem incidental, and perhaps obvious in nature, but it is amazing how many professionals do not plug into these behaviors or attire, and instead exercise a laissez-faire approach.

Everyone says you should have a two-minute commercial prepared for an interview.  What do you think?

I think it’s an excellent idea. Because you are being assessed both personally and professionally, be prepared to tell a brief story about who and what you are all about.  Begin with sharing a bit about where you were born, childhood, family, college, and career highlights with emphasis on the industry profession and positions that particularly describe your successful climb up the corporate latter.  Cite noteworthy examples of accomplishments, promotions and high-level project assignments.

Please note, if there are other notable pieces of information, you can easily work them into the remainder of the interview.

How do I respond when I am asked why I lost my job?

Be truthful about why you left your last job.  Let’s face it, in today’s market, most professionals who have lost their jobs have done so because of work-force reduction (RIF), mergers/acquisitions, or, sadly, because companies have closed their doors.  I always tell my clients:  These days, nobody cares.  Honest!