Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.
I had forgotten how important it is to focus and to persevere when you are on a job search. Some people pick out a group of law firms, companies, or government organizations where they think they could put their talents and experience to best use, and target them exclusively in their job search plan. If you are doing a more expedient approach and are answering want ads, you still have to develop and stay with your plan. Once you have set up your plan, whatever it is, you have to work it in a disciplined and persistent manner.
The benefit of narrowing down the list of places where you want to work is that you can conduct more thorough research about the respective organization and make contacts that will eventually get you in the door. Once you do get an interview, you will be more knowledgeable about the organization and its values and will be able to speak convincingly about why you want to work there.
At one time I identified a particular company I thought would be the very best place to work, to apply and grow my skills. A mutual friend arranged an introduction to one of the vice presidents of the company. The executive told me that I could contact her about possible positions there, even though they had no appropriate job open at the time.
I sent in my resume, letter and work sample. For the next 18 months I called her intermittently, often being able to talk only to her assistant and gatekeeper, Dottie. Dottie became a good friend over the telephone. I was always careful to be polite and very sensitive to her time pressures. She was kind and professional, but as we got to know each other we discussed many things, her work, my work, our families and what her boss was working on.
After a year and a half, one day Dottie put me through to the executive I had been contacting. She gave me wonderful news. Come in to talk about working with her, not necessarily in a permanent position, but for a special assignment, I assumed to test my abilities.
Soon I was given that special assignment to work on. The project involved a reworking of the organizational structure. No headcount had been allocated for the project and the re-structuring was not popular with the people working there but it had a huge span of contacts, as it required coordination among several key executives and divisions.
Following the implementation of the project, I was hired on a permanent basis and went on to have a very long and successful run at that Fortune 500 company. Dottie and I stayed friends, talking occasionally. To this day I believe I owe that great career job to her patience, luck and my persistence.
Attorneys in Transition Event on May 8, 2009
