01.25 - Resume Review
[00:00:00] This is gonna be a fun webinar today. What we're going to do is we're going to start off with just a short presentation, cause these are a lot of things that we'll talk about during a webinar with, when we start doing resume reviews and then we'll review resumes.
If you haven't sent your resume yet, we'll try to review it today. Sometimes these can go fairly long when we review resumes, but I'll try to review everybody's resume that's on the call. And then Michael from my office should be putting his contact information in the in the chat.
And then you can email him your resume and then he'll change the identifying information. So no one knows who you are, but this is a fun webinar. And I think it should be very valuable in terms of the information, how you guys get today and girls about things on your resume.
Resumes are very important. And, I've been looking at resumes every day for I don't know, two more than two decades. And with a resume, what you're doing is a lot of times people don't really understand the value of a resume and why it's important.
And, just to give you some insight, when I first started doing resumes myself, when [00:01:00] I was in law school I would list all my accomplishments and everything I'd done. Like I was some sort of big deal and stuff. And, literally, even the smallest accomplishment and that's really not what people want to see.
People when they're reviewing you many times and my resume, by the way, it was over the top, it talked about, just ridiculous stuff that was, had no place there. But, anyway, so the but the point is that, the only thing your resume. As the needs to communicate is that you're really the most ready and the most capable of doing a job.
And employers really want you to come in. They want you to fit in and they want you to work a lot of hours, especially in the legal profession. Law firms, in-house companies and so forth can hire a lots of people for every job, but the person that they really want to hire the person that will do the work and will not create problems within the employer.
And they want soldiers, when you're an associate for one and most employers want one form of soldier or another, but even partners are soldiers, but a soldier means someone that's able to follow orders tow the party line and do things on [00:02:00] behalf of the group.
That's very important to understand because a lot of times people get into good law schools. They they can get into very good colleges by excelling individually. That means getting good grades and good test scores or being a good tennis player or athlete, or having other skills that aren't necessarily team skills. And, when you get into the employment world really what things are about having team skills and being able to follow orders can and get into a position where where you're doing things on behalf of the group, but not necessarily your own interest. And so I'm going to talk a lot today when we start reviewing resumes, I'm sure there'll be a lot of examples, but anytime you show that it could be difficult for you to be managed, meaning you show all these sort of outside interest are very well-defined beliefs about something that could inhibit your ability to follow orders.
Those are things that can distract law firms from some hiring you when you're applying to a law firm, your record really for the most part is speaking for itself and you have to look the part. If you went to a [00:03:00] very good law school like Stanford, for example, and our second year law attorney in the corporate department and mayor brown, that's really all the employer needs to see.
They're not really that concerned about all the other stuff you may have done. And as a matter of fact, it's very interesting. The resumes, a lot of times you get the most traction, have the least on them. They'll just say, the person went to this top law school in college, and then they worked at this top firm and they don't provide a lot of detailed because everybody knows what it means.
The more information you start putting on there and trying to tell people things like my school's ranked number four in the country for environmental law or whatever, it starts making you look weak. And we'll talk more about that. And the same thing, as, if you go to university Chicago law school and you spend eight years of Kirkland Ellis at the very impressive, obviously.
And everyone knows what these things mean. When you're a law student looking for a job or a practicing attorney. Now, these are things, your law school, your practice area, your when you're a law student your grades and your law school and college and things speak for themselves.
And there's really not [00:04:00] much you can do to beat yourself up and look better. There's only a lot of stuff you can do to hurt yourself. I'll talk a lot about that. But for the most part, if you're applying to large firms that's what's going on and smaller firms to a different degree and really what your resume is more than anything, is an opportunity to mess up. So just think the more you say the more problems you can get into. The more you say many times, the more it looks like, you're making everything about you. The more you say, it can create a ton of problems. And the most important thing that really law firms want is they want to know if you can do the job, which is your education and your experience, which experience is huge.
Your education matters really the first year you're out of school. And then your experience is what starts taking over and mattering more and more every year you'd go by, but they want to know about your your experience and then your education and whether or not you can do the job.
The second thing is whether or not you can do the job and whether or not you can do the job, it means if your resume shows [00:05:00] consistency. And so forth and that it looks like you're going to be able to do the job and you'll stick with it.
They want to say that your can be managed, which means that it looks like you're the sort of person that would follow orders. And also whether or not you'll do the job term, which means will you stick around at the position and can you put your head down and work? Those are important things. And it's interesting too, like we have on BCG, we have personality tests and those personality tests can tell you a little bit about what type of person you are.
But the world really is divided up into two types of people. There's other types of tests it's called the disc profile on BCG. There's other types of personality tests out there, but what a lot of those tests say is they say that there's, there's people that, specialize in their whole thing is breaking rules and challenging authority and convention.
And then there's people that are very good at following rules and doing things and like the structure. And so law firms really for the most part, are looking for people in the junior level, at least in the mid level that can [00:06:00] follow structure and orders. And aren't trying to always break rules and so forth that skill by the way, can come in very useful in litigation and so forth.
But at the same time that's the model and the type of people are looking for. The biggest thing to understand is the more you stick out and the more you look like, you're not part of the tribe of what a law firm is expecting. The more harm you'll do yourself and because most law firms experienced sort of people can be problems.
If you need a lot of praise then it's likely that you'll leave. If you don't get what you want you may undermine morale. The firm doesn't seem to advance you fast enough. If you may undermine their morale, if you seek unnecessary attention. That's a problem.
And most people that try to stick out and have all this stuff on the resume that talks about their mass achievements and so forth. A lot of times it can ends up coming back to get them and they end up many times not getting from getting positions. Let the idea of selflessness kind of just come through and what I'm talking about.
You need to let partners senior associates and [00:07:00] others take credit for work and you need to put in a lot of time showing you're very good at following orders and learning and anticipating people's needs and making it about others before you succeed. And if you don't look like that on paper, it can hurt you.
You need to be seen as someone that can commit to a team and not just your own self-interest you need to be motivated to work hard even when there's not going to be immediate benefit. You need to be able to stay with a law firm when things are not doing well and there's trouble.
I hate to emphasize this, but this is the biggest thing. That really gets people in trouble when they're applying to places especially, it's an ego thing. There's just, I don't know, there's a whole bunch of ways to describe it, but. If your resume gives any indication to a law firm that you're not a soldier you're probably not going to look good and have a difficult time getting hired.
It's all about the employer. And so you need to make everything about the employer the same time. You need to look very strong, which we'll talk about how to do that. But a lot of resumes are just exactly the opposite of what they should be. And and [00:08:00] miss the point they don't get hired.
So when you'll start seeing that, I'm sure when we look at resumes today and and you'll see the mistakes people are making and so small mistakes these are the kinds of the, these are the six big mistakes that people make that you should try to get off your resume if you've turned it in to be reviewed today.
We'll talk about it, but the big one is obviously w that is the first one is just too many programs to then go back. I don't know why I'm having a hard time in this webinar. The first one is too many personal details. I don't know. I can't go back for some reason though.
I need someone to come in here. And the first one is too many personal details. So a lot of times people will put in, let me try to fix this now. Can you show me the scroll wheel? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now the first one is too many, and I'm not going to go into a ton of details about this, cause I want to review resumes with you guys, but the first one is too many personal details.
And what that means is listing political affiliations, listing religious affiliations in areas of the country where that might not go over well[00:09:00] in different groups, listing things to do with your preferred just, you have to be, very careful you want to be hired essentially on your merits.
Everyone's, talks about the importance of diversity. I've written books about it promoting diversity days. So I'm not against diversity, but a resume some resumes, you get them and they talk about how they're diverse at 15 times, and then at the same resume.
And and that shouldn't be, you should be promoting you can certainly, note that, but you should be promoting that in other places. I see resumes all the time where they talk about. You know how they were in this organization and then how they did all this non-profit work for this group while they were, they were practicing law, and they interned at the sort of place.
And so that can, really betray make the law firm think that's your priority in the same sense. I've seen people that are, it's interesting someone's like a corporate attorney sometimes the list that they were in, the entertainment law society and and law school, then they'll list that they represented a entertainment client and their corporate [00:10:00] experience, and then they'll list the, some entertainment internship or something did their first or second year of law school.
And and that person obviously it looks like they want to be an entertainment attorney, not a corporate attorney. And they, those kinds of people always become entertainment attorneys at some point, and they're never committed. So when you list too many personal details, it can hurt you. And you just have to be very careful, but I typically do not recommend on resumes talking about anything related to things that can make people uncomfortable.
So those things would be membership and, substance abuse groups sometimes it could be, political affiliations. I don't want to get too far into this because I don't want to offend anyone, but, obviously when you list that you're a member of the Federalist society and, staunch, Republican and so forth, and they're trying to apply for jobs from Los Angeles and New York, that's going to do some, that's really not gonna help you very much.
And then, at the same extreme, if you lists that you're a member of very different left wing groups [00:11:00] or, that, are a hardcore Republican, and you're trying to apply to jobs in the hood that hardcore Democrat, would be in the Heartland and, and that, that may not serve you well, too.
So you just have to realize that the more you list, this sort of stuff you're going to get yourself into trouble sometimes. And people will just not like you because of that. And that's really unfortunate. I remember just to, talk about the Heartland, but I remember one time I had my, by my my mom's second marriage, she married someone in rural or a rural Ohio.
And when I was in college, I brought my girlfriend who happened to be Jewish and and people couldn't believe it. They, they were in the middle of nowhere and back then didn't know anybody that I've been Jewish. It was, regard, which is, sounds ridiculous because probably, most of the people I knew were, but and that probably would not have gone over well, if that person, she was trying to get a job in that area back then.
And so you just have to be careful of listing all your personal details. You want to lead with your work because that's what people are hiring you for. They're hiring you if they like you. And they, so they certainly need to like you, but you don't, [00:12:00] you want all this stuff to come out later.
You don't want to lead with that. And if people think it's helping them, but it really isn't because it shows stuff that, that may, it can turn people off. Certain people are for the death penalty. Other people aren't for the death penalty, certain people are for abortion.
Other people are against abortion. So anytime you get into this stuff and your resume, you're automatically alienating like a group of people many times without knowing it. And and that's ridiculous. Why would you do that to yourself? You have to just be very careful. You have to, allow people to reach conclusions about you from your work experience and so forth and not for stuff.
So I just, again, I would be very careful about that. Many times, people will list. Extremely expensive addresses on their resume, where, you know every house has, five to $10 million or whatever, and that's a bad idea. You don't want to do that.
That, that makes people think you don't have to work. It just, all, there's all sorts of things. People reach conclusions about people. Any times based on the city they live in. So [00:13:00] in LA there's, cities where Orthodox Jews live there's are parts of the city there's studies where, you know, where, you know, people that are gala there's places where, you know, people that are hipsters that like to use drugs.
That, there's just all these different things. So people will reach conclusions about many times from that. So I often recommend leaving that stuff out and I'll talk more about that today, but anything that ranks of privilege and so forth is also often looked down. So sometimes people will write down that there are, they like polo.
It's things like that. You just need to be careful irrelevant work experience in education is often a big one. And I see that on resumes all the time. So if you look at your resume and your listing work that you did while you were in college, or before you became an attorney, you need to be very careful with that.
Most of the time it's irrelevant. It can also show you show if you're much older, many times, which is not something you need to worry too much about, but you should, worry about it. But many times people will list all these kinds of ridiculous [00:14:00] classes. I'm not going to be ridiculous, but the list on the resume that they took like a Dale Carnegie course, or they they took some continuing education classes and a business school and and so that's not really going to help you, especially if the topics not related to what you're doing Meyers are really expected to be one dimensional in the sense that they're focused on their jobs. And if you have time for that other stuff, people often will look down upon it. So listing a relevant work experience can hurt you how many times.
And you just need to be careful with that. You should look this is focused as you can. Now you can see. Progression something. But the problem is too, is when you're experience looks irrelevant then people that are interviewing, you will assume that you're you want to do something else.
An example would be someone that, majored in a complex science and then went to was was a scientist for 10 years. And then now wants to do I dunno something completely unrelated to it in a law firm, corporate law or something. That may not help you, so you need to be careful [00:15:00] people will do a lot of things with so just be careful about your work experience.
I'll, we'll talk about a bunch of examples today. I'm sure if when we start reviewing resumes also a lot of ridiculous formatting and content blocks can hurt you. So people, many times we'll use fancy colors. People will they'll put just, I don't know if we'll do big letters or small letters or, just things that don't look to detract from the message.
And those can hurt you. You there's in some countries they will send a pic, they'll send a picture and that, and, and which actually I think is people kind to see a LinkedIn profile sometimes on your resume, cause then they can click through and see your picture, but you don't need your picture.
Formatting and content is you just pretty much want to standardize things and look as normal as you possibly can because it looks more like, flash over substance when you start doing ridiculous format and things, not to say that a lot of times in the creative arts, like people applying for marketing jobs and things, we'll do things like that to get your attention, but in the legal profession it's [00:16:00] not that important inappropriate word, usage town mistakes with dates and so forth are a huge thing.
I just, I had an instance once where I was applying for a job and. It was at it was a place I ended up getting the job, but it was the graduation data. I think I put June and not may for law school. And my law school got out in may and I interviewed with someone and they knew that it granted that the graduation was in may and June.
And they were very offended with it and almost didn't hire me at the firm because of that. They thought it was a very sloppy mistake. I think that was a little extreme, but at the same time if you make mistakes with dates, if you're if your resume's too wordy, if you've make spacing issues, if the tone is off, if all those sorts of things can really do quite a bit of harm to you when you're applying for positions.
And so I recommend being as careful as you possibly can with that, when you're doing that, because you if you make mistakes with that sort of thing, it can definitely do a lot [00:17:00] of harm and word usage, using words that aren't common anytime the word choice in your resume should really be at more of something that a fifth grader can understand.
So you obviously want to make things very direct and short to the extent you can, and just be very careful with that. And then, exaggerations on your resume just that you need to be careful with that, because if if you, an example is if you're not really doing much, in your career and you're exaggerating things and then then you know, you're really not going to get ahead of it.
Would that, the thing with attorneys is attorneys are trained to, to see through arguments and and so they, they see they, they see through exaggerations and are just instinctually go for the juggler. And then if there's any type of line in your resume that can hurt you as well.
I don't understand why people lie on their resumes. I've had people actually changed the law school. They went to, I've seen all sorts of exciting things over the years, which I don't understand why [00:18:00] people do that, but you have to be very careful and exaggerations really aren't necessary.
One of the things too is I just want to bring this out to them. When you're applying for a job your, the best way to get a position is often to work in a to find a position that matches your skill set, that a lot of other people aren't applying to.
And so people believe that they need to exaggerate to get ahead, but in my opinion the best way to to get a position is really to to make sure that you're, you're the best applicant for the position, or you have skills that match what the employer is looking for. Most jobs, by the way, over 85% is the figure our jobs are filled with when there's no jobs open.
So if you're trying to stick out and so forth for a position that's an option, certainly. But exaggerating, it's not going to help you. You want to go someplace where your skills are going to be valued and where you're at the right place in the right time with the right people that like your skills.
And then the final one is just saying anything negative [00:19:00] about an employer. Anytime you do something like that or you talk negatively about an employer that can harm you quite a bit because employers will assume that you'll talk negatively about them. And, if someone's talking negatively about a law firm and it's been around over a hundred years and has a thousand employees, the law firms, probably not going anywhere and most law firms and employers are very similar.
So anytime you say anything negative about an employer on your resume and people do it all the time that's going to hurt you. So that's a quick presentation. But I'll just kinda let me see here, go over a couple of things real quickly. And then I may actually change computers.
So I, cause I have editing software and so forth. And I probably want to open that when I look at the resumes. But yeah, so my mom when after working for the government for two decades figured it wouldn't be long before she found out her position. She was bored and working in a a draft government office with I would say very unenthusiastic employees.
She was in a horrible job market, which was [00:20:00] outside Detroit, which was a, there was a bad recession at the time. And. She didn't have a lot of experience other than doing civil rights investigations, which is representing people that were discriminated against against employers and then teaching art history at a local university.
And so she was decided it was time to rework her resume. She believed the problem wasn't her, it had to be a resume and for the next year or so she did whatever she could to get ahead with her resume. She took a course in resume construction. She hired an expert by to advise her on her resume and talked to her about it.
She spent hours on our resume and this was before the age of word processors and and and the completed resume was several pages long and, lots of action verbs and so forth and and described all sorts of bullets and large words and formatting that was very fancy and things she'd done decades ago and all sorts of stuff that was irrelevant, really irrelevant.
It could have all been one page and it didn't have to have all this detail going to take an probably an hour to go through it. And [00:21:00] so that was my example, when I started applying to jobs and and I thought I needed the same type of resume myself and and I did a resume like that.
And my roommate who was a former hockey player in a big, in a very good college The sod was amused and started showing it to others and and I started and showed it to other people and they certainly thought it was funny. And even now I don't think I'm embarrassed, but just the idea was very embarrassing at the time.
And and the resume made me look very bad. I had sections about increasing my sales, my asphalt business, being the youngest instructor in the history of the pub political science department, the university of Chicago being nominated, Rhode scholar, president fraternity sat scores, and and even, the reference to the prestigious boarding school, I was a tenor that at the time was ranked very highly.
You're going to do ridiculous. No one cares about this stuff. What this kind of stuff does. And, I thought it was important to list all this stuff on my resume, but this [00:22:00] stuff is not something that people care about. All this does is it shows that you think very highly yourself and you're probably not going to be able to be molded into what a law firm wants.
And and and I eventually realized that much less is more, you have to you have to be able to fit in. And everything that I talked about and, in my resume was just all about me and it didn't it, it didn't really show how it could fit in with others and do well.
And in a, in any employer you really expected to fit in, get along try not to act better than your peers and and to be able to do the work. And that's what people want. And, when people see too much on a resume, they think this person's going to be difficult to control, or this person has too much to do, or, too much time on their hands or thinks too highly of themselves.
And with, rightly and again, there's nothing wrong with someone being impressed with themselves. You, there's different personalities in the world and there's people that. Are very good at different types of things and and that's fine, but if you wanna get a position in most employers that's [00:23:00] something you need to do.
So we'll take a quick break just for a couple of minutes and then we'll go back and we'll review resumes again, if you haven't received, if you haven't sent your resume in Michael should send she will post his information and then the break would probably be anywhere from two to five minutes right now.
Cause we're, I'm probably going to get set up on another computer just so I can have give you access to proofreading software and so forth. And any questions you guys have about your resume while I'm reviewing them you can also type them in, but I'll try to get through, I should be able to get through everyone's resume today.
And and it often takes a while, but if you have questions when your resume comes up, I'm happy to answer those too. And and thank you for whoever's idea. It was to do this week. This is great. And next week we'll also be doing a cover letter review. So that should be fun as well.
So I'll be back in a couple of minutes,
so I need Grammarly software, yeah, monitor, and then they'll see the whole resume full screen and said,
I'm not going to stop it. I'm just going to
Okay, so [00:24:00] hold on one second.
It's a skirt to the first resume. This is legal counsel dedicated diligence and solutions where to pregnant professional fiber qualifications. Okay. In New Mexico. Okay. So I'm just looking at all this right now. Okay. So here's just a few things with this resume. The first thing is see her resume spelling.
Okay. Immediately. Okay. So the first thing is there's a, I don't know the format and issue, or maybe something happened with this, when it was being formatted. These sorts of discretions here at the beginning are sometimes they're they're assigned that the resume has been done by a professional resume company.
And I'm not saying this was, or or, but it may have meant and the problem with that is you want to look like you want to look like you're in demand when the employer, and so sometimes laying stuff out this way is let me just make sure I do all the different things.
It's not the most helpful thing. Let me, I don't know why I don't have the I [00:25:00] don't have my a couple of things open on here, but so you want to be careful. I don't have the it wasn't working. I tried to install it, but it would have had to close all of the word documents and oh, wow. Okay.
It's, co-writing, you're working on it or bizarre. Okay. That's too bad. I was moved to the computer because of the editing software. Okay. All right Michael, sorry, give me one second. Yeah, I don't know why we're not getting grammar software in this computer either, but that's too bad.
I actually have another computer I can move to too, but so here just give me one second here. I'm a little disappointed that I don't have an editing software. But yeah. So this particular resume let's see here. So the employer career experience many times you want to shorten things. Let me just see here.
I'm a little upset about this. Grandma, give me one second. I just want to see if I can get up. I may have to open a separate document for this. So give me one second.
Very good at the grandmother website. Yeah, I will. I'll go to the website. It's just it's just doing permanent. Yeah, you can I'll do it that way. It's fine. But on the website, [00:26:00] grammarly.com. Okay. Yeah, I'll do it that way. Maybe you could could you upload all the restaurants to I guess I'll review it.
Describe that's fine. I guess I can just paste it that, right? Yeah.
Okay. If you just stay here, sorry, we're just looking at this Kara, there's a lot of work that this restaurant needs, so it's a very good example. I just want to if that works, you just want to share the screen. Okay. All I'm going to be sharing something in a second here guys. Okay.
Yeah. Second.
Okay. So here we go. Just one sec. Sorry about this. So in terms of the when you look at a resume you can see a lot of a lot of problems here, just an overall score which, there's a lot of suggestions that this needs, you can see the white collar needs should be have an apostrophe after it, make sure to change the screen-sharing oh, I'm sharing the wrong screen.
So you should be sharing on the right screen sharing, sharing, just the word document. That's I'm not sharing this next screen to screen two. Okay. [00:27:00] Sorry guys. So this is the the correct thing. So you can see here, like these changes that are going, that you're making that I'm making. And a lot of times these changes are.
Fairly simple. And this is part of the problem with this w with this sort of stuff, is I, is when someone that understands English very well, read your resume. And there's a very, these are the kinds of things that they see. So you always want to be very careful about the sorts of errors.
And then you can also see the, all these different areas. So Grammarly is a great tool. There's also another one called pro writing aid which is a very good tool that you can use. And and but I definitely in this particular example, you can see a lot of the exam, the problems with this particular resume.
And it's not, they're not all. You know that serious, but you can see a lot of those. So in terms of how this resumes are organized, I don't necessarily this thing that comes on the top I think that you pretty much would want to lead with your experience. And then all this stuff at the top, if it was [00:28:00] me I would remove it.
So I'll just show you that. And then and then I would if your, it looks like your corporate counsel and what a lot of the stuff is doing here is limiting you. So you're talking about OSHA, then you're talking about contracts, then you're talking about all these different types of work and then, vice employee relations, all these sorts of things and what you're doing, really when you're listing all these different things about COVID or landlord dispute and things is you're eliminating your, what could actually be a very marketable resume into something that, that makes it look like you're doing just small stuff.
So I would put something in more we're, advise business on all aspects of corporate and litigation something along those lines, it's much stronger than what you have instead of limiting yourself to what you're talking about, because what you've done in the existing resume is fairly limiting.
It limits you. And then ADA group I liked this because it's a of litigation all aspects of business operation,[00:29:00] including putting contracts, including, and then I would just say contracts and this is going to provide an example. This is a good resume to start with. Just pretty much anything that you did.
I would leave it there, but I would just say put in just large practice areas. And and then, the idea is that you can do different sorts of things. And then this is a senior associate. Again, when you're talking about animal service laws and things like that, those are typically going to limit you.
And a lot of this stuff. So again I would talk about, what practice areas you were in. So just instead of listing all these things, just, what practice areas did you do? Harrison, just very short or a lot of times what people do is w what you're doing here in this resume, by the way, as much better if I had an in-house counsel job, and I saw this, I would be impressed with this.
If I saw the other things that were on there before I wouldn't be. And then and then here just probably prosecutor because again, DUI stalking, these are I would just say district [00:30:00] assistant district attorney let's see available to for police force, if none of that's important.
So I would just say prosecutor, that's all you need. Everyone knows what an assistant district attorney does. And then whatever type of associated work.
So a lot of those, so you can see that we were talking earlier today we talked about and then these are all contract jobs which is okay, so let's see, but you, the problem is all these things are limiting you. And also and again, the biology teacher thing, you don't need the law clerk thing you don't need.
I would just say something along the lines of then 2011 to 13 law clerk. Okay. So all I would do I would just say something along these lines between 2011 and 16
Work
offer, I might even say something along these lines between three and 2011 worked in several different law firms and finished. Associates most recent firms most recently
at Jacobson king[00:31:00]
between.
So the reason I'm doing that is then and then our Parker MacIntyre. Yeah, that's it. Then, you I would just say law firm experience and then an ADA group associate, and then this is much stronger. I think anybody that's on this, anybody watching can see that, the resume before basically it was listing all these things that weren't that important.
And now it just looks it looks like much stronger. And and then, listing that you were a contract attorney and couldn't, w didn't want to work in a permanent job or couldn't get a job, was not going to help you. Biology teacher does not help. Education participating in these clinics, doesn't help you.
International study abroad. Doesn't help you rugged in a government document. Doesn't help you. That's unrelated to your practice area. University of Alabama. Okay, fine. I'll be solid. Waste are things you've done. Don't help you. They're related to other practices. So this is your resume.
It's one page. This is all you need this resume by the way that we've fixed [00:32:00] is going to to get you a hell of a lot more review and interviews and whatever, what you were showing before, this is all you guys need, all you need to do, and this will be the recording of this will be and that's it.
So you don't want to distract people by showing you were working as a contract attorney, that you were writing papers that had nothing to do with what you're trying to do, that you that that you were, even though you've done all these different things this way you look like a strong attorney right here.
And that's it. And, and then starting to put in all this other stuff, wow, this is not going to help you either special counsel, you're showing your contract, our attorney. Now you're now here, you're showing their legal secretary. Oh, wait, this is another resume. I'm sorry. This may be another resume.
Yeah, but this is all you need here. For this particular resume is this that kind of fixes that. And I think this resume right now is much better. Let's see here. Good. Let's go to the next one second. I hope I'm sharing the right screen. And but just so you guys can see the idea of that before or after here too.[00:33:00]
You take off the summary, you just put your name, you put your experience and then you shorten everything down and this is all people want because you're all you're doing in the existing resume is all these things here are talking, essentially talking you out of a a job. The last thing you want to do is, you're here, you have criminal litigation, you have federal courts, you have all this stuff and you're talking yourself out of a job.
And so most people do this and then you have COVID-19 no, one's going to know what the hell what to make out of any of this. It's completely confusing and contracts and all these things. The idea is that an attorney can do anything just because you've done something doesn't mean you're an expert and re listing all the things you've done on there is not helpful.
I would recommend anybody. That's had a lot of jobs in a short period of time. All you need to do is just say in between 2011, 16, worked in several different law firms. Most recently as associate you can say I was an associate's and now this was a contract attorney. You don't need to list all those firms.
That's ridiculous. It's going to hurt you. So you don't want to do that. Okay. Let [00:34:00] me just see here. Let me try one other thing here. I'm going to try I think sorry, give me one second. Someone was saying there was a way to upload a book, sorry about that. Upload these resumes to Grammarly.
That'll make it a lot easier.
We shouldn't be sharing my screen with, okay. Secrets.
Let me just see how this works. Give me one second.
And I'm going to not just uploaded some resumes here, guys. It should be all set.
Yeah.
Okay, great. So now I'm uploading all these documents here. It's uploading.
But the big thing that I think that's important to understand with the resume, we just revered, it's just, this is for everyone's benefit. Is that when you you don't want to put things on your resume necessarily, did it upload oh, no, I'm not. I'm trying to get it uploaded. Sorry guys.
It doesn't look. Oh, here we go. No, maybe not. Was it upload,
sorry, I'm just trying to upload something. It may take a little while to upload cause it's such a big document. Here we go. Okay, so I'm going to cut and paste this document into an editor. Sorry [00:35:00] about that. One second. Whoops. Are all right, guys. Give me one second. Hold on a second upstairs.
Give me one second. Sorry about that. Second here. I'm trying to upload all of your resumes into a a folder here. So that's, what's taking a little bit of time. So Michael, if you could Michael,
could you break it down into two documents of 30 pages each. Okay. Thanks. All right let's go to the next one here. I'll look at it. I'm going to put several of them up there. So just give me one second.
Okay, so I'm doing one more. So I apologize for the delay here. I will get this and then we'll be all set
and these are fun cause there's a lot of I love the fact that there's so much improvement. They're going to be made to these resumes. Cause resume batch one.
But one big thing too, I would say that's important for everyone is that if you are not proofreading, things are not using proofreading software. You're really doing yourself like a ton of harm. And and the reason is just because let me see how I upload this.
Can you one [00:36:00] second upload it and then but we'll be all set just because most of the resumes that I'm seeing and I always see, it will have quite a few errors on them and okay. Here we go. Okay. So here's the next resume and let me share my screen. Thank you for bearing with me, everyone.
Okay, here we go. Okay. So this resume is for a that you can see us for a paralegal spat a specialist and and you can see, I don't know what USA SBA means. And you can see all the problems here with this. This is a something of a paralegal specialist.
So we typically look at only attorneys, but you can see a lot of the errors here and things. So again, the big thing is you don't want to see any of this stuff and I don't know why we're doing that. Okay. ICS, this is Nigerian attorney. Okay. Let's see. So bachelor of law and Nigeria.
Okay. Okay. All this stuff these things, this is very common. People will always list that they understand different programs and things on their resume. These should always come off no one in the U S [00:37:00] at least it doesn't, that's, it's expected that you wouldn't understand that you can see here, like distinguishes oversaw the scheduling and planning, like these are capitalization errors.
And and the problem is in the U S a lot of times this is very common with foreign resumes and and it's something that you'll see quite quite a bit of. But it's literally, there's so many errors here that it's slowing down the computer or the shirts.
So you have to be very careful. About all this stuff. And these areas. So you can see all of the spelling errors and so forth. Aren't good, but you never want to list your skills and certifications on your resume. Regardless if you think they're important this international experience, I would just call this experience.
Everyone knows if it's in Nigeria, it's international. And then and then whatever really in charge of our organization, the office library isn't going to help you get an attorney job in the U S so a lot of these things are hurting you. People are going to look at this and wonder, why is that all this person debt?
So I would just say [00:38:00] junior associate and then as you get into these things you don't need to talk about the hours per week. You did. No one cares about that. You may think that's a big deal because they don't give everyone a lots of time there, but I would take that off. And then your legal secretary which is fine.
But I would almost say what I would recommend for all this experience because you've been doing basically non-attorney work is I would put down as my work experience. I would probably try to put it into one line. And I would say between, since prior to passing the bar, I worked at various firms in different capacities between these dates.
So I would almost say something along the lines of this. And and this goes for everyone that has experienced that. Doesn't look that doesn't necessarily look that, exciting to people, if that makes sense. And so this, your experience basically is showing that you're not an attorney right now.
And so I would almost recommend doing something along these lines going [00:39:00] experience. I'm probably going to have to get out of this document and open up an individual one and Grammarly because it's just too slow. But the idea would be you would spread something along the lines of.
What your we're experienced junior associate, and then you would do something to encapsulate your experience of doing these various jobs as a legal secretary as a paralegal specialist and everything. And as a contract attorney you would probably write pre Bard mission or something along those lines.
And then and then work from from that piece of information. If that makes sense. Give me one second. I'm just trying to speed this up, but you, the problem with this resume right now is it basically says you're not an attorney. And so if you're if everything on there says you're not an attorney then then that's not really helping you and you've passed the bar, which isn't an easy thing to do.
So I would recommend on that particular resume my thought would be the best thing to do really would be to to be very careful and to and take all of this experience. And let me just make sure you're showing that and [00:40:00] summarize it in a way that that that it looks more, it doesn't look as it doesn't exclude other titles don't really stick out so much.
So I would say between I would put dates between pre bar who worked as a law clerk, paralegal and other roles between these dates. That's what I would do. Something along those lines take off the hours, no one needs to put how many hours a week you work. Again, that may seem maybe something that you are are impressed with but it's not necessarily something that that employers are going to care that much about, let me get a few more resumes in here, not too many.
And then I apologize, and there's a lot of good resumes here, so I'm excited to review all these and I'll get to everyone's today. Let me just see here. Yeah, there's still very slow. I don't know. Yeah, it'll be okay. We'll figure it out, but yeah, I would if you if you go onto my laptop you may be able to, oh, which is upstairs.
You may be able to set that up. Yeah. And and that may work. Okay. Just [00:41:00] one second, everyone we'll upload this stuff and then I will go a lot faster now that we're fixing this. Let me see.
Okay. So we've got a smaller batch of these now there should work better. Okay. Okay, so here's another one. This is a objective is to get an associate job. You can see that there's all these spacing issues again, which isn't good. And then high level compensating, legal consultancy in relation to client needs all this stuff. Doesn't, it's not really how people talk.
And everything should be written how people talk. So this isn't how people talk. And it is how people may talk in certain parts of the world. But if you're, again, if you're looking for the sort of thing, you, no one needs to put an objective on their resume.
That may be your objective but that's not that doesn't match necessarily what the employer needs. So you don't have to put an objective. Everyone should take an objective off of the resume if you have it. The other thing is this particular thing saying it's a top rank Qatar law firm [00:42:00] in association with snap awards again all this stuff, reviewing contracts, high quality service to gain clients confidence, no one, these are, this is an example, like I was talking about in the webinar, extra language, it's not necessary receiving requests.
These are just things to wires do as a matter of course so you don't need to working in teamwork, attending as one person establishing none of this stuff is really keeping up to date with changes in the law these years. Basically just talking about what attorneys do.
None of this is you just need practice here. At this area that's it, that's all you need. What is your practice area? And that's going to look a lot better and then same thing here, drafting contracts, all attorneys, draft contracts, all attorneys, search documents, all attorneys what is your work and behave in a professional manner?
I hope so. Again this doesn't, none of us carry out duties. That's, none of this stuff matters. It's just all things that attorneys do is a matter of course. The problem with all these resumes that I'm seeing today, too, that I don't like [00:43:00] is everyone is just explaining the law and giving general the legal advice.
This is all stuff that just attorneys do as a matter of course. And so there's no reason to have all this stuff. You can put your practice here yet. So you do that. One of the things I'm concerned about with this particular resume, by the way and I'm sure that anybody that's a student of mine is going to I'm sorry.
I'm just, and then when you upload it, it'll be there. Okay. Let me just go on here. And then let me okay. Sorry, one second, guys. I'm just, I'm getting this set up on a on a better thing. Give me one second. I just want to make sure it logs in. Apparently it should, if it's on. Pardon me.
Thanks. Okay, so we'll fix all this stuff. We're having one done. We're just, so this stuff, the big thing I'm concerned about with this is again, the proofreading and stuff is something you just can't you need to fix. But the big thing with this particular resume is this person has had a lot of jobs.
So it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 jobs. And. They only stay someplace for a year. And so [00:44:00] that's probably is something that people I don't know about this in association with SAP law wars for the firm. That's not, that's not, you that's getting the awards. So I would just say an associate.
Again, you don't need to talk about the awards the firms got. No one cares. Now people can look it up themselves, but that's, someone else's work, probably not an associate, so this, you can see as much better. I I'm not confident that it's a good idea to list all these firms.
I've told people, other people on the call, but it's often smart to try to shorten this up, but that's fine. These all these courses certificate and arbitration and mediation I don't think certificates necessary. I don't think these online legal courses are necessary. I don't think a lot of the stuff is necessary.
I don't think the certificate in English is necessary. I don't think you got it for grammar. That is a password, sorry.
I don't think a lot of these degrees are necessary. And I don't think all this stuff breaking down your experiences necessarily a lot of times people [00:45:00] and resumes, we'll do all this stuff though, the list, all these things, and they'll think that it's very helpful. And it's really not a, you need to listings it says your brilliant communication, good teamwork skills.
But brilliant communication is just being buried direct many times. And again not making mistakes, so a lot of this, stuff needs to come out. And language again, I think that's probably okay. Computer again X, you don't need to tell people you're excellent on the internet.
I think everybody has good on the internet. And I don't know, having a good grade is really that necessary. I don't know where to Des international lies, but this resume is much better but you do need to list your practice area. Because you've had a lot of positions I would say between, I would almost be more comfortable if you did something along the lines of, between 2013 and March of 19 of 2019 was an associate several law firms and many times what you need to do too, is if you leave firms, [00:46:00] the problem is like when anytime a law firms interviewing you they're concerned of, th and it's important to show everyone this they're concerned of.
Can you do the job? Do you want the job? Yeah, do you want the job? Do you want the job? Can we manage it?
And will you do the job long-term.
So can you do the job if you have all these different things going on here in terms of your practice areas and the work, if you're just a generalist then that's going to confuse people because they're reading all these different things. And then many times w one of the things that's important for everyone on this webinar to understand.
And and I think I also emphasized to you guys earlier is that when you, if you list that you worked on, whatever you list, if you list all these different types of cases you worked on and say you're listing misdemeanors and all these things, then people are going to tag you as type of attorney that does misdemeanor cases, which is fine if that's what you want.
And that's what the previous one, if you list that you do international arbitration and and that's all you do, and people are going [00:47:00] to peg you as that. And if you list so lists, but if you list 10 different things and people are going to think you don't do you do everything and they need a certain type of attorney.
So you need to be very careful about pain in yourself and go corner. So attorneys from large law firms look down on attorneys who do misdemeanors attorneys in law firms that do criminal work think attorneys that do corporate work wouldn't want to work there. So you have to be very careful about how you describe your experience.
And and then you also have to be very careful about how you describe it. Most of the time less is better, this particular person. What I would be concerned about was can you do the job because they have all these different things, whatever the job is, if the job requires a one particular scale, the odds are pretty good at they can't.
Do you want the job? They probably do. Can we manage you? Probably not. Will you do the job? Long-term probably not. So there's just so much movement here. And in a very good grade versus a great grade, if your grades aren't awesome, you just need to kinda keep them out of there, man.
Just don't say anything about them. Don't say I gotta [00:48:00] be average. Just keep him out of there. No one, it's a big deal to you, but but you just this person right now, if I saw this resume now, compared to what I saw before, I would be like, this is interesting. I want to know more, but now the way the resume reads th there's just way too much, there's too many things wrong with it.
It's just too much. So that hope that improves it. Okay. Let's see this one. Gentlemen law firm, principal attorney, January to 22. Okay. So this person is a corporate attorney
corporate and real estate attorney. Oh. And then they're also doing okay. So this person needs to choose, and this is fine. So by the way the data and here's January 22, anybody that if you if you lose a position or you and I don't know if this is a, person's the owner of this firm or working in a law firm, but if you lose a position many times you want to be very careful about listing that you want to try to get extra time with the employer.
Many times they'll let you stay on their website and all sorts of things, but you can't [00:49:00] just if you're listing to closing date like this. Okay. So just upload them and I'll start looking out there.
Okay. Thanks. All right, so we're all set with the resumes now. So the, so here you can see th this is says, this is a hard, so this person this particular resume basically does corporate law. And so they do this is buyers of business, so there'll be corporate mergers or acquisitions M and a, and then a then this is corporate governance or governance that real estate, and what else? And also do a small amount of immigration. So the problem with this resume do a small amount of immigration. Oh Sheila, I would say something along the lines of specialize in, doesn't, this person doesn't have to specialize in.
This looks like a solo maybe, but I don't know. But solo specialize in M and a corporate governance real estate. So th the problem with this resume is you have a couple of different things to think about also do divorce. What else? [00:50:00] Immigration. And so forth. You don't need to say that you've you supervise a paralegal into, to legal assistance.
Again, that's a big deal to some people but that's not something you need to put on your resume. So any information about supervising people it's just expected and and assisting people in uncontested divorce probably. That means that no one's fighting. It's probably not something you need to list on there.
And and the problem with immigration and divorce is they are not related to transactional work. So they're they're not related to the, these are transactional. So this resume right here, by the way, if you put down, you specialize in M and a and corporate governance, and that's all you have you will get jobs.
If you put down that you specialize in immigration, you will get jobs. All this stuff is going to make it very difficult because what's going to happen is someone. And this is actually an interesting resume to talk more about. So you know, this specializing in criminal opponents equals [00:51:00] jobs.
If you say I'm specialized in real estate jobs, if you put specialized in immigration, lots of jobs that's actually very in demand,
tons of jobs. And I want to make this point to everyone on the call. And I hope a lot of times when I'm, when I noticed sometimes when I'm listening to people, like I don't always pay attention. And so I hope everyone's paying attention here because there's a big lesson in this particular resume specialized in divorce, and you wouldn't say specialized, you would just say divorce, and this person does not specialize in divorce, but I'll just put it in there. So the problem is with this resume so far is that what's going on is lots of jobs is that this particular person is saying that they do one particular there.
They're saying that they do all these different things and because they say that, and I'm trying to see if I can send this over to you. Anyway, if you say you're doing all of these different things then the, no one's going to hire you. And if you say you do one thing many times like this resume, if [00:52:00] you say specialize in MNA and corporate governance, and you've been doing that for three years, you will get interviews probably even at midsize firms.
If you say a specialize in real estate, you probably get interviews. I'm just telling you what the market is. It's small firms. If you say you're specialized in immigration, you'll get lots of interviews. If you specialize in divorce, you'd get lots of interviews, but saying you do all these different things just makes people think that you don't know what you're doing or you're, or anything.
And then it just freaks them out. So if it was me with this particular resume, you said you did 400 integration. I would just say you do immigration. If you do that, you're going to get a job. If you, if this is your own firm and you're still working there, you write the present because otherwise it looks like you've lost your job, the law offices of buck car off our dash.
Okay. Let's keep going down here. And when did you graduate from law school? And there's a lot of work that this resume needs. This is a great example. Can you graduated in 2018? Okay. So there's a lot to talk about here. Okay. So you graduated in 2018 cause you were a law clerk. I would just say if you graduate in 2018, [00:53:00] there's nothing wrong with having started your firm or at this firm in 2019, I would just put.
There, I would say I took a year off after law school. If you want to list this stuff that's perfectly fine. People are going to wonder, the one of the things they're going to wonder is, why were you a law clerk? This is a small period of time. This is only a couple of months.
And then this is, looks like a six or this is three months. So no, I just, I wouldn't have anything on there. I just wouldn't I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think that you need to have anything on there. I would just take all this out. I don't it's not taking, it's a job by the way of a couple of months.
It's not really a real job, so I just would take it off. I don't think the two months you worked at workers' compensation and no fault has nothing to do with this work. So all the stuff needs to come off. I don't, it's just showing a lot of that you're fit. You're not working out wherever you are.
And then this here this is fine if you want, I guess it shows you've got some [00:54:00] experience working as a court thing immigration immigration this is family civil, all of these are not related. So I would just take probably take this out the per diem. I don't think you want to put per date.
I would just say court, interpreter. Why would you say per diem? That's going to make it look like you're, it's going to hurt you a student attorney now creating law enforcement now judicial law intern one summer. Sure, that's fine. I think that's okay. But again, coordinator putter, while you, after you graduated from law school.
All right. That's probably okay. Maybe I don't know, but I would just say judicial law intern, you don't need to put in all this stuff here either. So all these things, by the way, what legal volunteer one week? No, this comes out Brooklyn defender services fall in turn. Now some are legal intern.
Okay. That's fine. These are summer jobs. These are five. So this is your first summer, second summer. That's fine. But I wouldn't even put those in. I would just probably say and take this out, all this stuff, by the way it's weakening your case. It's just showing that [00:55:00] the problem with all these jobs is they're they're they're limiting they're limiting you.
And and that's a big problem there, board member now, summer intern, another summer internship. No. All these jobs are just not, they're just short-term jobs. All they're doing is drawing attention to the fact that you've had a lot of jobs, which no one wants to be the next person to take an operative, take a chance on someone that's had a lot of jobs and they're all sorts of different subject matters.
So these different subject matters are are going to draw you away. So if you had just a resume that looked like this specialized in immigration that's fine. Yeah, these are just very short jobs. So I would just say, other experience, this would probably go into other experience area.
You graduated in 2018, so we'll talk about that in a second. But I would just say other experience, you don't want to draw the idea when you're making a case for anything, if you don't want to draw experience of things that doesn't match what people are looking for. So every [00:56:00] resume needs
