SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're a law student, your law school is going to have a career services office that will help you with your job search. Let's talk about what that career service office is there to do, what it's not there to do, and how you can use those professionals as a resource to find the job that's right for you. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to Law School Decoded, the podcast that pulls back the curtain on what it's really like to succeed in law school. Let's get started.

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So, law schools have career services offices. And I hear all the time from law students. My career services office is no good. They aren't helping me find a job. They aren't doing anything. They're useless. I hear all sorts of disparaging things about career services offices at schools all over the country. And honestly, at times I felt that way in law school. And it was really because I didn't understand what the career services office was there to do. And initially, I didn't understand how I could use them most effectively and partner with them most effectively to find the job that was right for me. Eventually I figured that out and I came to appreciate career services professionals so much more and realize how valuable they are. So I wanted to make this podcast episode about so you as a law student can use your career service office effectively to find the job that's right for you out of law school. So, what is a career services office? A career services office in a law school is a department with professionals who meet with students, who meet with potential employers for those students, and who are theirs a resource to help those students find jobs. They help students put their best foot forward when they apply to jobs, when they network with people. They help students meet people to find jobs and to build their own personal networks. They help support students through difficult decisions that they may have. They help students through the entire process, soup to nuts, beginning to end. They will put on events like job fairs. They will put on events like resume review sessions and networking opportunities. They will organize all of that so that students have an opportunity to be the best person that they can be professionally when they are applying to that first job. So the Career Services office in your law school is there to help support your job search. But here's what you need to understand. Neither they nor anyone else can do it for you. They are one of many resources that you will use. And they can be a really good resource because these offices are full of people, usually with law degrees, often who may have practiced a little bit, and who have an idea of how other lawyers find their way to their first jobs. They have seen it happen. They know what the path looks like and they can help you down that path. But here's what you need to understand there is no cookie-cutter way to help a law student find a job in most cases. The one exception is that for the people very, very top of the class or with very unique connections, there is a clear path to them finding a job because their grades are just so exceptional that they can pretty much do whatever they want. They can go clerk for a judge, they can go work at a law firm, a big law firm, a small law firm, whatever they want to do. They're gonna have their pick of the litter because they are exceptional. Usually that's the case. But for everyone else, there's no cookie-cutter way to get a job. It's going to happen in a very unique way. There's no actions and formula that a career services office can give you. If career services just had a list of 10 alumni for everyone to network with, those people would get totally overwhelmed and it would be useless. They wouldn't be able to help a lot of those students because those alumni might not be interested in what those students are interested in. If a student is interested in working as a public defender and they constantly are just introduced to people who do commercial civil litigation or real estate transactions, that is not going to help that person be a public defender. So your job search is unique because you are unique, because what you want to do is unique and because where you want to be is unique. Now, it's not entirely unique, right? Unique means one of a kind. There are other people who want to do what you want to do. There are other people who want to work where you want to work. But when you combine those two important factors about what you want to do after graduation, you do come up with a pretty distinct candidate profile. That's who you are. CS can be helpful in putting forward your candidate profile to potential employers if you use the CS office correctly. So in this podcast, what I want you to come away with is how you can use your career services office or CS office, as I just said, in a way that will be most effective for your individualized job search. First of all, understand what your career services office is not there to do for you. You are an adult. You are responsible for finding the jobs that you will apply for and finding the potential employers where you want to work. Your career services office can give you tips about potential places where you might want to apply and look into based on your interests potentially, but you are responsible for searching for those, not your career services office. Your career services office is also not responsible for finding the people who you want to network with and should be networking with. That's on you to figure out who could I build a connection with? Who might I already have a connection with? Maybe because we went to the same college or the same law school or we do some of the same activities or we know some of the same people. Who should you be talking to? Your career services office may have some ideas and can help you as we'll talk about, but you are responsible for identifying those people, reaching out to them, meeting with them, getting to know them, and building that genuine connection with them. Your career services office is not there to apply to jobs for you. You have to do that. You are responsible for finding the jobs, hitting the apply button, filling everything out, and submitting impeccable materials on your own behalf, not the office. Your career services office is not there to recommend to firms that they hire you or recommend to government offices that they hire you. Professors may be good for that, but they aren't going to get you a job. They aren't going to make the decision or push others to make the decision. In some circumstances, it might be appropriate for the career services office official to do that. For example, maybe they know the hiring manager and they know you're very interested in that practice area. It's something you've been talking about for a couple of years, so they can send a note to let them know that. But in most cases, they aren't going to be the ones to do that. You may use your professors effectively for that. They aren't going to make sure you interview successfully. It is your job to build up your interview skills, to get better at it, to understand how to present the very best version of yourself in a job interview such that your people who interview you walk away and say, wow, that is someone who is mature. That is someone who listens. That is someone who engages, who asks questions. We'll do other podcast episodes about interviewing successfully. But you are responsible for that. Your career services office, as we'll talk about, can help you get better. You're also responsible for making sure your resume and application materials are really well done, that they are error-free, that they are tailored to the jobs you are applying to, that you're not just spamming your resume out everywhere. Your career services office won't do that. And remember, you don't want your career services office to do these things because they couldn't do it well for all the students. You're unique. You have unique goals. Your career services office can't apply any cookie cutter approach that would be effective. Career services can be an extremely helpful resource to help you find a job. They will meet with you. They will talk to you. They will talk about what's difficult about your job search. They will talk to you about the barriers that you are trying to overcome. They will talk to you about your interests and how you might pursue them. They may know directly or they can help give you tips on how to research that. They will help you make some networking connections. They will maybe have ideas about how you can potentially find alumni. But again, it's going to be on you to do it. It's going to be on you to go on law firm websites or LinkedIn and search for alumni practicing in the area that you want to be in. Your career services might know a few. They might say, gosh, we've got this one person who's been working at this firm for five years and they seem to love it and they got there out of law school and it's the practice area you want to be in. But overall, they're probably going to be just encouraging you to go do that search on your own because it will be more effective for you to do the work. They aren't going to keep a list or database that they know every single person who's in there and that they know exactly who can help you. They will make events available to you. So they're going to put on job fairs, they're going to put on resume reviews, they're going to put on interview practices with alumni. You should participate in those. They will help you with specific jobs in the application process. You will be able to go to them and say, hey, I'm applying to this job. I saw this job. Do you know anything about it? Has the law firm or office talked to you about it? Have other students gotten this job before? Any intel? Can you ask other people in the office? Because I'm really interested in this one. And this is why. This is genuinely why this is the one for me. So they're there to help you with that. So here are two or three things that you should do to make your career services office really effective for your job search. Number one, ask them questions about networking. That's more important than asking them things about OCI. Very few people get plucked into jobs from OCI. Ask them questions about how to network effectively. Go in, schedule time with your career services person assigned to you, professional assigned to you, and say, I'm interested in these two or three practice areas. Do you have any tips about how I get there? How have you seen other students get there? Who are those students? Are those people who I should be meeting with? Are you aware of any alumni in that practice area who I should try to connect with in the place where I want to practice? Do you know any? They may not, but they may. There may be a very engaged alumni who loves meeting with students about that. What events should I participate in and be ready for? What is the Career Services Office going to do over the next few weeks, months, and years that I should keep an eye out for and participate in? It could be a resume review with alumni, it could be interview practice. I want to take advantage of those and participate in every single activity I can to be the very best applicant that I can. So what should I keep my eye out for? And by the way, these are what I think my weaknesses are. What kind of events should I participate in? What should I do? What should I do in networking meetings? What should I do? What should I talk to these people about? What should I ask? I'm going to do podcast episodes about those where I'm going to talk to you as if I were your career services official. And your person assigned to you can help understand how to make those meetings effective. Do you have tips about following up with the people who I network with? Ask your career services that. How do people follow up effectively? How have you seen it done well and not awkwardly and naturally? Have you seen other students network their way to the kind of job that I want? How has that worked? Tell me stories. You need to learn stories. You need to learn how people got to the career that they wanted. Can you tell me stories about actual students? And by the way, should I meet with them? Are those people I should reach out to or not? Maybe, maybe not. Ask them how to network. Ask them, do law firms put on events that I should go to? Maybe they put on free CLEs, continuing legal educations, and maybe law students occasionally go to those. Maybe that's totally acceptable. So consider that. Consider whether that's something that you should look into. And you can ask your career services office about that. The second thing that you should ask your career services office to do is to review your materials with you and for you. Ask them to look at your resume. Ask them to look at your cover letter. Ask them to look at your communications if you want to lawyers who you might meet with. They have professional experience. They've done this before. They know the rodeo. They communicate really, really effectively. They've had practice at it that you have not. So lean on them, rely on them to help you with that process. Looking at your resume is particularly important. You might have even a couple different resumes. You might have one for jobs that you're interested in in a particular city and a particular practice area, but then another one that emphasizes your interest in another practice area more prominently, right? And you're going to use those two different resumes depending on which jobs you're applying to so that you can show the side of yourself that best reflects the relevant interests. So ask them to review your resume and to help you customize it to what you want. Ask them to help you format it. I'm going to talk about this in another podcast, but how you present yourself as everything. I have looked at thousands of resumes of law students and lawyers and other jobs that I hire for. And I will tell you, a lot of resumes aren't formatted in a way that I find compelling that draws me in. They don't use a font that draws me in. They don't use a visual look that draws me in. And to be clear, I like resumes that are simple. I like ones that are straightforward. I'm not talking about adding a bunch of bells and whistles and colors and scents like El Wood's in Legally Blonde. What I'm talking about is a resume that is clean, that is concise, that is to the point, that uses a font that is normal but also visually appealing, that probably justifies paragraphs, that uses bold italics, maybe underlined, probably not, that uses indentation really well, that is clean, that is visually appealing on the page. Ask yourself, would you want to read a page that's just a whole block of text with no paragraphs or spacing? Of course not. With no punctuation? Of course not. You would rather and more easily digest something that is organized into sections, that uses beautiful small caps, headers, that uses dividing lines, maybe, that indents things onto different parts of the page to set them apart in a way that emphasizes them. That's gonna make things easier to read. Make it as easy as possible. Your career services office can and should help you with that. They're a second set of eyes. They're gonna look at your resume, and in five seconds, they're gonna know is this one of the best ones I've seen? Or does this one need work? They've seen thousands of them like I have. So they're gonna be able to tell you, hey, you need to make this better. I can help you make this better. Let me get a pen. Let me mark this up. Here's what you need to go do with this. They will not do it for you, nor should they. It's your job to present your best version of yourself. It's your job to present who you are. And so don't rely on them to present it that way. But ask them to help you review your materials. Third and finally, ask them to help you practice. Ask them to help you practice interviewing. Ask them to help you practice networking conversations. You will get better at these things through practice. And you can either get that practice in the actual interviews and networking meetings themselves, or you can get it beforehand. You should get it beforehand. I learned the hard way. I learned to be a better interviewer because I did a bunch of bad interviews, and I'm embarrassed about it now. I look back and think, oh my gosh, I could have done so much better. I was so cringe. I wasn't presenting the best version of myself at all. I was young. I didn't know what I was doing. I say the same thing about some networking meetings I had. I networked so ineffectively, but I could have been better at it. I could have practiced with my career services office beforehand. I could have gone to the events that they do to help law students understand how to do those things better. So practice. When you practice interviewing with them, they'll ask you real questions that you're gonna get asked. They will listen to your answers. They will notice if you're not sitting up straight, if you have bad posture. They will notice if you didn't shine your shoes before you went in there. You don't need to have fancy clothes to have clothes that fit really well and that present you really well. You don't need to have fancy clothes. You need to have an ironed shirt. You don't need to have a fancy tie. You need to have a well-tied tie with a good knot. They will be able to tell you your tie is crooked or that knot isn't working for you for the shirt that you picked out. They will be able to tell you that shirt is wrinkled or not tucked in well. They will be able to tell you that suit doesn't fit. You can go get a used suit. You don't need a fancy suit. And you can spend, you know, 20 to 50 bucks to have the pants hemmed by a tailor in a way that makes that suit fit a lot better. You can do all that without spending much money and you will look like the best version of yourself in a very neutral way. And that's what you want to be neutral. You don't want them to remember anything other than that person was well put together. Your career services office, if you practice an interview with them, if you really role-play it, if you go in dressed as you would dress, they will tell you you didn't shave for this interview. Is that the best version of yourself? They will tell you, you don't look like you showered for this interview. Is that the best version of yourself? But unless you practice, they aren't going to be able to tell you that. If you practice and your answers are way too long, you just keep talking and talking and talking, and you probably forgot what the question is and you don't even know what you're saying anymore, and you go off into all these topics. Yikes, that's a bad interview, folks. I see it all the time where people don't answer the question that I asked, and where people aren't responsive, and where people veer into different topics, and I'm like, that's not what I'm interested in. And now you're telling me that you don't listen. It's like a deposition. When you're doing depositions, you want witnesses to answer the question asked. It's like a formula. If the question in a deposition is what is the answer to two plus two, the answer is four. You don't say, well, the answer is four, because what you do is you count no, no, no, no, no. They didn't ask you how you got there. They want the answer four. Same in an interview. You want to give a concise but full and complete answer. And then you want to stop to have that conversation and back and forth. You want to ask questions that get a back and forth going with the interviewer. So ask your career services office to do that with you. Ask them to practice networking conversations with you. Say, I know I'm going to get better with practice. I would love it if we could just spend 15 minutes now. Can I practice for you? Because I'm worried I might talk too fast or I might talk too much and not have a back and forth. I'm worried about that. I want to practice it. And I want to see what you notice that I might not be worried about and I might be totally missing. Because you know what? I know that I can either mess it up in this room with my career services office and it doesn't matter for my job search. But if I go mess it up in one of my networking meetings or an interview, I've just shut the door to that opportunity because of something that I could have fixed if I had done a bit more practice, if I had done a bit more preparation. They can help you get better and be the best version of yourself when you are presenting yourself to lawyers, to law firms, to government offices, to in-house jobs that you might be applying to. So let them help you practice. When you get interviews, when you're making progress, let them know. Keep in touch. Thank them. If they set you up with a networking conversation, thank them after it happens and let them know how it went. Don't drop off the face of the earth. Write a note, say, hey, you recommend it. Then I talk to Jane, who does real estate transaction law. And gosh, I met with Jane for coffee and I was so energized by that conversation. She's super passionate about what she does. She told me to follow up in a few months because they may have a summer opportunity that's going to open up. Or she said they won't have one. But as I get closer to graduation, we should talk because their firm often hires new graduates when opportunities come up. So I'm going to keep in touch with her. Thank you so much. Thank the Career Services Office. They are like someone who is trying, you are trying to sell yourself to, just like you're trying to sell yourself to those employers. So you need to engage like a salesperson in touches to build that connection. And thanking them will be a genuine way to do that. When you get interviews, let them know. Let them know where you're interviewing, when you're interviewing, and say anything you think I should know. Often they will probably say, No, I I don't know anything about that firm or anything about that practice. Good luck. They may say, Oh, yeah, I know someone there. Well, let me talk to you about that because you you may be interviewing with them, or they've told me something about the firm that would be helpful. The firm is really busy with this kind of work. They need a ton of lawyers, they need a ton of bodies doing this kind of work. You should know that before going in. And so you can talk to them about that. You can ask anything you want to better your chances of interviewing with that firm. So have them help you. Ask them generally, what should I expect from career services and what should I do? This is my last tip. Ask them, what should I use you all for? How can you all help me? Get a sense of that. Get a sense of what they offer. They may have a bunch of unique things that I'm not talking to you about in this podcast because I don't know about them, because it's an individualized office. They aren't created the same, they aren't created equal. They will all put on different things to help support your job search. So just ask them. Anything else I should know? Ask open ended questions to get all the information you can. But here's what I want you to remember if you're dissatisfied with your career services office, it may be because you have expectations for them that are misguided. I'm being straight with you. You have expectations that are wrong. Career services is Is not there to do your job search for you. They are not there to get you a job. They are not there to get you interviews. They are not there to call and pull strings and get you in somewhere. That is not what they do. And they wouldn't be effective at that because you are unique. You are someone with a job search that is different from all your classmates because you want to be in a different practice area than them, in a different place. Now, of course, there are going to be some other people who are looking for the same things, but the pool of people who truly want what you do is somewhat small. And you should make it smaller so that you pursue the jobs that are right for you and you're the only good candidate for them. You can ask your career services questions like what can I do to be a better candidate? Give me ideas. Who should I talk to? Why should I talk to them? What activities should I do in law school? Do you have any tips for that? Learn from them. Learn from their experiences. What kind of lawyer were you? Get to know them personally, build that connection so that they like you and want to advocate for you. When I was a lawyer at a larger law firm, I loved meeting career services officials and making friends with them. I'd send them a LinkedIn message every now and then say, hey, just want to let you know this candidate we got from your school is just doing great. We just love working with them. I would send them messages. Hey, we're going to have a posting come up. You know, if you have any students who are interested in that, let me know. I would keep in touch and I'd go to the events where, you know, we'd be meeting law students and I'd see them there and I'd pull them aside and I'd say, hey, how are you doing? How's your family? How are your kids? I would love getting to know them. You know what? They're part of my professional network too. I want them to know me as someone genuine because maybe I want to do that someday. And maybe there'll be the right opening for me. And they'll remember, gosh, that person was genuinely interested in what we do. Every single person you meet has a role in your network. I even relied on them, now that I'm recalling, a few years after graduation, when opportunity came up, I called them and asked them about it. And I said, What do you think about me for that? And they said you'd be great for that. And I interviewed for it and I ended up withdrawing because I for personal reasons, but I had a 30-minute conversation, 20-minute conversation with a career services official. I don't know if they typically serve graduates that often, but she was just willing to talk to me because we built a genuine connection. She knew that I was potentially interested in pivoting my career in the direction of this opportunity. I talked to her about whether it would be right for me. I ultimately decided it wouldn't be. But because I built that genuine connection, they were happy to connect with me again. And I was so grateful for their willingness to do so. So remember what they are there to do and what they are not there to do. And frankly, if your expectations for them are realistic, then you will be better satisfied with what you get. And by the way, it is possible that some people in career services that you're working with aren't necessarily great at what they do, that they aren't a very great resource. Manage them as best you can. You're going to be working with people for the rest of your career who aren't perfect. We're all people. We all have strengths and weaknesses. And what you need to do as either a manager or a peer or a client to those people is set expectations, ask if they're the right expectations, confer about that, and then drive towards them. See what you can do to work together to get there. And you will. But ultimately, career services is just one extra resource that will help you in your job search. They're just one extra arrow in your quiver. Here's something else I want you to remember as we come to a close with this podcast. Remember that in society, most people looking for jobs, most people working their way through their career, don't have any career services, office, or resource at all. You are lucky to have them in your corner, but they're kind of icing on the cake. They're a good, extra, nice-to-have resource. They are not the primary one. The primary one is your own effort. So remember that most people find jobs and climb the corporate ladder without any career services office helping them. Remember that when you're a lawyer, you're not going to have any CSO there to help you. So they're going to help you navigate the process of finding your first career. They're going to help you along the way. And the help that you get might vary from school to school or official to official, but they're just icing on the cake. They're just an extra resource. Use it, use it effectively, use it strategically. And remember, people do this all the time without any career services office at all. You are lucky to have that resource. So even if you find and believe genuinely, if you listen to this podcast and you still say, my career services office just doesn't get it done, or the person I'm assigned to just isn't helping me. Remember that most people are at net zero. Most people are in a position where they don't have that resource available to them at all. And so you're just in the same position as all of them and all the other students who are assigned to that same resource at your school. So you can succeed. You will succeed, even if that particular resource isn't doing much for you, because that resource isn't the most important. The most important resource is you. The most important resource are the people who you put in your network to build a foundation that you will use to find a job. So I hope that helps you understand how to use your career services office effectively in a way that is going to lead to success. I know that you can get there. I know that you will get there. Be patient with yourself and use all these resources to your advantage. I hope that was helpful and insightful. We will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

That's it for today's episode of Law School Decoded. Visit us online at lawschooldecoded.com and make sure to subscribe. Until next time, keep decoding the law one step at a time.