New Book Helps Law School Grads Navigate Shrinking Job Market

Employers have scaled back from law school recruitment, making it the most difficult it’s been in decades for students to secure post-graduation jobs.

“When compared with years past, recent law graduates have their work cut out for them when it comes to finding a job, whether it’s due to smaller entering associate classes or more cost-conscious clients,” according to Ursula Furi-Perry, author of the recently released guide Your First Year as a Lawyer Revealed. “That means law grads must be proactive about their job search, present a professional image, set themselves apart from other candidates, and employ smart networking techniques.”

In her book, Furi-Perry shares several strategies to help law grads achieve these goals. Her advice includes the following tips:

• Join a professional association. You’ll keep up with news and trends in your profession, get the chance to attend continuing legal education and professional and social events, meet others in your field and get the opportunity to network. Plus, many professional associations maintain their own job boards, job listings and other career resources for members.
  
• Consider nontraditional legal employers. Interested in practicing criminal law, for example? Don’t just send your resume to criminal defense firms; check out career options in prosecution, public defense or other social justice employers.
  
• Align yourself with a trusted partner who can help you pinpoint potential leads that may be a good fit for your skill set. A career coach, counselor or recruiter who specializes in the legal field may be able to offer you valuable insights and advice and introduce you to potential employers who are hiring.
  
• Project a professional and polished image—in person, in writing and online. Clients, supervisors and potential employers alike are impressed by confidence, diligence and professionalism.
  
• Be proactive about your job search. Don’t expect your first job to fall into your lap: network, highlight your marketable skills and treat job-hunting as you would treat a job itself.

Additional guidance and information about legal careers can be found in Your First Year as a Lawyer Revealed. It is available at Amazon.com, in all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST).

Top Five Cover Letter Tips for Recent Grads

At a time when the majority of large to mid-sized companies are scaling back in their hiring of recent graduates, it is essential that young people put their best foot forward when communicating with employers and recruiters.

Wendy Enelow and Louise Kursmark teach young people to do just that in their new edition of Cover Letter Magic. In this guide, they stress how important it is for all job seekers, not just young people, to write cover letters that demonstrate what they can do for the employer.

“Cover letters give you the platform to create a vision of who you are that relates directly to the company’s or recruiter’s hiring criteria, while remaining 100 percent accurate and honest.”

Young people with underdeveloped job search skills are often mystified about how to demonstrate their value when they have limited work experience. To combat this obstacle, Enelow and Kursmark offer the following tips:

1. Highlight “professional” skills that you have developed through both professional and nonprofessional experiences. For example, if you have worked on important team projects while at school, communicate that you know how to get results in a team environment.

2. If technology skills are important in your chosen field, be sure to emphasize your skills in this area.

3. Mine your academic experiences for evidence of leadership skills. These are important in a work environment and are evidence of your potential.

4. Highlight your academic achievements. They indicate your intelligence and competitiveness.

5. Relate your skills, experience and interests to the employer’s needs. Show that you understand business priorities and are ready to make a contribution; don’t simply state, “I’ve graduated! Now I need a job!”

These tips and more can be found in Cover Letter Magic, Fourth Edition, which published this month. It is available at Amazon.com, in all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST).

Résumé Author Reveals How to Resurrect Outdated Experience

Many job seekers fail to score interviews, even though their skills and experience qualify them for the positions they want. This can occur when a job seeker’s work history sounds archaic to the person screening his or her résumé, according to Susan Britton Whitcomb, one of the nation’s most renowned career coaches and professional résumé writers.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to such dilemmas, which Whitcomb unveils in her recently released book Résumé Magic, Fourth Edition.

“The present progressive and past progressive tenses, such as ‘I am managing’ or ‘I was managing,’ equip you with a tool for blurring the dates of your experience. Because résumé speak calls for dropping pronouns, like ‘I,’ and helping verbs, like ‘am’ or ‘was,’ before the verb, you start the sentence with the main action verb, which makes it possible to give older experience a feeling of real time.”

People sometimes question this strategy based on the notion that past experience should always be written in past tense. Whitcomb debunks this assumption and reveals that job seekers actually have more leeway than they may expect.

“There are very few hard-and-fast rules in résumé development other than to include your contact information, provide some measure of your candidacy and to be honest. That’s why it’s ‘legal’ to use progressive tenses if you need to make outdated experience sound fresh and contemporary. The only caveat is that you must be consistent in your usages throughout the résumé,” explains Whitcomb.

Below is an example of how she was able to make a client’s outdated experience sound more fresh and contemporary on his résumé.

Before

Responsibilities
• Directed display, merchandising, promotions, advertising, and in-store sales strategies.
• Managed receiving, pricing, markdowns, inventory, and stock transfers.
• Used consultative and suggestive-sales techniques to maximize add-on sales.

Results
• Created promotional vehicles to generate sales increase of 20% annually.
• Maintained lowest inventory costs among company’s four stores.
• Earned Top Salesman honors among sales team of 30+.

After

Responsibilities
• Directing display, merchandising, promotions, advertising, and in-store sales strategies.
• Managing receiving, pricing, markdowns, inventory, and stock transfers.
• Using consultative and suggestive-sales techniques to maximize add-on sales.

Results
• Creating promotional vehicles to generate sales increase of 20% annually.
• Maintaining lowest inventory costs among company’s four stores.
• Earning Top Salesman honors among sales team of 30+.

Résumé Magic, Fourth Edition, published this month. It is available at Amazon.com, in all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST).

Avoiding the One-Dimensional Career

Guest post by Dave Anderson

You might have been there. To that Web site, career counselor, or placement office. Lured in by the promise of the one quiz that would tell you, once and for all, what you wanted to be when you grew up (even though you’re grown and have been two or three things already). You were told that you were a realistic, Type-A, left-brained, sensing, thinking, judging extrovert. Or maybe you were an artistic, Type-B, right-brained, intuitive, feeling, perceiving introvert.

Or maybe, like me, you are a confusing mixture of all kinds of needs and desires, skills and abilities, interests and talents that no single test can measure.

There is, in fact, no magic quiz that can tell you what you should do with your life. In fact, most career counselors will be the first to tell you that assessments are not crystal balls. They can’t make decisions for you. All they can do is help you discover things about yourself and show how they relate to the world of work. They show you a piece of the puzzle that is your career and offer a suggestion of what the whole puzzle might look like.

Yet the more pieces you have in place, the easier it is to put the rest of the puzzle together. While one test or assessment may not get you far in discovering your ideal career path, three or four might fill in enough gaps so that you can start to see the picture in your head.

Traditionally, career assessments have been limited in terms of the dimensions they measure. The most common assessments tend to measure interests. As useful as these can be, they still only provide one angle of exploration. An interest assessment might point you toward a career you would enjoy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will be good at it. For that you would need an assessment that explores your skills or abilities.

In a perfect world you would explore all kinds of factors, from interests and personality to skills and values, to the kinds of activities you enjoy and the work environments you prefer. You are, after all, a three dimensional person with multi-dimensional needs, and the last thing you want is a one-dimensional career that is rewarding on one level, but sucks rocks on all the others.

So even if you’ve taken an interest or personality inventory, consider taking one or more assessments to help form a more complete picture of your career identity and your ideal job. The more you know about yourself, the more informed your career decisions will be.

New Book Helps Job Seekers Navigate the FBI’s Rigorous Hiring Process

Few jobs promise the prestige and excitement associated with a career in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And even fewer jobs demand the patience and determination required to navigate the FBI’s complicated hiring process, says Thomas Ackerman, who has served as a Federal Agent, Police Officer and Training Academy Instructor since 1980.

“The application process for FBI special agent positions is rigorous, time-consuming and very different from hiring processes followed in private industry, by police departments or even by other federal law enforcement agencies,” Ackerman explains in his newly released book FBI Careers, Third Edition.

The process to become an FBI special agent typically takes at least nine months from application to appointment.

Often, however, the process lasts more than a year, adds Ackerman. During that time frame, candidates must pass several stages unlike any other they may face when pursuing jobs outside the FBI. Ackerman describes these steps below:

Step One: The Online Application
Submits biographical details and information relating to the candidate’s qualifications and background.

Step Two: Phase I Testing
Consists of a battery of written tests, including a Biodata Inventory, a three-part Logical Reasoning Test and a Situational Judgment Test.

Step Three: Phase II Testing
Includes a structured interview and a written exercise.

Step Four: Conditional Letter of Appointment
Grants a Conditional Letter of Appointment to candidates who passed phase II testing. Provides information concerning the remainder of the hiring process.

Step Five: Physical Fitness Test
Consists of four events, including push-ups, sit-ups, a 300-meter timed sprint and a 1.5-mile timed run.

Step Six: Background Investigation and Polygraph Examination
Seeks to assess a candidate’s history in the following areas: character, associates, reputation, loyalty, ability, financial responsibility, biases or prejudice, alcohol abuse, drug abuse.

Step Seven: Medical Examination and Drug Screening
Requires candidates to submit a urinalysis test and medical history to screen for issues or conditions that might affect the candidate’s ability to perform the basic functions of the position.

Throughout FBI Careers, Ackerman distills advice for completing these steps and standing out from other candidates. In addition, he leverages his experience with the Bureau to provide an overview of the FBI Academy and training programs; information about many lucrative jobs in the FBI; and advice for completing applications, excelling in interviews, and preparing for written exams.

FBI Careers published this month and is available at Amazon.com, in all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST).