Career Strategy

Resumes

The Purpose of a Resume

Your resume is your "calling card," and its purpose is to get you an interview. Often, your resume is your first chance to make a good impression on a potential employer. Ideally, an employer reads you resume and says "I'd really like to meet this person and see if we could work well together." Your resume is also proof to an employer that your writing is clear, concise, and error-free. Often, it makes sense to prepare more than one version of your resume. For example, a person interested in both business and law might prepare resumes tailored to each type of employer. So, think of your resume as a living, breathing thing that evolves as you evolve - and which can adapt to specific situations.

Preparing Your Resume

Your first step in preparing your resume is to take an exhaustive inventory of your positive experiences (legal or non-legal), your skills, and your attributes. Consider the following list of traits that a legal employer is likely to look for a in a new lawyer. Select 5 or so that you think most strongly characterize you. (Adapted from "Guerrilla Tactics").
 

accommodating analytical conscientious decisive enthusiastic goal-oriented loyal persistent personable precise resourceful responsibleachieving attentive consistent determined exacting imaginative industrious mature persuasive probing self-confident team-oriented aggressive

bright cooperative creative efficient expressive inquisitive meticulous positive purposeful self-reliant thorough ambitious competent energetic focused logical insightful instinctive inventive methodical serious sophisticated systematic

Second, identify all activities, experiences, or accomplishments that prove that these adjectives apply to you. Consider both legal and non-legal experiences, both paid and unpaid. Use these as "evidence" that the adjectives properly describe you.

Third, identify the transferable professional skills that you gained and/or used in each of these experiences. Look at your activities and experiences and ask yourself: what did I do, start, or improve that distinguishes me from others who did this same activity.

Fourth, put it in written form. There is no strict "form" for resumes. However, your goal should be to catch an employer's eye with substance, clarity, and organization -- not with distracting colors, formats, or exaggerated prose. So, keep the following rules of thumb in mind:

Legal employers are generally more conservative than the rest of the population and resumes should be tailored accordingly. Fancy formats, colored paper, and "objectives" are not well-advised.

Be concise - but don't give yourself short shrift! Busy employers often do not have time to spend significant time with each and every resume that crosses their desks. Make sure your most important qualities, strengths, and accomplishments stand out. Try to keep your resume to one page (but consider relaxing this general rule if you had a significant career before law school). Your resume should answer the question "what have I done and how well have done it?" As with any good story, chronological organization in your resume is usually clearest.

Use Effective "Action" Verbs for Use in Resumes and Cover Letters.

Describe your experience with vigor and enthusiasm: use action verbs. Just like you should avoid the passive voice in your legal writing, try to avoid it in your resume and letters. Check out the "action words" that are often used on effective resumes and letters.

(incorporated from Paving the Way: Directing Your Legal Career Search, Georgetown University Law Center).

Resume Do's and Don'ts

Career Services conducts resume workshops periodically during the year and will be happy to critique your resume at any time. Several sample resumes are included to assist you. Do not use them as a "boilerplate" form, but rather as examples. (Click here to see the samples.) For easy reference, we include the following "Do's and Don'ts."

Do:

• Be concise and clear.
   
• Emphasize key information with bullets, bolding, underlining, headings, spacing and/or indentations.
   
• Include relevant experience whether paid or unpaid, legal or non-legal.
   
• Include current address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
   
• Use date J.D. is anticipated (i.e., "J.D. anticipated, May 2001") rather than year in law school.
   
• Describe honors, awards, or organizations if not self-explanatory.
   
• Tailor your resume for different employers: i.e., private practice vs. public interest; business vs. legal, non-profit vs. for-profit.
   
• Include "personal" data that may spark appropriate and engaging conversation and curiosity, i.e., if you'd be comfortable talking about it in an interview, include it!
   
• Check (and re-check!) for grammatical, typographical or spelling errors!
   
• Revise and update your resume at least twice a year.

Don't:

• Designate "position sought," "objective," or "career goals" on your resume.
   
• Provide salary information or any other unnecessary information.
   
• Include specific class rank or GPA if you feel they may not reflect as positively on your abilities as do other experiences. (Instead benchmark, i.e., "top 30%," and always promptly provide transcript upon employer's request.)
   
• Use a "slick" advertising format to attract attention.
   
• Use colored paper (your resume will likely be copied, and white paper copies best).
   
• Provide personal information such as marital status, age, number of children, etc. Such information should not be relevant to the hiring decision, and therefore customarily is not included on a legal resume.
   
• Include anything negative that will spur the employer to eliminate you from consideration.

(Adapted from Paving the Way: Directing Your Legal Career Research, Georgetown University Law Center)

Check Out Some Sample Resumes

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