Five Questions Lawyers Always Ask Me

I help lawyers get jobs, so they ask me a lot of questions. Five I often get:

1. Is it really that helpful to post a picture on LinkedIn? You may want to protect your privacy, but the odds are overwhelming that pictures of you are already floating out there over the Internet. Plus, you really do need to post a professional picture of yourself on LinkedIn. The absence of one is really weird, and you want to show you are both tech-savvy and normal-looking. Also, adding a picture to your LinkedIn profile increases views by over 10x!  See https://www.susantiensearch.com/really-need-picture-linkedin-profile/.
2. Isn’t it obviously sucking up to add language from the job description to your resume? No, it’s not. I regularly advise candidates to tailor their resumes to show clearly they can do the job at hand. Never once has an employer even noticed, let alone complained to me that an applicant is using language straight from the job description in his or her resume. Chances are managers have forgotten what they wrote exactly — they know what they want, so it’s not like they are constantly referring back to that document. And if your resume fails to follow the job description, you risk getting screened out immediately, especially by an admin or HR person unfamiliar with what lawyers do. 
3. If I have spot-on experience or if I was referred for the job, do I still need to say I’m very interested in the job? Yes. No matter how strong you are on paper, if you don’t come across as being interested in the role, you’re not going to get the job. You need to say you are interested and explain why so the hiring manager can understand your interest, motivation, and longevity. Managers are trying to fill an open headcount as fast as they can before it disappears, so they want people who want the job, not to have to pursue candidates.
4. Am I allowed to say who my clients are in a resume, LinkedIn profile or an interview? Yes! You are of course bound by terms of confidentiality, but other than that, prospective employers need to know what you did for whom so they can evaluate if you are any good. If your work for a client is public, like your firm is listed on the pleadings or the deal you worked on is in the news, you can use that information. Obviously if you have a super touchy client, think through what you can say, e.g., you close multi-million dollar deals for a Bay Area Fortune technology company in the ABC space.
5. How’s the market? The legal market closely follows the business market, so if a sector is strong, so is hiring for lawyers there. Right now there’s record rates of growth and job changeover. You can tell you are being too picky about jobs you’d consider if you input your desired title and location in a job search engine like indeed.com or Linkedin and still don’t like the results in this super hot economy and legal market.