Winter Break Job Search Strategies

We know you are up to your eyeballs in exam prep right now, but in case you are thinking about how you might use your Winter Break to advance your job search, here are some tips from Dean Zimmerman:

• Send holiday and/or New Year cards/emails to former supervisors, colleagues, faculty or anyone else with whom you’ve been out of touch. Bring them up to date on your life, school and the job search. Ask if they can keep their eyes out for you or share referrals. Consider asking for short meetings to re-connect.

• Search summer surveys on HastingsCareersOnline and contact classmates who completed surveys on employers of interest. Ask when and how they applied and to whom you should apply.

• Swing by the office and complete a form for an alumni database search in your practice area or location of interest. Email those alums and ask for a brief informational meeting over the Winter Break.

• Run a search on martindale on Lexis for attorneys who attended both your undergraduate college and Hastings [college (enter name) and law-school (hastings) and city (a or b or c)]. Reach out to those attorneys for informational meetings. You can also run searches on martindale.com (except you can only search by law school there). Look for Hastings alums who do the work that interests you in your cities of interest.

• Attend holiday parties and look for continuing legal education courses offered by the county bar, or other entities such as Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) or the Practising Law Institute (PLI)….these are great experiences that you can add to your resume to bolster your experience. They are also great places to meet attorneys who do the work that interests you.

• Not sure yet what interests you? Do some reading about career options. Swing by the Career Office to look at our full library or check out some of these classic texts: The Official Guide to Legal Specialties, America’s Greatest Places to Work with a Law Degree, My First Year as a Lawyer, Beyond LA Law.

• We are actually open through December 23 and we will re-open on Monday, January 3rd.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and holiday break.

Cheers,

Sari

It's Essential to Tailor Cover Letters

Dean Zimmerman shared the following advice today with recent grads, but her tips apply to students and seasoned alumni as well. Use her advice to make your cover letters count!

We wanted to share some useful feedback that we are hearing from employers about what makes an online application successful.

The main piece of feedback is to make sure that you are addressing your cover letters to specific individuals whenever possible. We try to obtain contact information and it is viewable in the posting itself. Sometimes a contact is not available and, in that case, you may address letters to "Dear Hiring Committee", "Dear Hiring Attorney", "Dear Sir/Madam", "Dear Recruiting Committee", etc.

Whenever possible you also want to tailor the content of the letter to the specific position and employer. Employers tell us that letters that demonstrate an awareness of their organization and/or position are much more compelling and will stand out. The first paragraph of the letter is a great place to show you've done your homework about the employer (major cases or deals, recent news about a successful case or deal, client names, practice area names, etc.). This doesn't need to be long-just a sentence or two.

Throughout the body of the letter you want to make sure you are sharing information about your skills or experiences that would be useful to this particular employer or this particular job. Once again, there may be limited information in the posting, but always try to google the employer, see if they have a website, see if they have alums, see if there is anything distinctive about their work that you want to show a connection to in your letter. Use language that they include in the posting itself when you describe your experience.

You may well find that you have a couple of template cover letters, but do go through each one before uploading it to a particular application to see if you can tailor it more. I know this is time-consuming, but tailored letters are far more likely to make a positive impression.

Interviewing Tips from an Alumni Mentor

A mentor in our Alumni Mentor Program gave the following sage advice to a mentee. We hope you will also benefit from these practical tips during Fall Recruiting:

I highly encourage you to do some practice interviews with the career office (or your classmates if necessary). Have them be brutal as to your body language, eye contact, posture and responses. You want to go into that interview polished and assertive, yet engaging and charming -- no fumbling for words and neither uptight nor overly-casual. No um, uh-huhs, wayward/wandering glances, etc. My roommate did the same thing for me before OCI and he was merciless, but it helped tremendously. A little embarrassment now with your friends or the career office will be well worth getting a job. Your inner dialogue should be something akin to: I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick butt, and I'm all out of gum. :)

Like I said today, do your homework about the firm (its practice areas, recent victories or transactions) and the people scheduled to interview you (the recruiting coordinator at the firm will give you the names if you ask beforehand). It's good to mention some fact from your research about the interviewer (where they went to school, outside interests, experiences, etc.) or the firm in your responses; it shows you are interested. When they ask if you have any questions, DO NOT ask about the firm's pro-bono program, vacation or benefits. Ask about how many summer associates they are hiring, what practice groups they are looking to augment and how many of the summer associates do they plan to make permanent offers to when the summer ends.

Here's another small (and maybe silly) tip. Before you go into your interview (either on campus or at a call back), psyche up -- go into the restroom, look at and tell yourself that you are ready and deserve the job as much as the interviewer. You should feel like you "own the room" as much as the person on the other side of the table. Confidence (but not cockiness) sells. Plus, it will give you one last chance to make sure your clothes are on straight and you're hair isn't sticking up straight.

- A Hastings Mentor

Cultivating Relationships

Basil Plastiras, name partner at Plastiras Terrizzi and President of the U.C. Hastings 1066 Foundation, knows the importance of cultivating relationships, especially with classmates. Will your Tower roommate or study buddy eventually have an impact on your business? Basil has great advice to to share on the subject of referrals:

In my experience, the most reliable sources for referrals are friends who happen to be attorneys. Oftentimes, these friends refer the cases out because due to the press of their other matters, conflicts, geography or the case is outside their expertise. It is especially helpful when these attorneys pre-screen the potential clients and call me with a brief factual summary and any particular issues with the case or the potential clients. I try to do the same for them.

One of my most reliable sources of clients is a classmate from my first year study group at UCH in 1972. He ended up in practice in Southern California, while I remained in Northern California. To this day, we still refer cases to each other, even though we see each other only at UCH reunions and, occasionally, other events. Otherwise, our communications are limited to emails, phone calls or US mail.

After I receive a referral and meet with the potential clients, I try to contact the referring attorneys and let them know what happened, whether I took the case or not, and if not, why not. This helps solidify the referral relationship, and reminds the referring attorney that I appreciate the referral and respect his\her role in the process.

- Basil Plastiras '75

Long Distance and Other Employers

Dear Students:

I know it seems crazy that we’re already talking about next summer’s job search! As we’ve been saying, it is more important than ever to consider a wide range of employers. If you will be targeting employers outside of the Bay Area for next summer/next year, there are several things you can be doing now!

* INTERESTED IN LARGER FIRMS?
Go onto Nalpdirectory.com and run a list of firms in cities that interest you. Compare that list to those employers attending Hastings’ OCI (check HastingsCareersOnline.com). Write to those firms (or branch locations) that are not coming on campus. Let them know that you'll be in the area before school starts and you're eager to interview with them! Then call to follow up!

* INTERESTED IN PROGRESSIVE, SMALLER FIRMS?
Google the “Private Public Interest and Plaintiff's Firm Guide” for a national directory. Some noted progressive firms also recruit very early in the year, such as the renowned firm of Goldstein Demchak (the Wonder Bread lawsuit firm).

* GET LISTS OF ALUMS.
Ask Jess in our office (careers@uchastings.edu) to run you a list of alums in your regions of interest. Email those alums to see if they have time to speak with you about how they did their search and to share tips about their legal market.

* CONSIDER JOBS IN THE FEDERAL GOV'T
Federal law is the same all over the country, so these practices are portable. In addition, federal gov't work is very prestigious! Stay tuned for the updated version of the Gov't Honors Handbook on HastingsCareersOnline.

* MARTINDALE.COM
Do an advanced search for lawyers and/or law firms in martindale.com in your regions of interest.

* PSLAWNET.ORG
Go onto pslawnet.org to look for nonprofits, gov't agencies and smaller progressive firms in other cities.

We're always here and eager to help, so call the front desk (565.4619) to set up an appointment.

-Sari Zimmerman

Summer Survival Tips

We know that the legal market is very competitive these days and you all have questions about what this means for you. One thing that is essential is to make the most of this summer: that could mean building relationships with professionals who work in areas that interest you, shadowing an attorney for a day, sitting in on a court session, getting a good reference from a professor or a supervisor for whom you are interning, and really thinking about where you see yourself after law school.

Here are some specific tips for making the most of your summer no matter where you're working:

1. If you've been receiving spotty, inconsistent, or non-existent feedback, make sure to check in with your supervising attorneys...ask how you're doing...ask how you could be improving....ask what other skills you should be honing and then request work that will develop those skills. Asking for feedback is hard, but absolutely essential!

2. If you've been receiving feedback, make sure that you are acting on it! We are happy to debrief feedback sessions and help you process feedback that you're receiving at work.

3. Treat your summer as more than just an opportunity to receive an offer. Make sure to be developing relationships with lawyers who can act as strong references and as resources. Make sure that you are getting work in a range of areas. Ask for a writing assignment so that you'll have a strong writing sample at the end of the summer. Brainstorm with a counselor if you're unsure how to go about any of these points.

4. Check out the Summer Survival Tips series at http://www.younglawyersblog.com/post/Summer-Survival-Ten-Tips-for-Summer-Associates-(Part-I).aspx

Most important, we’re here to talk! Please call the front desk at 415.565.4619 to set up an appointment to chat about this or other topics.

-Sari Zimmerman

Brand New Blog!

The U.C. Hastings Career Corner has transitioned to a brand new Blog! We'll be updating Facebook, Twitter, and our new Blog with Career related articles, and content drafted by career counselors in our office. If you stumble upon an article you think should be shared through our blog, or would like to become a guest contributor, email careers@uchastings.edu.