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David graduated from a joint JD/MBA program in May 2010. Having gone straight from college to graduate school, he was faced with the task of finding his first full-time position out of school and like many law and business students found himself battling an inhospitable market. He started his job search while in his last year of school and right before graduation landed a great new position as a sales and trading associate with an institutional trading firm.
Here are the secrets to David’s success for landing his new job:
1) How long were you searching for a job?
Depending on how you want to define the period, perhaps up to a year, as I was a full time student the entire time, but the best answer would probably be a little more than 3 months (Jan 25 to May 4).
2) What was your job search strategy during this period?
For the most part, my strategy was simply to apply to as many jobs as possible (at least 10 per week), and hope to be contacted by at least a small percentage of the firms I applied to. The rest of my job search time was spent on interview prep. I think this was a narrower approach than I would recommend to someone else in my position. I always felt that I could/should have done more in terms of networking, etc.
3) How did you ultimately come to obtain your current job (i.e., through a friend, cold application, etc.)
I went into the firm in early Feb. to speak with someone I knew that worked there. He was under the impression that I had scheduled an interview, and in all honesty was quite surprised that they had decided to interview me. When I explained that I had merely applied and just wanted to discuss the position with him, he decided that while I was there I might as well meet some people. It essentially turned into an impromptu interview, one that I did not feel very prepared. Nonetheless, I obviously went through with it. Along the way I spoke with a couple of people who were definitely looking to hire someone and we got along. I stayed in touch over the next few months, and eventually they were the ones that offered me a job.
4) What do you think were the secrets to your success?
There are no secrets. It’s all about working hard and sticking to it no matter how hopeless things look, remaining resilient in the face of what may seem to be overwhelming odds.
5) What advice do you have for job seekers out there?
Apply to at least 10 job openings a week. Consider registering with a site like doostang that requires a monthly fee. Though it’s not free, it narrows the applicant pool somewhat and will often have jobs that appear on monster or efinancial careers. Constantly put pressure on yourself to do more interview prep (mock interviews, learning about the industry), drive to be ready to contribute on day one as though you’ve had several years of experience. Network (something I never did well). Contact alumni, they’re probably willing to help. Never give up.
The following is a guest post by Stephanie Haladner, who has recently launched Women in Law, a global networking and consulting organisation based in London designed to help lawyers bring balance into their lives and enthusiasm into their careers.
Painting a Vision
by Stephanie Haladner
Friend and fellow woman in law Jen Bird recently directed me to her blog ‘Painting a Vision’. The title resonated with me immediately. And not just because over the last year I’ve found myself in the company of more than one painter. It’s been kind of weird. I go to a concert, I meet a painter. I’m eating eggs benedict, I’m approached by a painter. I attend a psychology conference, I sit next to a painter. I reconnect with an old friend, she reveals she’s a painter. I don’t really know why all this painter-magnetism has been happening. Psychologists might call it ‘concentrated focus’. Skeptics would call it coincidence. New-Agers (and Shakespeare) would say thinking about painters begets more painters. Creativity goddess Julia Cameron would say I’m a ‘shadow’ artist – too scared to become an artist, so gravitating to my rightful tribe. I can’t even draw a stick figure, but Julia may be on to something.
Moving past the literal, ‘Painting a Vision’ resonated with me because in addition to hanging out with painters over the last year, I’ve been busy painting a vision. When I left private practice, I left with a sense that my new career would involve helping people. During my seven years as a transactional lawyer, I’d always preferred humans to documents. So it was time to steer the career towards these humans. And when I thought about which humans to help, the answer was (as answers often are) right under my nose – women in law. Yes. I was a woman. I’d been in law. So who better to help than people just like moi!? So strong was this compulsion that I even inked ‘Will help women in law’ in my little book of visions.
How exactly I’d help I wasn’t sure. But I was sure about a few things:
1. I understood law firm culture;
2. I understood what it felt like to be a woman in law; and
3. I’d witnessed suffering (in myself and in others) at law firms - the whole culture never made much sense to me.
Not that I didn’t meet many wonderful lawyers along the way – some of my best friends are lawyers, and I happen to be a big supporter of men in law (many a partner included). It was just that I consistently felt a subtle sense of alienation in the law firm environment. Even though I worked inside the firm, I was an outsider looking in. Call me Camus.
Strangely, after leaving the law firm existence, I found myself becoming even more existential. Minor topics like the meaning of life and how we perceive the world around us consumed me. I began to gorge on books on the human condition – everything from psychology, philosophy (yes, Alain de Botton counts), weird science and, to the horror of my rational brain, spirituality. I even indulged in The Secret, a book my rational brain had previously rejected as new-New Age hokum. The notion of your thoughts creating your reality was something I’d given little thought to when my brain was stuck on law. And the concept of invisible thoughts producing visible results in the real world seemed like cherry pie in a blazing red sky.
As chance would have it, I began to encounter people (and not just painters, but other artists, quantum physicists, neuroscientists, and the occasional yogi) who hinted that there was more to thinking than one might think. Those stories are for another day. The point here is that suddenly my mind opened up to the power of painting a vision. Begin with a thought, feed that thought with supporting words and actions, and you can turn that thought into a reality. Starting with the end in mind may in fact blow your mind. Pass the cherry pie.
Within weeks of painting my vision, I got clear on how I’d help women in law. Then I started surfing the waves of the world wide web to see who else was doing what I wanted to do. That’s when I came across an organisation aptly called ‘Women in Law’. As I clicked through the site, I discovered that the founder, one Dr. Linda Spedding, was offering many of the very same services that comprised my vision. How could this be? Inspired, I e-mailed Dr. Spedding immediately. That e-mail turned into a meeting with an extraordinary woman who happened to be looking for someone to help her take Women in Law in a new direction. Thanks to Dr. Spedding and some stunning synchronicity (someone call The Police!), my imagined vision had showed up on the canvas of real life.
One thing my non-rational brain still wonders about is whether finding Women in Law after painting a vision to help women in law had anything to do with all the painter encounters. Guess I’ll never know. But what I do know is it’s evidence that if you set your intention, take action and pay attention, you get results. So a small suggestion to all the ladies in law: start painting a vision. You may surprise yourself with your capacity to create. A colourful new reality may be only a few brushstrokes away.
* Stephanie Haladner is qualified to practise law in Canada and in England and Wales. In 1996, she graduated magna cum laude from Duke University in North Carolina where she studied English literature. She received her LLB from the University of Victoria in British Columbia. See Stephanie’s complete bio and her blog post on the Women in Law site.
I was talking to a good friend the other day who recently had a baby and is really loving her life at the moment. In addition to enjoying every moment with her adorable son, she and her husband are both working part-time and so have time to spend with each other and with their son as a family. Both of them work in demanding jobs as attorneys so achieving this life for themselves was no small feat. Before now, it was not unusual for one or both of them to work late into the evening, sharing take-out over a speaker phone. Now they’re both home before dinner, preparing home-cooked meals and spending quality time together.
How did they get there?
When I asked my friend this question, she responded:
“Even before I had a baby, I held a vision in my head of what our lives would be like as a family – even though I wasn’t sure how it would happen, I saw both of us working on a reduced schedule, with enough time to enjoy our lives, spend time with our baby, and be home in time for dinner. No matter what was happening outside, I continued to hold the vision in my head, until one day . . we arrived.”
This concept of painting and holding a vision one’s future can be incredibly helpful in any job search and in life. Alice in Wonderland, an amazing book, and a source of many of my favorite quotes can also be instructive on this point:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where … ” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
Many times when I talk to individuals about their job search, they ask me what job openings are out there that match their qualifications. This is definitely useful information in any search, but another more important question is “where do you want to go?”. The answers to this question will have a significant impact on your next career move.
For example, if you’re an attorney thinking about the next step and hold a vision of yourself as a partner at a firm, then you might want to join a firm where you could see yourself growing and spending the next several years of your career. If you’re an attorney with the same skill set who would prefer pursue a passion for music while working only part-time, your path and choices regarding your next position would be markedly different.
Asking yourself “where you want to go” can be an intimidating question if you start out without any idea of where you’d like to end up, but a few smaller questions can be illuminating:
When you picture yourself at age 40, 50, 60 … 90 what are you doing?
How are you spending your time? Working? With family? With friends?
How much time do you spend on other pursuits?
What are those other pursuits?
What accomplishments in your life are you most proud of?
How do others in your community view you?
As the Cat points out, even if you don’t know where you want go, you will surely end up somewhere, it just helps to know where you’re going if you want to know which direction to move in at any particular point in time. And if you’re picturing yourself on a 100-foot yacht in the middle of the ocean, retired at age 35, or imagining some other Wildly Improbable Goal but thinking it may be outside your reach, here’s another tip from Alice In Wonderland, this time from the Queen:
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.
“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. . . .
Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”
As most tennis fans know, top seed Roger Federer defeated Tommy Robredo in the fourth round of the U.S. open today to advance to the quarterfinals and move one step closer to a potential sixth consecutive U.S. Open title.
In the post game interview, Federer was asked how he advanced past Robredo, who had won several games in the first set. I don’t remember the exact words he used, but Federer said something that surprised me. He said that at the beginning of a match, before he gets out on the court and especially after a bad practice, he sometimes questions himself, his abilities and even wonders whether he still knows how to play the game.
He then went on to say that, in this game, once he started to play, loosened up a bit and got to know the quirks of his opponent, he found that not only did he remember how to play, he played great.
I’m sure Federer was being overly-humble in the afterglow of his decisive win. But on some level it’s comforting to know that the number one seed in men’s tennis today, the man who has won the past five U.S. opens and who is arguably one of the greatest men’s tennis players of all time, sometimes wonders whether he still remembers how to play the game.
As the summer comes to an end and the new season begins – a season that has been ingrained in our collective memory as time to go back to school, aka “back to work” – some of us may be wondering “do I remember how to play the game?” The answer: Sure you do. Just relax and let the game come to you. And so you know you’re not alone, remember Federer’s words: “It happens to me too.”
An interesting op-ed in the New York Times, “Genius: A Modern View“, by David Brooks maintains that genius isn’t born, it’s made.
Referencing recent books, “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin, Mr. Brooks points out that the key factor separating geniuses (ranging from Mozart to Tiger Woods) from the rest is not I.Q., but instead “deliberate practice.”
“Top performers”, ranging from Mozart to Tiger Woods, he writes, “spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.” 10,000 hours is the number he mentions (if you practiced 24/7, that’s a little over a year).
What does this mean?
It’s never too late to turn yourself into a genius. As Coyle observes, “It’s not who you are, it’s what you do.”
When Felix Frankfurter, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice from 1939 to 1962, was asked how he became successful, he is said to have replied that it was “luck.” Similarly, Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice appointed to the Supreme Court, averred that her appointment to the bench was a “classic example of being the right person in the right spot at the right time”. Simply stated,” she said, “you must be lucky.” [1]
Luck has traditionally been defined as “good fortune; advantage or success, considered as a result of chance” but can it be true that at least two appointments to seats on the highest court in the land were simply a matter of “luck”? Similarly, do you need to have fortune on your side when searching for a job, or engaging in any endeavor for that matter, in order to be successful?
According to Ko-Yung Tung, [2] a distinguished attorney and professor at Yale Law School who, among his myriad of endeavors and accomplishments, has recently been giving lectures to students about the concept of luck, the sort of “luck” that Felix Frankfurter was talking about is actually comprised of three important parts (which are, thankfully, far more in one’s control than mere good fortune or chance).
As Ko-Yung sees it, the essential components of luck are: (1) Preparation (2) Awareness and (3) Action, all of which are discussed in greater detail below.
1. Preparation: Felix Frankfurter and Sandra Day O’Connor weren’t picked at random and they didn’t become Supreme Court Justices overnight. These Justices attended the best law schools, worked in top positions in the government, and spent years honing their skills. They were selected as Justices because they were prepared to be selected. The message here: Make sure to to spend time building your skills. Especially if you’re not feeling “lucky” in your job search at the moment, you can use it as an opportunity to refine your skills and to nurture important relationships.
2. Awareness: Sandra Day O’Connor said that she might not have been chosen in 1981 if she had not randomly met Chief Justice Warren on a houseboat vacation. It is hard to quantify the impact of that chance meeting on her selection, but there is an important lesson to be learned here. Every day people come into your life and connections are made, if only for an instant. You need to keep your eyes open and become aware of the individuals and opportunities that come into your life that may lead to exciting opportunities down the line.
3. Action: Once you become aware of the opportunities and connections that exist, you must be ready to act and to seize any opportunities that present themselves. In some cases that may mean sending a follow up e-mail, in others making a call or sending your resume. Sometimes it may simply mean saying “yes.” Only by taking action will you be able to make the most of the opportunities that come before you.
Were Justice Frankfurter and Justice O’Connor “luckier” than the rest of us? Maybe. But, with these tips, and maybe just a little bit of good old fortune, we can all create our own luck.
___________________
1. Notably, both Justice Frankfurter and Justice O’Connor had difficulty finding a job out of law school due to religious discrimination and gender discrimination, respectively. This of course didn’t stop them from reaching the highest level of their profession.
2. Special thanks to Ko-Yung Tung who inspired this blog post!
I recently saw on the website, Mashable, a list of one author’s top ten social networking sites for finding a job. His top 10 are:
1. LinkedIn
2. Plaxo
3. Twitter
4. Jobster
5. Facebook
6. Craigslist
7. My Workster
8. Visual CV
9. Jobfox
10. Ecademy
My two favorites on the list are Craigslist (always interesting job postings on there) and LinkedIn (a great way to follow up with people you’ve recently met with a quick note and an invitation to Link-In).
For those of you who have been searching for a job for a while, I recently received a hopeful e-mail from a friend who wrote about her experience finding a job (after several months of searching):
“I found the job via a posting on the internet. I sent off my resume thinking I would never get called. But the recruiter called and was a very nice man. I’ve been here since September.”
You never know when that e-mail you send will be the one that lands you a job … It pays to keep going!
A recent article in the New York Times, entitled “As Layoffs Surge, Women May Pass Men in Job Force”, reports that with recent layoffs predominantly affecting men [1], women are poised to soon outnumber men in the workforce. [2]
I think this article is interesting (especially because I hadn’t realized that there were almost equal numbers of men and women in the workforce today) and want to highlight a few points that struck me:
1. Even though women are approaching equal numbers in the workforce, they are still only earning 80 cents for each dollar of their male counterparts’ income.
2. The jobs women have are not necessarily as good as the ones men have (i.e., women are more likely to be in part-time jobs without health insurance or unemployment insurance, and, in some cases, sick days).
3. Even as women become the sole breadwinners in many homes, they are likely to remain responsible for most domestic responsibilities at home. [3]
Although the article doesn’t paint a particularly rosy picture for women today, the fact that the proportion of women in the workplace is rising gives me a sense of hope that men and women will soon begin to better appreciate each others’ value in the workplace, and that this understanding will then give rise to better pay, better health care, better hours, and more flexibility in general for both men and women. I am curious to hear others’ thoughts about this article and the topic in general.
________
1. The article indicates that 82% of recent layoffs have befallen men who are heavily represented in distressed industries like manufacturing and construction.
2. As of November, 2008 women held 49.1 percent of the nation’s jobs according to nonfarm payroll data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
3. The article reports that “[o]n average, employed women devote much more time to child care than employed men do,” according to recent data from a government survey.
Welcome to our blog! The authors of this blog spend a great deal of time thinking of ways to make our jobs, and our lives, more enjoyable. We thought we’d get a blog started to share some of our ideas and resources related to this topic. We hope you enjoy …
Jen Bird
Suzanne Grossman
Nicole Lisa
Alyssa Best
