Perhaps I Have Been a Wee Bit Discouraging

I am very lucky to have lovely readers - law students and lawyers and former lawyers and even real people too. The emails and the comments that I receive here about my job search have been such an important part of my year since the lay off.

But this post is for the law students and the lawyers. I have received emails from lawyers telling me that, from what they have read on my blog, they are very apprehensive about starting their own job search. I am afraid that I may have been unnecessarily discouraging. So, let me clear up a few things.

First, it is notoriously hard to find legal jobs in this state, even when the economy is booming. There's just too damn many of us here, and too many people who will jump at the chance to move here. I have been on the job boards constantly and I can assure you that there are many more postings in other places.

Second, I am highly specialized. It has been very hard to convince people that I am willing to learn/want to learn something else, or find anybody who is willing to train me in another area of the law. I saw the writing on the wall when rumors were going around about lay offs at my old firm. I started to take all the partners at the law firm out to lunch to convince them to teach me what they do. I wasn't able to broaden my base in time. On the other hand, when a firm is looking to practice in my area of the law, I should be at the top of the list for consideration.

Third, I have no litigation experience. A very large majority of the posted positions over the past year have been for people with litigation experience. When I didn't get that job last fall that I was practically told was mine during the first round of interviews, it was later explained to me that they went with someone who had similar experience to mine but who also knew how to litigate.

There is good reason to believe that my results are not typical. Sadly, I have not received any return emails from the other associates who were laid off with me. I don't know whether this is because of the embarrassment over continued unemployment, whether they have moved on and want no memories of their past job, or, maybe, they just didn't like me (although nobody else in town seems to know what happened to them either). Promises to do coffee and to keep in touch just never panned out . . .

That's Cold 2

I find it very inappropriate to have received a job rejection e-mail on Christmas Eve.

Its a small, small world

This morning, at 5:30 a.m., I was applying for a job. Applying for a job is another full-time job that you cannot do at your current job unless you really want the people at your current job to make the decision for you regarding when you are leaving.

Anyway, my husband comes and looks over my shoulder at the firm's web page and at the picture of the partner who is looking for an associate. He says. "I know her." And by the way he said it you can trust me that the only appropriate follow-up question was, "Did you date her?"

If I end up getting an interview, it won't be awkward at all. The good news is, my husband says she is really nice.

[I think he might be a little bit of an attorney groupie (but only in this one particular area of the law). I had better find a job as an attorney again, soon!]

Bad Day

It's just been a bad day. I'm not soliciting for comments or e-mails. I'm simply stating, I just don't have it in me to make light of anything today.

1. The dental work is going to cost $900.
2. It's so friggin cold in my cube that I haven't taken my coat off all day.
3. I found out that my employer considers me to be an administrative assistant. [More on that in another post.]
4. Somebody told me a family secret and it was hurtful. [That's as far as I can go on that one.]
5. I got a rejection letter today from a law firm that I was fairly certain would at least contact me for the next step.
6. Only two people have signed up for the next legal seminar that my business is presenting. This doesn't cover the costs.
7. The company had a team building exercise today and I had to role play. At the break I beat my head against a bathroom stall.
8. I caught myself standing in line at Starbucks singing OUT LOUD Eddie Mercury's "I'm going slightly mad."
9. When I walked up the steps to the office I started to cry (and its nowhere near time to blame that on PMS).
10. I dropped my running shoe in wet mud.
11. I forgot to pay the water bill (for several months) and they shut off the water. [In my defense, they did stop sending me bills. However, they explained to me today that even though they stopped sending me bills, I used the water and I should have known to ask for a bill. Given that I am actually a lawyer, despite my current job title, I knew that they had a valid point.]
12. At the gym, the guy working out in the row of elliptical machines in front of my row of elliptical machines had really bad gas.

Job Search Update

Due to a series of events and a network of friends, the extent of which I won't go into here, I had lunch last week with someone who practices in the same area of law as I do. When I think about all the things that had to happen for me to get introduced to this guy, it blows my mind. We're talking missing the right elevator and making the right green light kind of stuff over a series of months. This outlandish series of events allowed me to meet a friend of a friend of a monkey of a relative of a coworker who knew this guy.

I told him that I was trying to meet all the attorneys in town that practice our area of the law. We chatted shop for some time and then and then - get this - he tells me his firm might be hiring another associate in his department. This fall. I tried very hard to not look like in my head I was doing back flips and jumping up and down and already purchasing the fall Kate Spade bag. He takes me back to his office to meet some other people. Later that day I get an email asking for my resume.

And I have not heard from them since. My husband and counselor say to call. My dad, who was the head of hiring and firing for a Fortune 500 company, says not to call. He says that they obviously know who I am now and when and if they are ready to call, they will call.

You know what Tom Petty says. The waiting is the hardest part.

The Search

Over the past 5 months, I have sent out 12 letters and resumes to job postings on the web. From those mailings, I have received three phone calls, and from those phone calls, I scored two interviews. One interview was for a paralegal position. The other interview was for a recruiter/head hunter type position. I did not get either of the jobs. Actually, I never heard back from the people about the paralegal position. They actually tried to convince me through the entire interview that I did not want the job. The final phone call was from a law firm out of town that is just now beginning its search. I can't even imagine the logistics of that one if they call back. I have not heard anything about the status of my 9 other applications. I have contacts at two of the 12 companies with postings, but contacting them has not proven to lead to any advantage.

Interestingly, I did not find the job/project that I am doing now through a posting. It was through a friend of a friend. This may prove the general belief that most people do not have success in their job search through web postings.

Responding to only 12 postings might not seem like a lot, but I can assure you that I have applied for everything I can find that seems to match my skill set, and more than a few that I am way overqualified for. There have simply been very few attorney positions open in this town this summer. In fact, the big firms haven't had any jobs posted for months.

I know that I need to start networking. So far I have taken three people out to lunch. Two of those people are other attorney friends that work at firms with practices in my area of the law. The other lunch was with an accountant that wants me to write an article with him. Any in-person networking beyond that is going to be cold calling, which is not something I particularly enjoy.

Only 5 days left for the early bird discount for my seminar. People signed up = 0. White chocolate Reese's peanut butter cups consumed = 2.