Writing a Resumé
Introduction
The best jobs do not necessarily - or even usually - go to the best qualified people available. Rather, they go to the best qualified APPLICANTS...that is, people with basic qualifications for the job who know how to get hired.
Most employers of lawyers (and especially small law firms) are not well-skilled at the task of hiring new employees. Consequently, students and alumni must become extremely capable applicants so that you can be sure employers gain a good appreciation of the abilities you are offering them.
The Student Resume
The resume is an essential element of job hunting; it's not exactly the key to success, but it will often help you get beyond the front door. It's a personal advertisement, a well-written, concise document that persuasively shows what you have to "sell" to an employer.
Even though there are a number of very important Do's and Don'ts for writing a resume, there is no one "right" style or format. What works for one person may be totally unsuitable for another. The right format is the one that will achieve your objective of getting interviews by accentuating those skills, abilities and accomplishments that will attract the attention of potential employers. Many students need to write two or more different resumes in order to attract the interest of different types of employers.
Writing Your Resume
There are several steps to resume writing. Each resume is very individualistic, as no two people have exactly the same background. You must arrange your resume in a way best suited to showing off your particular experiences and skills. However, everyone must go through the three steps listed below in preparing a resume.
- Brainstorm. Sit down with a piece of paper and pen and write down a list of everything you have ever done (or use the resume-information assessment worksheet enclosed). If you can work from an old resume, you may be able to shorten this process a great deal.
- Organize. After you have a comprehensive list of all your activities and achievements, decide how best to categorize them. Typically, you will have two main categories: Education, and Employment or Experience. You may also wish to include categories for Activities, Honors, Publications, Interest, etc. You may wish to include activities and honors under the institution to which they pertain. Either way is permissible.
- Produce. Prepare (word process) your resume using a computer, saving it on disk to make future changes easily and quickly. The Career Services Office provides two (2) computers and one laser printer for students to work on their resumes.
- Choice of Materials & Format. A good appearance is important. To accomplish this, the resume should be printed from a laser printer onto good quality bond paper. Paper color should be conservative...ranging from white, ivory, beige, or grey. (Other colors such as pink, purple, green, etc. might look nice but are not appropriate.)
- Proofread. It is very important that you and/or someone you trust proofread the final draft very carefully.
As a general rule, the resume should be short. One page is optimal, with two pages as an absolute maximum length. Anything longer almost certainly includes extraneous data that detracts from the essential information.
For the same reasons, an outline type of resume is preferable to the narrative type, since it is more succinct and therefore more easily read and "digested." The worst thing you can do is to bore the reader before he or she reaches the bottom of the page!
The patterning of data on the page can determine whether or not the student's accomplishments will ever be read. The resume is primarily a display tool, so each unit of information must be package attractively in a design that harmonizes with every other unit of information. Bold, underline, italics and tabs are all ways of attractively packaging your information. Remember to be consistent throughout the entire resume.
Mechanical suggestions
- Do not abbreviate.
- Use an outline form, but do not include numbers, letters, or dashes as category divisions.
- Leave enough white space on the page for easy readability.
- Avoid cluttered appearance by leaving a substantial margin on all sides; be sure the margins are balanced.
- Make absolutely sure that there are no typos or misspelled words!
- If the resume exceeds one page in length, repeat your fill name in the top left hand corner of the second page with the page number directly beneath or beside it.
Guidelines to Possible Content
The following basic information should be included in your resume:
- Complete name, complete address with zip code and telephone numbers with area code and email address.
- Legal and Pre-legal education (law school and college in reverse chronological order), schools attended, degrees awarded, and dates received (month and year only), college major(s).
It is up to you whether or not you wish to provide information about your academic record in law school and college on the resume. Most employers will assume that you are at the bottom of your class if there is no mention of grades or rank on the resume. There are many ways in which academic performance can be displayed to your advantage - even if you are not in the top 20% of your class. Please read the guidelines for reporting grades section of this handout or come by the Career Services Office for suggestions. It is extremely important that all grade/rank information provided is correct. Any misrepresentation could result in an honor code offense.
- Scholastic honors in law school and college. These items can (preferably) be listed under the institutions to which they pertain, or listed as a separate category.
- Extracurricular activities, if appropriate, and memberships in student organizations. The student should always give full names of organizations, rather than listing only acronyms.
- Employment, including all law related part-time or summer jobs, as well as any significant non-legal work. This section is best displayed in reverse chronological order. Be sure to include locations and dates of employment. Volunteer experience counts, particularly if you held some sort of time-consuming position within an organization. Externships count; call the category "experience" instead of "employment." Non-legal experience definitely counts; if you received and accepted an externship or internship for the near future include it on your resume (with dates).
- Miscellaneous/Skills/Interests. These headings can be used if you wish to provide some additional information (e.g. foreign language proficiency, service in the Peace Corps, extensive foreign travel, Lexis/Westlaw training, hobbies, community volunteer work, etc.) This section helps the employer to see you as an individual, and gives you something to discuss in the interview.
Writing Cover Letters
Any time you mail a resume to an employer, you will need to include a cover letter. The cover letter gives you an excellent opportunity to reveal additional information to the employer, or to point out information on your resume that you want to be certain the employer does not miss. Cover letters are extremely important pieces of writing since each potential employer must make a decision whether or not to grant an interview solely on the basis of what the letter conveys. To the person who receives it, the resume/cover letter package IS the applicant, since the reader has no other data at this point. Writing an effective cover letter can be a difficult and frustrating task. However, the following suggestions and guidelines will make writing cover letters simple, and will be excellent practice for the letters you will write in legal practice.
Making a Good First Impression
The appearance of the cover letter is as important as the appearance of the resume. If possible, you should use the same paper for cover letters as you use for your resume.
Each letter must be typed or laser printed individually, under no circumstances should cover letters be photocopies.
Use the standard form for the business letter. Your name, address and date go in the top right corner of the page (or you may use the same format as on the top of your resume for name, address & phone number then place the date underneath). The employer's name and address goes under the date, but on the left side of the page. Using a word processor will enable creation of your own "stationery" to match your resume. As indicated above, center your name, address and phone number(s) at the top of the page, using same font as that of your resume. This basically created your own letterhead.
Unless you are answering a "blind" advertisement, the letter should always be addressed specifically to the person - by name and title - who will most likely be doing the interviewing for the job. In the case of a law firm, a logical addressee is the hiring partner. You may be able to locate the names of hiring partners and/or recruiting coordinators in a directory in the Career Services Office. You may have to make some phone calls. Receptionists will gladly give you names and titles, including correct spellings of hiring personnel. Alternatively, you can write to alumni of Georgia State or to one who shares your undergraduate school , interest area. Or place of birth, any connection with the person who receives the correspondence increases the chances that it will be handled with some degree of personal attention.
Neatness, punctuation, and spelling are all very important! Employers assume that the quality of the letter you write is a sample of the quality of the work you will produce.
The Body of the Letter:
Cover letters should be brief - rarely more than two or three paragraphs, and NEVER longer than one page in length. The object of the letter is to pinpoint how your skills and experience relate to the particular needs of that potential employer. Consequently, each cover letter should have a some-what different slant, depending on what skills you want to emphasize for that particular employer.
Paragraph One:
The first paragraph is undoubtedly the most difficult one for most applicants to compose, but it is also the most important. The reader may be screening hundreds of letters, or he/she may be preoccupied with other duties. The opening must convince this person that the whole letter and the resume enclosed are worth reading. Specifically, there are two questions which should be clearly answered in the first paragraph:
1) what motivated you to write the letter to this specific source?
2) exactly what is it for which you are applying?
Often the answer to the first question is that you have something specific to offer the firm or company to which you are writing. In that case, you may wish to start out with your strongest selling points. This is a particularly effective beginning if the student is writing in response to an advertised position. "My experience in
, my training in make me qualified for the position of that you have advertised in the Career Services Office." This approach may also be used for an uninvited (prospecting) letter - particularly if you have specific skills that are of value to a particular employer (eg., engineering degree and law degree for a patent firm; accounting and law degree for an accounting firm,) or if you have significant professional work experience.
Another possible way to begin the letter is by making a statement about the firm or organization which forms the basis for your belief that there may be an opening there for someone with your qualifications. "The reputation and growth of American Casualty, Incorporated leads me to inquire whether new positions may be developing in your claims department." OR "It has been brought to my attention that there is a possible opening for an associate in your firm's tax department." OR "I have read with interest a number of news articles concerning the acquisition of ABC Foods by your company." It is also perfectly acceptable to mention something specific about the person to whom the letter is addressed. "The presentation you gave at my law school's labor law careers panel on March 23rd was of particular interest to me." It is important, of course, that any of the above opening sentences is followed by a sentence which answers the question: Exactly what is it for which I am applying?
A third possible opening for your letter - and probably the best one - is the use of a name of a third person, known to both the writer and the reader. "Mr. John Smith, President of Acme Corporation, suggested I write to you about the possibility of obtaining a position as an associate with your firm." Obviously, you would not use an opening of this type without the expressed consent of the third party.
Paragraph Two:
This paragraph should serve as a general summary of education, experience, and other areas of significance which should be shared with the prospective employer. The statements should amplify the resume rather than repeat it. "As my resume indicates, I have worked in the litigation departments of both a small and large law firm, which gave me the opportunities to handle small cases in their entirety as well as the procedural aspects of larger cases."
You should always be objective, rather than subjective, in describing your qualifications. For example, instead of saying "I am a hard worker" or "I have excellent leadership ability", you might point to specific accomplishments which back up those assertions. "The fact that I have been able to maintain a 82.54 grade point average in law school, while also working forty hours per week as a law clerk, demonstrates that I am a hard worker." OR "My leadership ability can be judged from my present responsibilities of supervising a staff of six paralegals at Jones, Smith & Thomas."
Paragraph Three:
The main purpose of the final paragraph should be to ask for an interview. There are many ways to do this, but you should always make it as easy as possible for the reader to grant the interview. If you re available at the interviewer's convenience, say so. Or you might indicate that you will call them in a couple of weeks to see if an interview can be arranged.
Following the third paragraph is a most important statement which many writers omit....thanking the reader. A simple "thank you" or Thank you for your consideration" is sufficient. You should be careful to AVOID any type of statement that might alienate the person reading the letter - such as "I hope to hear from you at your very earliest convenience" OR "I trust you give this application the favorable attention it deserves."
Tone of the Letter:
The main objective is to convince the person reading the letter that you should be granted an interview. Consequently, the letter should focus on what you can do for the prospective employer, and not on what the job would do for you. For example, the letter SHOULD NOT say, "I would like to gain some practical legal experience by working in a firm such as yours."
Even if you don't know much about a particular employer, you can be certain the interviewer will be looking for evidence of the following traits:
- Intelligence and analytical abilities
- Motivation and drive
- Reliability
- Efficiency and organization
- Good writing and speaking skills
- Profit-orientation
General Advice:
- (Almost) Never begin a paragraph with "I." You may have to slap in a prepositional phrase or two, but you should avoid starting with "I." If the first word an employer reads is "I", he/she may assume that the writer is somewhat egocentric.
- Be brief. Remember that you are dealing with busy people who are trying to practice law. A lengthy cover letter will only bury the key points you are trying to convey, or will give the employer the impression that you are begging.
- Start with your strongest point. If your best selling point to the employer is your academic experience, mention this in the first paragraph. If your work experience is your biggest plus, be sure and assert that in the first paragraph.
After writing your resume and cover letters, you might want to drop by the Career Services Office for a quick review of them.
