How to write a LinkedIn or CV summary as an in-house lawyer

What does an effective LinkedIn or CV summary look like for a Legal Counsel?

While each section of your LinkedIn profile or CV is important, the summary section is where you get to sell yourself and showcase your value to the employers that you are targeting in your professional journey.

Think of it as a mini cover letter that highlights what you can offer as a lawyer / legal counsel to your target employers.

1. Write for your reader

There are two categories of people who will be reading your CV or LinkedIn profile for hiring purposes:

1. Lawyers (hiring managers and future colleagues)
2. Non-lawyers (e.g. external or internal recruiter, HR, CEO’s personal assistant if it’s a start-up that is hiring).

Non lawyers are likely to be your first readers. They decide whether they should pass your profile on to the decision maker.

It’s important to make sure that:

• your summary can be easily understood by non-lawyers, and
• it contains the key words that non-lawyers can match with the hiring brief they have received from the legal team.

Quick example. Your target employers may require someone with experience in:

drafting Master Service Agreements

OR

negotiating high value deals with Enterprise level customers

OR

supporting a particular geographic region

Things like that can be included into your summary.

What hiring managers are keen to know is what someone can do for their business, what they have done in the past that is relevant, and whether this person has the required qualifications.

2. Mind limited length

The summary section of your LinkedIn profile (or CV) should convey as much value as possible, given its limited length. Currently LInkedIn only allows to view about 56 words (or 360 character) of someone’s summary.

To read the rest, the busy viewer has to click on “View more…” - it’s important that they get the motivation to do so after scanning the first few lines.

3. Make it bespoke

The aim of your LinkedIn or CV summary is to bring you exactly the opportunities you are after. So it’s a good idea to make it super bespoke to the type of companies and teams you are interested in working for.?

Think about the summary section on your CV as an elevator pitch, and tailor it to the type of roles that interest you.

The statement should be fairly specific and true to your value as a lawyer of your specialism. Avoid generic statements and clichés.

4. Research how your target role is usually described

It's essential to know what you're interested in and how you can offer value to those type of businesses and legal teams.

So before writing your summary (and CV in general), it’s helpful to do some research to understand your ideal roles and how the hiring teams describe them.?

This information can be found by:

• scanning through job adverts (including historic ones)
• reviewing LinkedIn profiles of legal team members of relevant employers
• speaking with the recruiter running the search for a specific role that has caught your eye (a recruiter will share not just what skills they look for, but also how you can best present relevant information in your CV based on your specific experience).

When writing your CV summary, aim to use the same language used by the hiring legal teams to define their open positions. Keep it short and sweet, limiting your statement to three or four lines.

5. Consider a cover letter — for an exceptional role

Usually a short professional summary of 3-4 lines is more than enough. I don't recommend writing cover letters for all of the roles that you apply for. Recruiters and hiring managers are busy and rarely have the attention span for two documents.

But if there is a particular role you're extremely keen on and you have a way of reaching the hiring manager, it may be a good idea to write a cover letter (along with tweaking your CV summary).

Make sure to keep it extremely short and use 3-4 bullet points to address the job requirements, focusing on the hard skills.

Caution: I'd suggest only doing it for exceptional roles, and only if you have a pretty good idea of what the hiring team is looking for.

Showcasing value is key

Your LinkedIn or CV Summary is your first opportunity to showcase your value to your target employers.

By keeping your summary clean, clear, and relevant to your target roles, you should be able to get noticed for exactly the types of opportunities that make the best next step in your career journey.