Should a lawyer use a resumé coach?

“Should I use a resumé coach?”

?Unsurprisingly given the recent layoffs and tighter tech economy, we’ve been receiving a lot of reach-outs from candidates who are actively job-hunting. Many are lawyers who haven’t had to look for a job in several years, either because they’ve worked for the same employer for a long time, or because they were recruited directly to their last positions by former colleagues. Either way, they haven’t had to update their resumé or do formal applications in a while, and it feels like a daunting task to do so now.?

?It's tempting to turn to a resumé coach (and some employers even offer the service free to employees who are being laid off), but here’s why I’m skeptical:

1.????You are a lawyer. You made it into and through law school (plus however many years of post-JD experience you have). By definition, you are good at writing, at distilling complex matters down to their essence, and presenting succinct and persuasive written work. Those are exactly the skills required to write a good resumé, and you possess them in abundance. There is no reason why you should need to engage someone else to write your resumé for you.

2.???Resumé writers do not make a living actually placing people in jobs. They may claim to know how to optimize your resumé for job applications, but they have no skin in the game and often lack the requisite knowledge about how resumés for specific positions are reviewed by companies. Recruiters, on the other hand, present resumés and discuss them with hiring teams all day long, and we know a good one when we see it. Write it yourself, then ask a recruiter (or two, or three) to share feedback. Good ones (like us!) will gladly review resumés and share suggestions for free.???

3.???I can tell immediately when a resumé has been created by a resumé writer: the most obvious giveaway is the “topline word salad” (as a brilliant candidate so beautifully described it) consisting of bullet-point lists of ‘skills’ – in reality, a laundry list of buzzwords to try and fool AI resume parsing tools into allowing the resumé past the first screen. This may be useful to junior applicants for certain operational roles in a company, but it truly isn’t helpful to lawyers or other senior executives, and just wastes valuable real estate at the top of your resumé. Is a CEO (or a GC, for that matter) going to be won over by a resumé that lists “Talented Leader” as a bullet point at the top?? No.? They are going to skip straight over it and look to the meat of the resumé, where the evidence of your accomplishments listed under each position will speak for itself. ?Save the keywords for your LinkedIn profile (where they might actually be useful to recruiters conducting Boolean searches).

4.???Going back to point #1 above… You are a lawyer and you are being hired because of your abilities to analyze, write and present.? Your resumé should represent those, in your own voice and your own style.? How can a potential employer have confidence in your communication skills if you’re not confident enough to write your own resumé??

5.???What about a recruiter who offers to rewrite your resumé for a fee?? That is a conflict of interest, in my opinion, and is generally a sign of a recruiter who isn’t sufficiently busy with client work.? I might feel differently about this if the candidates were in finance roles, for example, but again – you are a lawyer, and you should be able to write your own resumé (especially now that ChatGPT can create a great layout for you!).

“But it’s a task I dread!”

Many lawyers are discreet and classy professionals who instinctively recoil from anything that smacks of bragging or self-promotion.? This is what can make resumé writing a fraught emotional task, for which it can seem easier to turn to a resumé writer.? If this applies to you, just take a deep breath and deploy a structured approach:

• Start with the basics (education, job titles, dates, reporting structure).
• For each employer, write a brief one-line description of the business along with any metrics that a potential new employer might find interesting.? The goal is to give context and save the reader from having to go to another site to try and find out about that organization (eg “Circus equipment manufacturer founded in 2009 and owned by private equity firm PE First, with 400 employees worldwide”).
• Forget the list of responsibilities. Instead, identify your greatest accomplishments in each role.? Starting with the most recent job, go back through your performance reviews, Slack, timesheets, email – wherever you keep track of your projects.? List every major project you’ve worked on, who you worked with, and what your role was.? You will be pleasantly surprised by how long this list is!
• Now bullet point those achievements under each job title. Make every point something you would like to talk about in a job interview.
• It’s not 'showing off' to list a professional accomplishment or experience on your resumé.? Potential employers want to know what you can bring to the table.? Using an abbreviated third-person bullet point format can feel more comfortable (eg “Resolved bet-the-company litigation by negotiating favorable settlement within 2 months”; “Received Team Member of the Year award for implementing new customer contract review processes and tools that resulted in a 20% reduction in time to close”).
• It’s fine to list an accomplishment that wasn’t yours alone – in fact, it’s good to let an employer see that (a) you work successfully with others, and (b) you give credit where it’s due?(eg “Partnered with VP of InfoSec to design and launch a best-in-class privacy program”; “Along with my manager and a direct report, conducted due diligence on three potential acquisition targets.?Personally drafted and negotiated all ancillary agreements and assisted the VP Corporate Finance in negotiating key terms of the Stock Purchase Agreement”).
• It’s good to have two or more versions of your resumé, for the different types of job you might be applying for.?
• Keep a separate list of confidential achievements if there are some you can’t explicitly talk about for reasons of privilege etc.? It’s good for you to just remember those anyway.
• TWO PAGES MAXIMUM for a resumé (no matter how senior you are), and ONE PAGE IS FINE.
• If you’re short on space and/or not sure how relevant they are, leave things like speaking engagements, articles authored etc off your resumé.? You can put these on your LinkedIn profile if need be.

Remember that Perfect is the enemy of Done.? You will win a job on the strength of your interviews and references, not because of a ‘perfect’ resumé.

So save your money, do it yourself, and all will be well!