Be! Aggressive! Be! Be! Aggressive!

During my first couple of years out of law school, I worked for a federal agency that was largely staffed by other recent law graduates. It was the sort of job that one needed good grades and maybe some journal experience to attain, but it was filled with graduates who, like me, had not quite made the cut for clerkships or six-figure jobs at BigLaw. As a result, there were many who felt a little bit of bitterness about their position. I am proud to honestly say I was not one of those people.

In any case, most of us were there on a two-year contract, and, as the term's end came near, we all started freaking out about where we would go next. There was much grumbling among my compatriots about the impossibility of finding a job, coupled with the sad-bastard complaint that, despite the great experience we had gotten during our work, law firms wouldn't look at us because we were considered inferior to federal law clerks. Many folks ended up going to another government agency, and I have since heard tales of much unhappiness on the part of those who took such a job despite the fact that they really wanted to do something else.

The problem was, as young people who had gone straight from high school to college to law school to (possibly) a summer associateship at a firm, to this job, most of us really had no clue about how to market ourselves and find a job. As we had approached high school graduation, we submitted applications to a number of colleges, where there were people waiting on the other end and eager to review our materials, and we just waited until they got in touch with us to admit us. Same with law school: admissions staff were ready to actively peruse our applications and invite us to come to their schools (and give them some money). And, during law school, firms often came right to the campus to interview us, and our career services offices spoon fed us by submitting our resumes to our firms of choice. In sum, we were basically handed opportunities in exchange for a little bit of effort on our part.

These experiences in mind, most of my government-job colleagues' job searches looked like this: print out a bunch of resumes, along with cover letters, sometimes with subtle variations in the text to reflect the target firm, send them all out, and wait to hear back. The most typical result: failure. My colleagues moaned at the lack of responses, complaining of a soft job market and lamenting their decision to take their current job (and, in the background, probably lamenting that they had spent a little less time at the bar during 1L). And, for the first few weeks of my job search, I did mostly the same thing. Difference is, I eventually realized that it wasn't working, and, intent that government agency #2 was not in my future, I changed up the strategy.

Rather than passively sending out resumes to firms, I used the martindale.com website to find firms that seemed like they would be a good fit for me: small, AV rated, litigation focus, in town, and specializing in areas of law with which my government work had made me familiar. I found about 15 firms that matched my criteria, and then I aggressively sought to sell myself to those firms. It usually went like this:

Step one: Call the firm. Tell the receptionist your name and that you would like to send a resume. Ask for the name of the hiring partner so that you can properly address your cover letter. Be really nice. Step two: Send the resume. On nice paper. (Duh).

Step three (and this is the key): Call them back about two days later. Try to call on the day after the resume likely arrived in their office. Some of these firms get stacks of resumes every day. Even if they truly intend to review them all, the demands of a hiring partner's work load is going to inevitably result in resumes stacking up and never being read. The least you can do is try and call attention to your materials while they are still near the top of the stack, and the partner last read your name yesterday or that morning, rather than a week ago, right before all those day-long depositions.

When you call, ask if you can speak with the hiring partner (you should know his or her name from the last call). Even if the receptionist doesn't put you through, she will at least tell the partner that you called, and your name will be on his or her mind. Or maybe she will put you through, in which case you'll probably get voice mail. This is a great opportunity for you to ramble off a concise summary of who you are and what skills you might bring to the table. Or maybe the partner will answer the phone. This scenario can be incredibly intimidating. But sack up! You're an adult now, and an attorney, no less. Be articulate and polite and sell yourself aggressively. Unless you plan to sit in an office all your life and take commands from those who decided to be more assertive than you in their career paths, you're going to have to learn to assert yourself and your ideas at some point, so you might as well start now.

I followed this general approach, and, out of 15 or so firms that I contacted, I got 4 interviews and 2 job offers. Not bad, I don't think. Then again, this means that I was rejected by numerous firms that I had personally invested myself in communicating with. And that can be a bad feeling. But a willingness to suffer some intermittent rejection is a prerequisite to eventual success. And I feel sure that any reasonably accredited person who is willing to be aggressive and actively pursue the job they want can attain it. It just takes a little bit of growing up and a willingness to step out of the admissions-council-and-career-services-offices womb that nourished us for so long. Those who wait for someone to seek them out will inevitably find themselves in the jobs that nobody else wants. Those who can break out of their insecurities and apply a little bit of pressure to potential employers may find themselves doing work that they truly want to do. And isn't that why we went to law school in the first place?