Transcript
In this video, Harrison Barnes is inspecting an attorney’s resume. The experience appears to be more of a Consumer-facing practice area than someone who can work in a law firm or big company. A resume tells a story of who you are. He thinks this resume has a lot of opportunities to improve. The following is what he recommends for this:
- Remove GPA information. (He stresses that unless your GPA score is top-notch, you should not include that on your resume.)
- Remove Dean's List Information. (When you are not a consistent Dean’s Lister, there is no point including this on your resume.)
- Remove Bar Admissions. (He mentions only to leave one bar admission. Not necessary to add more.)
- Remove irrelevant experience like, in this case, a dog sitter experience. (Law firms want to hire people that take their careers seriously. Including your dog sitter experience lessens your chance.)
Transcript:
So this person here, this is another example. So here we have the Federalist society and this is the same type of thing. So the Federalist society on your resume is a good thing. If you want to get a job in a lot of places in the country that probably not San Francisco or New York or other places now, it's not going to kill you.
But again, this is something where, you're taking a risk, so you're taking a risk having that on there because it can potentially hurt you. Now, I don't know what a three five means that your law school, but if that puts you in the top 5% or 10% and put it, if it doesn't I don't think you need to put it on there.
I know you're proud of it. Same thing here I don't know what that does if it's good or not and then it looks like you're on the Dean's list, not every semester. So I would probably just because you're on the Dean's list three times the whole time you're in an undergraduate's probably not something you need.
And then these Bard missions, I would put them again, this is one I would take off right here, just because you don't necessarily need that. There, and then
I'm just looking at the district court of common pleas, Washington county. Okay.
Okay. One of the things that I would say too that's important. So there's a lot of really good things about this resume. But when you start using words like and this is something for all of you guys, when you start using words like DUIs convictions that puts you in the realm of being a criminal type of attorney mortgage foreclosure that puts you in the realm of doing that debt collection.
So these are a lot of these are consumer-facing practice areas. And so you just need to be very careful about using a lot of these words in your resume. If you use words like DUIs and convictions and debt collection and mortgage foreclosure, like that says to people that you would be you're more of a consumer facing attorney as opposed to someone that could work in a big law firm or work for a big company.
So you just need to be careful about that. Now these can also help you if that's what you want to do. I'm not taking sides either way, but I'm saying you have to be careful. And then here
yeah, this is social security and that's what you want to do. Then you talk about that. If not I would just talk about appeals and that sort of thing. So just be careful because here you're doing this type of work and here you are doing this type work and you were there for a long you're on there five months.
And I guess you were working and someone's going to have questions, like, how is this person working as a senior law clerk at the same time they were an attorney at London associates. So I would just be careful about that. And then again transactional work court filings that's great.
So that's fine. This needs to come off. Absolutely. Can not talk about being a dog sitter on your resume. If you want to get a job at a law firm you just shouldn't be doing that. So I would be very careful about that. Again, I'm talking about the Federalist society again, that's going to, it's going to put you in and maybe because of where you're living.
And that's a great thing to have, but I don't know. But and then, I don't know what were patented for came from but that doesn't have anything to do. Anything that you've been able to do. And now we see permanent which means you're very conservative and you speak German, which, I guess it's probably okay in Pennsylvania, maybe.
I don't know, but I'm joking around here, but you just you want, you don't you can tell the kind of person you are and and you can, I'm very conservative and stuff, which is good, probably depending on the area of the country. And but you just, anybody that, when you play, when you paint yourself into a corner like that, there's always going to be a results.
And so this resume is painting yourself into a corner. This one is too, and to some extent, so you guys, when you don't have the stuff off these things are pending unicorner debt, collection, mortgage, foreclosure, DUIs and then social security. So you have to be anything. And then now you're talking about patent infringement, which I don't know, I have no idea where that came from and dog sitter.
That shows do why are you going after people to do dog city when you're practicing law, that's, you have to, you just have to be very carefully. People want to they want to hire people that take their career seriously. And and I personally think it sounds like a lot of fun doing this talk, which I would love to do it, but it's just, you have to be careful about what that says about your resume.
