Transcript
Description:
In this video, Harrison Barnes is reviewing an attorney resume looking for a real estate associate attorney position. From one look, he right away notices the lack of focus on this resume. As he always advices, you should only be emphasizing one practice area to make yourself marketable. Barnes makes a few modifications to this resume, such as:
- Remove the lengthy descriptions to other practice areas to avoid drawing attention to them.
- Transfer the admissions towards the end.
- Eliminate memberships for sororities/fraternities.
- No need to put an objective.
Transcript:
Okay. Let's look at this one. It's another one here seeking a real estate associate attorney position in the Bay area.
Okay. So let's Again, remove this stuff you don't want federal court admissions, everyone just remember you don't need that. I can say admitted California and Georgia. You don't need an this you don't really need that at all. Okay. And then you don't need an objective.
This person is very interesting. And this resume is a very good over dominant. Let's see here. I hope let's see here. So Dow's fam and qui represent partnerships, limited liability companies, developers, investors, and guarantors the acquisition. Definitely a crucial real estate properties.
Okay. So this is okay, good. The loan documents. Okay. This person's a real estate attorney this is fine. Okay. But then there were okay, here they're are also a real estate attorney from may of August today. And then here they were in Atlanta and they were a they were doing they were doing consumer bankruptcy, so I don't like that. And We're doing consumer bankruptcy here. So I don't know that you want to draw attention to the fact that when you were in Atlanta in these particular positions you were doing things related to consumer bankruptcy.
You certainly can but I would just say something along the lines of a bankruptcy and you don't want to say you don't want to draw attention to the fact that it was consumer bankruptcy because consumer bankruptcy is not, unless you're looking to do that type of work bankruptcy because it's not going to help you.
It's going to make you look like if you're trying to do work with a good size company working with real estate they're not going to want to see a consumer bankruptcy attorney just because it's not as popular, not as prestigious as regular bankruptcy, so there's nothing wrong with switching practice areas.
You can just say you can take care of this way by saying it that way. And then I actually don't mind too much this these bullet points of all the stuff you're doing I, but I would put something down. I would try to take everything out that doesn't relate to real estate, because you told us at the beginning that your objective was to be a real estate attorney.
Don't know. Yeah, but this, these are all real estate related things. So I would probably try to do something like that. I might even make this a little bit smaller here, like nine, just to try to get everything on one page. And then all of a sudden you look like a real estate attorney, cause just remember everything is about focus and you're looking for that.
So let's take a look at this. Yes, technology law journal. Okay. Intellectual property law association this, anything that detracts from what you, your focus, why would you want to say you have an intellectual property con concentration when you're trying to be a real estate attorney? I don't even know that you want to have, this is okay to have this journal on there.
It's just fun. It's an activity that kids do when they're at school and not a big deal. And then you were an engineer. That's cool. Mandy from lighter Los Hansel technology minor. Okay. That's fine. Okay, now you don't need all this sorority stuff on here. No one cares. The problem with the sororities and fraternities are a lot of people have bad experience with the fraternities her matatus get in or something.
I dunno. So I would be careful about that. I like that you say that you're a fluent in Chinese. I think that's Mandarin. That's good. And yeah, so I think this is actually a pretty good resume after you do all this it's you just, you want to look very focused and interests skills or activities, or just skills, activities, skills, interest, admissions,
and image.
And admitted is not spelled properly. That's probably me. So there you go. So this is a much better resume. And then all of a sudden this person does look like a real estate attorney and you are marketable. You can get a job. And but otherwise before you had all this other stuff on there that wasn't that helpful.
And again, it's all about the focus. This shows a lack of focus. So you get that off there. The other stuff, intellectual property concentration, and all this stuff shows a lack of focus. I would also I'm, you don't even need to say law and technology minor. Why bother?
And just say industrial engineering there's nothing wrong with that. I don't know. Study abroad is really that important. This is actually much, much better. This is an activity where you're on a law journal and then you're all sad. And this is a good resume now. I didn't think it was before.
You don't want to put the objective on there. Okay. Let's see here. So the next one is this person in friends with Texas. It's probably made up town. Great. Oh, okay. Dean law firm. Let's see it department education. Okay. So again, all these weird colors you want to always get rid of it's just it's annoying and you want to have consistent colors on the resume.
Whatever you want to have, all black skills profile, unnecessary. So just remember, just anytime you guys find yourself doing that, try to take it off. Let's see here.
Employment history. Yeah, just please change his color, but really just like taste okay. Employment. Cause person's been the same from since 2015. Okay. So they're are plaintiff's attorney. This is great. Okay, so this, again, this is something here where the person starts talking about they do these other things and that's not really necessary.
This says the same thing.
I would say no. This is actually okay. But the stuff about doing payroll and website creation that just detracts from the fact of your focus. People want to hire focused attorneys. And I wouldn't say effectively and efficiently, I would just say, it's not that you're handling.
It's just plaintiffs, anytime you say effectively or efficiently and so forth that just doesn't sound good. So I have stock it of cock catastrophic, and your that's all you need to say. So this plaintiff's attorney.
That's your
July catastrophic injury, wrongful death, product liability, malpractice, and Mel and medical malpractice. That's it. And that's all you need. And then let's see this effectively
same thing.
Okay.
I'm assuming this is a defense attorney. Okay. And all this stuff can come off. All these things were attorneys like, when you're whatever type of attorney you are. I don't like this font too, by the way, I would just put it like in a normal font whatever type of attorney that you are you always want to Make sure that you do whatever you can to to not talk about just regular stuff.
So if this person is if this person has done trials and you can put trials in and so forth, but all almost all attorneys. Do depositions if they're litigators or write motions or do discovery. So there's no reason to talk about this. Okay. So this person was a presidential management fellow, which I think is probably let's see how this person did in school.
Oh, this was the same person. I believe that's a, probably a pretty prestigious program. I think I'm not sure. I believe it is. But when did this person do that? January of 2008 to Monotype 10 and they graduated and wow. So they did that right out of school. See what's going on.
Okay. So I don't know. The problem is this is going to, again, lack is going to to track from the focus. So I hate to do this, but it was 10 years ago. So really what you want to do is you just want to get rid of all this. You need to just basically take all this, just get it, the hell out of there.
The reason for that is, is because it's just not related to the focus. Of what you do and you need to, in order to get a position you want to look you need to look focused and there's nothing wrong with the fact that you did this. You might want to say something like, highly competitive program of, 4,000 applicants for one position or something along those lines, but you don't really want to do very much with that.
And yeah. And then I think I would just take all this out too. I don't think you need this. This is not relevant. I think you need to have this job between June of 2008 and March, 2010, just to show focus just to show what you did after law school. So I think that's okay.
I don't know why this is moving up. I can get this education still not working well anyway. I think
Nope. I don't think he needed dust and I don't.
Ooh, you don't want to pull up on air that reeks of exclusivity. She need to be careful about that.
Okay, so you can put a lot of this stuff up there. That's fine. Some of these rewards if it gets, but this is a long time ago. It's been 16 years ago. So honestly I think anything that kind of detracts from focus a lot of time should come off. It's up to you. But it's not necessarily going to help you very much as I guess my message.
So it's hard to say, cause I, I think this is all very good. You might just put a couple lines about some of the stuff you've done in your activities. There. The erase of the question, like why didn't this person do more and as an undergraduate last tutor after doing all this stuff there.
But this becomes an exceptional resume post before there was some issues with it. And because it just says your plaintiff's attorney and then your defense attorney, but. Basically the same subject matter and all of a sudden you can apply for all these jobs. And then when people meet you, they're going to see that, you're the type of person that would probably was very good in your fraternity or sorority.
And and they'll look you up and, whatever. And you could talk about the president management fellow and maybe can put some information there about how competitive it was, but it's this kind of a cool thing to get people to talk about. And then you can talk about some of your interests, like I'm an fan, or, I guess I would be protected and them.
And and then that becomes a very strong resume. So you can see her, the exercise really is trying to give everyone as much focus as possible. Okay. Let's see here. So let's go to this next person. A key note. I made up name okay. Juris, doctorate. Okay. So this person is still in school.