Description
Why You Should Be Having Different Versions Of Your Resume
[00:00:00] I'm a second year associate at a small plaintiff's side firm. I am moving to Atlanta and would like to try to get a job at one of the bigger firms. I have found a couple that I am interested in.
The problem is, I do not know if I should specify a practice group being more broad and hope that something sticks. I am cold emailing by the way.
Okay. One of the firms I have a very big interest in has two groups, banking and construction litigation. I arguably have experienced in both, not some more-so construction.
Okay. This is this is actually a very important point. I don't know if you're planning on doing plaintiff or defense work but the best thing to do with your resume, typically, is to have different versions of your resume. So, the different versions of your resume mean, you'll have one that emphasizes construction and one that emphasizes in banking.
These two groups, by the way, are banking litigation and construction litigation. Typically the way you would do that is you would have, two or three lines just describing your experience. Three lines describing the experience and then you would lead with the first [00:01:00] lines of the resume would discuss construction and then you might have another line about other types of litigation as well. Something along those lines. And then if you want to do banking, you would lead with your banking experience.
This is something a lot of people don't do. You should, because when people are hiring you, they're looking for a scent. And, that scent means, if I have a construction job, I want to see construction. I want to see construction comes first. I don't want to see banking and then construction. I want to see construction at the top because they want to believe that you think of yourself as that.
I review resumes throughout the day. And a lot of times, people will say I'm a healthcare attorney and a litigator. And when they say healthcare, a lot of times will mean transactional. So I'll have to go there and I'll study this resume and then I'll go to the website of the person and the law firm will describe them as a healthcare attorney, but all their experiences are with litigation. So, I don't know why they're calling them a healthcare attorney, but I'll be like, okay, it's personal litigation.
If you're a VCG candidate and you get an email from us, we'll typically ask you to go in and choose one primary practice area, because you can't market yourself [00:02:00] effectively because law firms want to hire specialists, they all do.
Now, smaller law firms do like generalists. If you're a corporate attorney and you're working in a smaller market, they're going to want you to do a variety of things. But for the most part, they want specialists.
You just need to be able to market yourself and and portray yourself as a specialist in something. And then, with the resumes, you can do it that way. Cold emails are okay. I actually like sending letters that are written letters. If you do that, that's more effective. Any way you can get in front of people.
If you meet people, if you want to do construction litigation, when you get to Atlanta, you should go to join different forums and things and try to get involved that way. So, that can be helpful, but you definitely want to have a resume that emphasizes what you do. Then, if the firm has two groups, banking and construction litigation, you probably want to see where you would be the best fit in there.
Cold emailing is good, but any other way you can make contact with people is really important. And because you need to make a personal connection with people, everybody wants personal connection.
The main thing like in our [00:03:00] business, the law firms want personal connection with our recruiters. The recruiter and the candidates want personal connection and everybody wants personal connection.
It's great that we can do this zoom conference, but at the same time you people want personal connection. That's really one of the best ways to get a job is if you can make any type of personal connection. It goes so far towards getting things done and helping you get to the front of the line.
People that are hired for jobs and get things have personal connections. Even very prestigious schools, people get into them and so forth by their talents, but also many times by having some sort of personal connection.
