Reply to 9 year gap from legal career-need resume help!

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "9 year gap from legal career-need resume help!"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am in San Diego.  I was a DA in San Francisco for 7 years with killer trial experience, then took the past 7 years to raise my kids, too.  But  not ready for full time grueling prosecutorial work. Please share your results or solutions, if you find any.  I am raising two great little human beings, but apparently few people seem to respect that choice, so it can feel discouraging.  If you feel the need, feel free to email me at kiabirdsong@yahoo.com.  Good luck, and don't let comments get you down![/quote]

I'm a legal recruiter and I see dozens of resumes every week from lawyers looking for work.  It's not that people don't respect your choice.  That is a lie you are telling to make yourself feel that your difficulties in finding work are a matter of employers' perception, as opposed to some real deficiencies in your skill set.   You don't have the same skill set that someone who has been employed for the past seven years has.  You just don't.  And in this legal market, no one is going to give you 5 minutes to get up to speed.  Most employers have cut staffing to the bone and the people who remain are all stretched thin--often doing the work of several people.  They don't have time to get you caught up.  They want someone who can hit the ground running and not cause even a ripple.  And for every you with seven years of killer trial experience, there are 20 other yous with ten years of killer trial experience who have never stepped out of the marketplace.  That's the reality.

This doesn't mean you'll never find work.  But don't kid yourself that it is because your choices aren't being "respected."  No employer gives a damn about your choices.  They just care bout maximizing the chance that  they'll hire the right person, because making a bad hire costs a firm/company a lot of money, and they want to avoid that risk as much as possible.  You being out of the market for so long makes you a much riskier proposition.  Simple as that.  That is why networking is king.  The risk that your skills may be rusty is counterbalanced by your being vouched for as a known quantity.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics