March 10, 2025 • 30 mins
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! Today, Lee and Alison are talking about resumes. It's important to have a clean, professional resume that highlights your relevant experiences and interests. Join us as we share our top 10 resume tips for law students.
In this episode we discuss:
- Polishing the look of your resume
- Explaining gaps in education/employment history
- Tailoring your application materials to specific jobs
- How to approach the "Interests" section in your resume
- Getting feedback
- And more!
Resources
- CareerDicta (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/careerdicta/)
- Podcast Episode 111: Resumes and Cover Letters (with an ex-BigLaw Recruiter) (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-111-resumes-cover-letters-ex-biglaw-recruiter/)
- Advice from a Law Recruiter, Part One: Top Tips for a Perfect Resume (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/advice-law-recruiter-part-one-resumes/)
Download the Transcript
(https://lawschooltoolbox.com/episode-494-top-10-tips-for-a-legal-resume/)
If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you're concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode!
Thanks for listening!
Alison & Lee
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lee Burgess (00:02):
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast.
Today we are sharingour top 10 resume tips.
Your Law School Toolbox hosts are AlisonMonahan and Lee Burgess, that's me.
We're here to demystify the lawschool and early legal career
experience, so you'll be the bestlaw student and lawyer you can be.
We're the co-creators of the Law SchoolToolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and the
career-related website CareerDicta.
(00:23):
Alison also runs TheGirl's Guide to Law School.
If you enjoy the show, pleaseleave a review or rating on
your favorite listening app.
And if you have any questions,don't hesitate to reach out to us.
You can reach us via the contactform on LawSchoolToolbox.com,
and we'd love to hear from you.
And with that, let's get started.
Alison Monahan (00:43):
Today, we want to share our top 10 resume tips.
So Lee, what is number one?
Lee Burgess (00:48):
Ooh, number one is one of my favorites
your resume doesn't have any typos.
Your resume can't have typos.
Oh my gosh.
Let's just talk about typos generally.
I just got some documentation froma lawyer doing legal work, and
the documentation had typos in it.
And I was like, "Ooh, that does notinstill confidence." So the thing
(01:10):
is, typos don't instill confidence.
They look like you don't take carein your work, and that is a huge
problem if you want me to hire you.
Alison Monahan (01:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I feel like right now, now thatwe have all these AI tools, there's
really no excuse for your resume havingtypos, because you can just give it
to Claude or probably ChatGPT justsay, "Hey, help me edit this. Do you
see any typos?" And it'll tell you.
Lee Burgess (01:35):
It will tell you.
Alison Monahan (01:35):
It's really,
really good at that.
Really good at typos.
Lee Burgess (01:38):
Yes, it's very good at typos.
And then after you do that, it's agood idea to give that resume to some
other people and make sure that theydon't see anything in it as well.
But your resume needs to beperfect, that's just the reality.
There's no room for error.
Alison Monahan (01:53):
No, there really isn't.
I mean, I think it's an unfortunateconcept for people sometimes, but it
really does need to be your very bestwork, because this is the foot you're
putting forward and saying to someone,"I am presenting my credentials to you
and I think you should hire me." Andthey are going to be pretty nitpicky,
because it's a big deal to hire someone.
Lee Burgess (02:13):
It is, yeah.
And the thing is, when you'reespecially kind of on the lower end
of the hierarchy, what's so importantis that other folks are going to
represent your work as theirs.
That's what it means to be atthe bottom of the totem pole.
That means that somebody above you isgoing to take your work and they might
drop it in a larger motion, or they'regoing to edit it and send it to a client.
(02:36):
And if they can't have confidencein the quality of your work, that's
a fundamental problem for them.
And so, presenting perfect work whenyou apply for your job is how you
show them that they'll be able toutilize your perfect work, hopefully
as perfect as possible, in the job.
So, super important.
Alison Monahan (02:52):
No, absolutely.
And I think that leads into numbertwo, which is to make sure that your
resume formatting is really clean.
Lee Burgess (02:58):
Ugh, seriously.
So,
Alison Monahan (03:00):
if the margins don't line up, if the tabs don't
line up, it just shows you don'thave great attention to detail.
And you know who are verydetail-oriented people in general?
Attorneys.
We can see the italicized comma,and if the bullet points are
different sizes, and we don't evenhave to really look that hard.
(03:22):
At a glance.
Lee Burgess (03:23):
At a glance.
It's a weird thing, butwe're not the only ones.
Others can do the exact same thing.
Alison Monahan (03:29):
Yeah, I know.
I mean, after you've done LawReview, you will never look
at a document the same way.
Like you said, I can just at a glancebe like, "Oh, that comma should not be
italicized. That's sloppy." Honestly,I know this sounds crazy - I feel like
I can tell when a period is italicized.
Lee Burgess (03:43):
I know.
I think you can.
Alison Monahan (03:45):
I think it's possible.
The other one that really bugs me alot is when somebody right formats the
dates, but they don't have them aligned.
And this is really tricky.
It's actually really hard to get right,which is why I honestly, at this point,
despite doing it on my own resume andthinking it looked nice, I really just
almost don't encourage people to do it,because you have to get it so perfect
(04:05):
and it's really hard to get perfect.
Lee Burgess (04:08):
Yeah, it really is.
So this is another reason why youwant to give your resume to other
people and have them look at it.
Especially non-lawyers can be helpful,but you want the person who has
the highest attention to detail inyour life to look for those things.
Yeah, it just needs to be clean.
Again, if this isn't clean, I'mgoing to assume your work product's
(04:29):
not going to be clean either.
Alison Monahan (04:30):
Yeah.
And the other thing is once you getit absolutely perfect and everything
looks perfect, you save it as a PDF.
That's all you do.
And you make sure that the PDF comesout the way that you set it up, because
sometimes - I know this also sounds crazy- but I have learned that on my MacBook, if
I save something one way as a PDF, versusexporting it, versus doing it in your
(04:50):
postscript, they come out differently.
They're using slightly differentfonts and all of that can
mess up your perfect resume.
So, you just want to make sure thatwhen it comes out as a PDF - and that's
what you're going to send - it is everybit as beautiful as you made it be.
Lee Burgess (05:06):
So true.
But that does not mean thatyou need to have pictures.
Beautiful just means very clean.
Negative space.
We'll get to that, butlike negative space.
It just needs to be clean and perfect.
Okay, number three, which I thinkcomes up a lot for folks, especially
people who've maybe taken a gap yearor spent some time kind of outside
of having a typical job, is (05:29):
You have to explain gaps in your resume.
Because if you don't explain it, thenwe're going to find it, and we're
going to assume that it's somethingthat you didn't feel comfortable
explaining, which is not great, right?
I mean, listen, nobody's going to judgeyou caring for a family member for six
(05:50):
months, or traveling the world for ayear, if you can talk about why you did
it and that it was something planned.
No problem, right?
But if I don't know what that is,then it just looks like you're
trying to pull a fast one on me.
And again, I'm not going to hiresomebody who's trying to see if I
can catch them hiding something.
Alison Monahan (06:08):
Yeah, and I think this has to do with a lot of dates.
Sometimes people willleave dates off a resume.
I think there are ways to finagle dates.
You could use a year versus a month.
Probably nobody's goingto glance that much.
Lee Burgess (06:21):
Or like summer, summertime.
Alison Monahan (06:23):
Right.
"Worked at this job 2017 to 2018."Okay, that probably is not really
going to catch my attention, unlessyou use months everywhere else,
at which point I'm going to startthinking, was that December to January?
Because that would also be accurate.
So, you want to think about howyou're presenting this stuff.
And if you do have things that maybeyou left a job in a couple of months,
(06:49):
there may be ways to explain that.
Maybe, again, there youdon't have to be so specific.
There might be ways to kind ofjust finesse it a little bit.
But if you get it too much into finessing,people start to have questions, and if
you have questions looking at someone'sresume, it's usually not somebody
you're going to reach back out to.
Lee Burgess (07:07):
Yeah.
And cover letters can be a great place tokind of share your narrative, if there are
things that kind of need to be explained.
You don't feel like youhave to explain everything.
Like if you had a personal healthcrisis, I don't think you need to
share everything in your cover letter.
But if you're sharing your narrativeand there is some space there, I think
(07:27):
just giving the recruiter or whoever'sreviewing your resume some sort of
explanation so they don't feel likethey're just going to have to come to
you and say, "A year is missing fromyour resume. What was that about?" That's
the conversation you don't want to have.
Alison Monahan (07:42):
Yeah, I remember my co-clerk asking the judge that we worked
for towards the end of our clerkship,"So, you used to be a law firm partner.
If you saw that somebody had taken alittle bit of time after their clerkship
to become a ski bum, would you still hirethat person?" And he kind of looks at
her and says, "Well, I would definitelywant to have extra time to talk with
them." So in the end, she did notdecide to become a ski bum that winter.
(08:06):
But he's like, "You know, it wouldn'tbe disqualifying, but I would want
to understand your motivations."
Lee Burgess (08:11):
Yeah.
And I think that if presented the rightway, you could talk about what you
could learn by being a ski bum, or maybeyou're teaching skiing, and a lot of
valuable lessons can come from that.
There are things that you coulddo to finesse your experience.
I remember one of my friends inlaw school had worked seasonally at
Nordstrom since she was in college.
(08:31):
That was one of her gigs.
And almost every law firm interview lovedto talk to her about that, because it's
customer service work and they loved it.
They would always talk about that andthe fact that she kept getting rehired
seasonally, over and over again,they took as a really great sign.
So, it's not trying to hideyour story; it's about trying
to make your story work for you.
(08:51):
This is your authentic story and yournarrative, and it's all about your
elevator pitch and why all of yourexperiences make you a great candidate.
If you're trying to hide something,then I think it comes out that
you are what you're hiding.
And that's just not true.
Life is more complicated than that.
Alison Monahan (09:09):
Yeah.
And if you can't stand behind the choicesyou've made, you've got to find a way
to come to peace with them, becauseotherwise you're not going to be able to
present this in a way that makes sense.
And yeah, customer service work is great.
I've worked other places where they alwayslooked for someone being a barista or a
waitress or something in college, becauseyou know how to interact with people.
That's what we're looking for.
Lee Burgess (09:28):
Yeah.
And angry people usually,which is part of it.
Alison Monahan (09:32):
Very true.
Very true.
Lee Burgess (09:34):
Well, linked to this idea is number four, which is that your LinkedIn
profile needs to match your resume.
This should be not a shocker foreveryone, but I think most of the time
now people look at your LinkedIn profile,just as long or sitting next to your
resume, and if they don't match or theymisrepresent things that you've said in
(09:57):
one or the other, that's a huge red flag.
For me personally, if I see that stuffis on your LinkedIn that you've left
off, that seems like it should be on yourresume, that doesn't sit well with me.
If stuff is missing, thatdoesn't sit well with me.
Alison Monahan (10:11):
Well, and also this can complicate the date thing,
because LinkedIn usually doeswant a specific date and month.
So if you have 2017, 2018 on yourresume and you have December 2017 to
January 2018 on LinkedIn - that's goingto probably raise a few questions.
Yeah.
Lee Burgess (10:29):
So, you definitely want to make sure that those two match.
And again, whatever your story is, ownit, but make sure it's a very clean story.
Alison Monahan (10:38):
And honestly, in a situation like that, if you've literally
worked someplace two months, I mightjust consider dropping it everywhere.
Nobody's going to notice a coupleof months gap on LinkedIn or on your
resume, but I probably will noticeif you've left in two months and then
try to make it look like two years.
Lee Burgess (10:53):
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Alright, tip number five is to makesure your resume is tailored to
the job that you're applying for.
We get this all the time, that people justdrop their legal resumes to work for us
and we work in education, legal education.
Alison Monahan (11:10):
Yeah.
They're not exactly the same thing.
Lee Burgess (11:12):
No.
So you definitely want to tailor it.
Alison, what does it mean,though, to tailor a resume?
Alison Monahan (11:19):
Well, I had this conversation a lot with my roommate in
law school, when she was first applyingfor jobs, because her background,
she'd come out of computer science,she had a corporate job, but she
really wanted to be in public interest.
And so, that's a situation whereit's not that we're taking things
off necessarily, but we might wantto emphasize different things.
We might want to play up the non-profitexperience that you had, or the volunteer
(11:43):
work that you did over somethingthat just looks really corporate,
because that's a hard shift to make.
So if you're applying for publicinterest jobs, it needs to really look
like a public interest type of resume.
Same thing if you'reapplying for the government.
These days, I don't know, but maybe peoplestill want to work for the government.
Anyway, same thing if you'reapplying for a corporate role.
(12:04):
You're working at a BigLaw firm and yourbackground is all about how you have been
in public interest - again, you need toshape that to emphasize different things.
That'll at least give you somethingto talk about and make it plausible
that you might actually want this job.
Lee Burgess (12:19):
Yeah.
And you can even highlight in yourjob description, the skills that you
were building in that position thatwill apply to whatever you're doing.
Let's just use teaching, right?
You want to go into academia,you want to go into teaching.
Well, being a law firm partner ormentoring newer lawyers - that's
(12:40):
great, I would love to see that.
That may not be on your regularresume, but you should add
that in as one of your roles.
So it's really just about alsosaying what skills you have.
Like, if you want to go work innon-profit work and in legal
aid, and you come from a moretraditional law firm environment
- did you do client-facing work?
Did you do intake interviews?
(13:01):
Did you do pro bono work?
I mean, there's a lot that you can do, butyou're going to want to highlight that.
I also think that it again goesback to presenting yourself.
If you present this resume thathighlights all of that and someone
can tell that it is a public interestresume or a teaching resume or whatever
it might be - that shows effort andthat you're really invested in it.
(13:22):
If you just drop me a resume that justhappens to be the CV that you updated
last, that shows me that you're not reallytrying that hard to get a job with me.
Alison Monahan (13:31):
Right.
And I think it's hard because oftentimespeople might need to apply to a lot of
jobs, but you still want to try to makeevery one of them feel special and feel
like you really want that particular job.
It's really obvious, typically, ifsomebody has just scattershotted
out hundreds of resumes, hopingone of them might come back.
But really, you're probably goingto get better results if you
actually have something that's moretargeted to that specific role.
Lee Burgess (13:55):
Yeah.
Well, all this discussion of whatto include leads us to tip number
six, which is to think about whatinformation you don't include.
We've mentioned this a little bit.
Is that two-month job worth including?
But, again, if you don't include things,then I assume they don't exist, usually.
So, if you don't include academichonors or Law Review, I assume
(14:18):
that you don't have any academichonors or run Law Review.
If you don't include a GPA or a generalranking, oftentimes I assume that's not
something that's going to bolster yourresume in the beginning of your career.
Alison Monahan (14:30):
To be fair, not every school actually lets you put that.
We were literally, at Columbia,not allowed to calculate a GPA
and not allowed to put about it.
There were no class ranks.
Everyone was above average, of course.
It was very Lake Wobegon.
But if your school permits it, orif you have a generally relatively
impressive class ranking and they letyou put it on there - yeah, these are
(14:51):
the things that should be on there.
If you were on a journal, it should
be there.
Lee Burgess (14:53):
Yeah, like a Law Review or a moot court.
Alison Monahan (14:55):
I would say moot court, yeah.
Lee Burgess (14:57):
Did you do competitions?
Anything that kind of sets you apart.
Alison Monahan (15:00):
I would say if you weren't on any type of journal,
there needs to be something else,ideally, that's making up for that.
So, it needs to be a serious timeinvestment in moot court or whatever
it was that you spent your time doing.
Hopefully there was something.
Maybe you were doing alot of pro bono work.
There just needs to be somethingwhere we can look and say, "Oh,
okay, maybe this person wasn't ona journal, but they were doing this
(15:20):
other thing that was equally valid."
Lee Burgess (15:23):
There needs to be just something.
Show me what makes your law schoolexperience unique, especially if you
aren't going to put included GPA.
Even if your school allows you to doit, if it is not something that is
your greatest asset and you decide toleave it off, then I think you need
to say what else makes you impressive.
(15:43):
So, awards or competitions or clinics oranything that sets you apart, journals.
Even if it's not the Law Review, ifit's a different type of journal,
that's still super valuable experience.
But silence in this areaalso says something.
Alison Monahan (15:57):
Yeah.
I mean, if you wrote anote, that can go on there.
Anything that's there.
Sometimes we just see, "X Law Review,graduated this date", moving on.
Did you just spend threeyears doing nothing?
Surely you did something.
Lee Burgess (16:09):
Right, yeah.
Were you in leadership ofthe Student Bar Association?
Anything.
Give me something.
something.
Alison Monahan (16:16):
Did you lead a club, or even in clubs?
I mean, worst case, join some clubs, putthem down, try to get a leadership role.
You can be vice presidentof any club you want,
Lee Burgess (16:23):
basically.
Exactly, exactly.
So, just include something, because alsothat gives the interviewer something
to ask you about in the interview,and that's very helpful as well.
You don't want to get the questionof, "What did you do in law school?"
Alison Monahan (16:35):
Right.
Or undergrad as well.
Hopefully you were involvedin something in undergrad.
And if you weren't, because youwere doing something else, like
caring for a family member, workinga lot - put that on the resume.
Lee Burgess (16:46):
Yeah, exactly.
Alright, that leads us tonumber seven, which is: Never
overestimate your experience,because you might be found out.
Alison Monahan (16:57):
Yeah, s. For example, if you were not on a journal, do not
put that you were on that journal.
If you did not participate inX moot court competition, do
not put that on the resume.
I feel like this should be prettyobvious, but people like to cross
that line sometimes of finessingthings to just making them up.
Lee Burgess (17:19):
I also think that this can get a little tricky when you
talk about non-licensed legal work.
So, when you are describing yourlegal work as a law student or a
clerk, make sure that you aren'tdescribing it as being a lawyer.
You do not give legal advice.
(17:39):
It is unethical and an unauthorizedpractice of law if you give legal
advice without being a lawyer.
Make sure it doesn't sound like that.
Make sure that what you are describingas your role is actually your role.
If you're a clerk and you appearedin court, that's okay, because you
were granted the permission to do so.
I did that, that's okay.
(18:01):
But you did it under thesupervision of a lawyer.
Just make sure that whatever you'redescribing is not accidentally
sounding like you were doing theunauthorized practice of the law.
Alison Monahan (18:10):
Right, yeah.
And I think this one's tricky in theresume world, because everyone's like,
"Make it sound like it's your work." Well,did you work on that brief or did you...
Lee Burgess (18:19):
You didn't file that brief, because you don't have a license.
Alison Monahan (18:22):
You might've drafted it.
There were cases where I draftedthings at law firms, but I
didn't file it under my name.
Lee Burgess (18:30):
No, you might have contributed to things.
Alison Monahan (18:32):
Right.
I think that's a good line tothink about, is not taking too much
credit, but taking enough credit.
And if somebody asked me, "Did youdraft that brief?", I would say
"yes", and I could talk about that.
And somebody else obviouslyapproved it and signed off on
it, but literally, I drafted it.
Lee Burgess (18:47):
Right, I think that's fine.
I think you just want to be awareof what the role is, and don't
overstate what you're doing.
Alison Monahan (18:53):
It gets comical sometimes, where you're like, "Okay,
wait, so you were a 1L and you didall these things that a partner would
typically be doing? I don't think so."
Lee Burgess (19:03):
Yeah.
And again, if you're the supervisorwho is interviewing someone who
looks like they somewhat inflatetheir work, then you typically don't
want that person working for you.
Alison Monahan (19:17):
Right, no.
I mean, you just want to bestraightforward and be able to support
the things that are on your resume.
Lee Burgess (19:25):
Exactly.
Alright, now let's swing back for number8 to a little bit more about how it
is presented (19:30):
Please don't use colors or make the formatting distracting.
I personally love the color purple.
I nice lavender, it's great.
Not on paper.
I do not like lavender on a resume.
I do not enjoy it.
I'm sorry, I really don't.
Alison Monahan (19:50):
Not on a legal resume.
Lee Burgess (19:51):
Not on a legal resume.
Alison Monahan (19:52):
If you are applying to be a dance instructor or something,
Lee Burgess (19:54):
cool.
Or designer.
Graphics designer?
Maybe.
Alison Monahan (19:57):
Maybe.
Even then, probably not, butdefinitely not on a legal resume.
No.
Lee Burgess (20:03):
Black and white.
Yeah.
Alison Monahan (20:04):
Black and white, standard fonts.
Use Judicious bold, maybe some italics,maybe a few underlines, but that's it.
Don't get creative on this.
Lee Burgess (20:14):
I don't think that's how your resume stands out in a good way.
I think it stands outin a very negative way.
Alison Monahan (20:20):
Definitely not.
It shouldn't be distracting.
Sometimes people get really elaborate,with a lot of columns and things.
Okay, I can see that working.
I've seen good resumesthat have multiple columns.
Most of them do not workwell in that format.
You just want it to be very easy toread, and clean and easy to follow,
because people are looking at thisquickly, they're processing it quickly.
(20:44):
They might be looking at it on a screen,so you want to review it on a screen.
If I'm on my iPhone and you'vegot two columns - come on,
there's no way I can read that.
Lee Burgess (20:54):
Yeah, it's so true.
So, this is a greatthing to think about too.
You can take your resume in its PDF form,you can even print it out, and maybe take
it a generation or two above yourself.
Because I think that sometimes whatis kind of normalized in your peer
(21:14):
group may not be normalized in thepeer group of the folks that will
likely be looking at those resumes.
I think that's another thing.
It's like, maybe go to a mentor,go to a trusted parent or family
friend who is the population that'sgoing to be looking at the resume,
and make sure it meets those norms.
Right.
And this is something that ideallyyour career services can always help
(21:35):
you with, we can help you with ifyou need another eye on your resume.
But yeah, I think that's a great point.
Generally, if you're in your20s, that's not necessarily
who's the hiring person on this.
So, you've got to play to your audience.
Yeah.
Okay, this one - tip number nine - camefrom the recruiter on our team.
So this is one of her least favoritethings, is: Make sure you mix up
(21:57):
the verbs you use in the bullets.
So if you have a list of bulletpoints, you don't want all of them
to start with the same word - which,you might be listening to this
and saying, "Well, sure", but it'sactually kind of hard when a lot of
your roles do the same exact work.
Alison Monahan (22:13):
Right.
And you can only do so muchresearch, but you've got to
get the thesaurus out on this.
What's a similar word to "researched"?
"Compiled".
Yeah, anytime you're using a word multipletimes, whether it's a verb or some other
word - sometimes people just have theirfavorite words I think you've got to try
to mix it up because it does start to lookkind of repetitive and just a little lazy.
Lee Burgess (22:33):
Yeah.
You definitely want to take a fresh eyeto it and say, "If I use 'researched' five
times, that's probably not great." Even ifit's in a sentence, mix up the sentence.
Alison Monahan (22:46):
You can't just have it every bullet point being like, "I did
this, I did this, I did this, I didthis", and they're all the same thing.
You probably did more than one thing.
Lee Burgess (22:53):
Yeah, exactly.
So, give it a littlespice, a little variety.
Alison Monahan (22:56):
Research could then become "assisted partner with research on".
Lee Burgess (23:00):
Collaborated.
"Collaborated with".
Alison Monahan (23:02):
Right, exactly.
These are all taking the rightamount of credit, and also not
just sounding super repetitive.
Lee Burgess (23:07):
Right.
"Initiated research." I mean, thereare lots of things that you can do.
Alison Monahan (23:11):
"Compiled data" is more specific than "research".
Be
Lee Burgess (23:14):
It's
Alison Monahan (23:14):
specific about what you did.
Lee Burgess (23:16):
Yeah.
Because again, if it soundsmore interesting, somebody's
likely to ask you about it.
If you compiled data, then you would say,"Oh, that's interesting. Tell me more
about that." A lot of people hate data.
Alison Monahan (23:27):
"Oh, you can use numbers. Did you use a spreadsheet?"
Lawyers are afraid of spreadsheets.
So that's great.
That's like a whole skillset.
Lee Burgess (23:33):
It's true.
Yeah, you can lean intothat sort of stuff.
Alright, to round out, number10 is: Go ahead and include an
"Interest" section, but be specific.
So I feel like if you haveinteresting interests, include them.
And if you don't, don't.
Alison Monahan (23:51):
Right.
But come up with something.
And this was something I'dreally never seen on a resume
until I got to the legal world.
I was like, wait, I'm supposedto put I like yoga and baking.
Like, what?
But even then, "baking" - not so great.
"Baking sourdough bread"- that's a good interest.
I had a friend who put "cheese" on herresume, and she did it because she wanted
to talk about her interest in cheeserather than what happened in Tort class.
(24:13):
But I do think this is one where youwant to make it as specific as possible.
Like, "reading" is not agreat interest on a resume.
"Reading historicalfiction" that's fantastic.
Yeah.
Lee Burgess (24:23):
I would say even with travel.
"Travel" isn't great, but whatif you do adventure travel or
you're hiking all the seven peaks?
I don't know.
I just have a friend whojust did Base Camp Everest.
I think you should put that on a resume,because that's super fascinating.
If you're somebody who goes and hikesbig mountains, that's super cool.
Alison Monahan (24:42):
Or like "Traveled to X, Y, and Z", unless it is
like Cancun, to sit beach.
Lee Burgess (24:47):
That's true.
Alison Monahan (24:47):
But once you get an interview, these are the things
that people are often going totalk to you about, because we
don't want to talk about what yourfavorite law school class is either.
I might ask you the questionbriefly, but I really don't care.
But if you tell me that you areinterested in reading historical
fiction, I'm going to be like, "Oh, whatkind of books have you read recently?
Who have you been reading about?
(25:08):
What have you been learning?"And the answer shouldn't be,
"Oh, I can't think of anyone."
Lee Burgess (25:12):
Right.
If it's on there, you better havesomething prepped to talk about.
Alison Monahan (25:17):
Yeah.
I wanted to ask someone who put"baking" on his resume because,
as I said, I'm into baking.
This is great, we'll havesomething to talk about.
I said, "What do you like to bake?"And he kind of looked at me blankly and
I'm like, "It's on your resume." And hesays, "Oh well, it'd probably be more
accurate to say I like to watch bakingshows." I'm like, that was a softball
question, and that a terrible answer.
(25:38):
If you'd put "watching bakingshows" on your resume, I would
have been totally down with that.
I'll talk to you about the GreatBritish Baking Show all day.
Lee Burgess (25:44):
All day.
I would love that.
That would make very fun interview.
Alison Monahan (25:47):
But if you put "baking", you better have something you bake.
Come on.
This is not hard.
Lee Burgess (25:52):
No.
I would not put "baking", because I'mterrible baker and I don't do it for fun.
Nobody wants me to put that on a resume.
Alison Monahan (25:57):
Yeah.
But I can definitely do a30-minute interview on the
details of sourdough baking.
Not a problem.
I could talk about that for hours.
Lee Burgess (26:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Or even crafting the perfect coffee, whichyou have also spent a lot of time recently
Alison Monahan (26:10):
on.
But even that, I wouldn't feeltotally confident right now
putting that on my resume.
But if you want to talk to meabout how I grind my own flour for
the sourdough, we can go there.
Lee Burgess (26:18):
Exactly.
I once did an interview with someonewho had been on a pilot of a reality
TV show, and that was on the resume.
And I had to ask about that.
And afterwards, I asked her ifeveryone asked her about that.
And she said "no".
And I'm like, how do you notask about someone being on a
pilot of a reality TV show?
That's super fascinating.
Alison Monahan (26:40):
Right, and that's a total lawyer thing too, because
someone I worked with, actually, sheand her brother won The Amazing Race.
Lee Burgess (26:46):
Oh my gosh.
I love The Amazing Race.
Alison Monahan (26:49):
Yeah, I worked with one of the winners.
Never watched the show.
But yeah, she quit shortly thereafter.
Lee Burgess (26:54):
Oh well, they did get a nice little chunk of money from
Alison Monahan (26:56):
it.
Exactly.
So you never know.
People might think, "Oh, it's so weird.If I've been on the pilot of reality
show, I'd never put that on my resume."But that's actually great to put on
it, because it's something interesting.
Lee Burgess (27:07):
It's something interesting, people want to talk
about something interesting.
I did a lot of performingin my younger days.
I did opera, I did musicals,I was in a cappella.
And I used to put that stuff on resumes.
I did community theater.
People love to talk about that stuff.
And you never know what skillsyou can highlight, right?
Performing is actually a really greatthing to include on a resume if you
(27:30):
want to be a litigator and need tobasically perform as part of your job.
That is what you do.
You dress up in a suit and you performin the courtroom or in front of clients.
That's basically what you do.
So you may say, "Why would communitytheater be something interesting?"
But somebody may want to talk about itbecause it shows that you could show up,
you could rehearse, you're diligent, andyou don't get stage fright and you're
(27:52):
likely able to perform under pressure.
Alison Monahan (27:54):
Yeah, exactly.
It's all about that person is confident,they have put themselves out there.
Those are perfect things thatattorneys are looking for.
So, think about your background,mine it for something.
Even if you're like, "I'm so boring,all I like to do is read." You
know what a lot of attorneys do?
Read stuff.
Lee Burgess (28:10):
Yeah, they read stuff.
Alison Monahan (28:11):
It doesn't have to be like, "Oh, I'm so extroverted
and interesting." It's just, again,reading historical fiction, you'd
be great appellate lawyer, probably.
Lee Burgess (28:19):
Yeah, it's so true.
A lot of great lawyers are a littlenerdy, and spend a lot of time
reading and working on projects.
And that's okay, we're all the same.
Yeah.
So,
Alison Monahan (28:30):
just put those nerdy interests on your
resume and just go with them.
Lee Burgess (28:32):
Yeah.
Alright, well, as we finish up, doyou have any final thoughts for folks
as they put together their resumes?
Alison Monahan (28:39):
I would say my number one is just get other people's
feedback on it and really listen toit, because if they're telling you
something is confusing or they don'tunderstand it or, God forbid, there's
a mistake - just listen and fix it.
Lee Burgess (28:51):
Yeah, I think that's great.
I think the only thing I would addis, just be your authentic self.
I think a lot of times there'sthis pressure to make yourself out
to be somebody that you aren't.
And that comes through in an interview.
If you get an interview based on a resumethat's not really a true reflection
of yourself, just like the guy whodidn't bake, it's going come out.
And most of us, if we weave ourstories, are interesting people.
(29:16):
And you have done somethinginteresting, or there's something
interesting about yourself.
And so, part of this is just reallysitting and saying, "What is my story?
What is my narrative? What is myelevator pitch, and how do I want to
represent that?" But you have somethingthat makes you a unique candidate.
Just don't bury it, thinking thatit's uninteresting or inappropriate.
Alison Monahan (29:35):
Totally agree.
Lee Burgess (29:36):
Okay.
If you enjoyed this episode of theLaw School Toolbox podcast, please
take a second to leave a review andrating on your favorite listening app.
We'd really appreciate it.
And be sure to subscribeso you don't miss anything.
If you have any questions orcomments, please don't hesitate
to reach out to myself or Alisonat lee@lawschooltoolbox.com or
alison@lawschooltoolbox.com.
Or you can always contactus via our website contact
(29:57):
form at LawSchoolToolbox.com.
Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon!
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast.
Today we are sharingour top 10 resume tips.
Your Law School Toolbox hosts are AlisonMonahan and Lee Burgess, that's me.
We're here to demystify the lawschool and early legal career
experience, so you'll be the bestlaw student and lawyer you can be.
We're the co-creators of the Law SchoolToolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and the
career-related website CareerDicta.
(00:23):
Alison also runs TheGirl's Guide to Law School.
If you enjoy the show, pleaseleave a review or rating on
your favorite listening app.
And if you have any questions,don't hesitate to reach out to us.
You can reach us via the contactform on LawSchoolToolbox.com,
and we'd love to hear from you.
And with that, let's get started.
Alison Monahan (00:43):
Today, we want to share our top 10 resume tips.
So Lee, what is number one?
Lee Burgess (00:48):
Ooh, number one is one of my favorites
your resume doesn't have any typos.
Your resume can't have typos.
Oh my gosh.
Let's just talk about typos generally.
I just got some documentation froma lawyer doing legal work, and
the documentation had typos in it.
And I was like, "Ooh, that does notinstill confidence." So the thing
(01:10):
is, typos don't instill confidence.
They look like you don't take carein your work, and that is a huge
problem if you want me to hire you.
Alison Monahan (01:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I feel like right now, now thatwe have all these AI tools, there's
really no excuse for your resume havingtypos, because you can just give it
to Claude or probably ChatGPT justsay, "Hey, help me edit this. Do you
see any typos?" And it'll tell you.
Lee Burgess (01:35):
It will tell you.
Alison Monahan (01:35):
It's really,
really good at that.
Really good at typos.
Lee Burgess (01:38):
Yes, it's very good at typos.
And then after you do that, it's agood idea to give that resume to some
other people and make sure that theydon't see anything in it as well.
But your resume needs to beperfect, that's just the reality.
There's no room for error.
Alison Monahan (01:53):
No, there really isn't.
I mean, I think it's an unfortunateconcept for people sometimes, but it
really does need to be your very bestwork, because this is the foot you're
putting forward and saying to someone,"I am presenting my credentials to you
and I think you should hire me." Andthey are going to be pretty nitpicky,
because it's a big deal to hire someone.
Lee Burgess (02:13):
It is, yeah.
And the thing is, when you'reespecially kind of on the lower end
of the hierarchy, what's so importantis that other folks are going to
represent your work as theirs.
That's what it means to be atthe bottom of the totem pole.
That means that somebody above you isgoing to take your work and they might
drop it in a larger motion, or they'regoing to edit it and send it to a client.
(02:36):
And if they can't have confidencein the quality of your work, that's
a fundamental problem for them.
And so, presenting perfect work whenyou apply for your job is how you
show them that they'll be able toutilize your perfect work, hopefully
as perfect as possible, in the job.
So, super important.
Alison Monahan (02:52):
No, absolutely.
And I think that leads into numbertwo, which is to make sure that your
resume formatting is really clean.
Lee Burgess (02:58):
Ugh, seriously.
So,
Alison Monahan (03:00):
if the margins don't line up, if the tabs don't
line up, it just shows you don'thave great attention to detail.
And you know who are verydetail-oriented people in general?
Attorneys.
We can see the italicized comma,and if the bullet points are
different sizes, and we don't evenhave to really look that hard.
(03:22):
At a glance.
Lee Burgess (03:23):
At a glance.
It's a weird thing, butwe're not the only ones.
Others can do the exact same thing.
Alison Monahan (03:29):
Yeah, I know.
I mean, after you've done LawReview, you will never look
at a document the same way.
Like you said, I can just at a glancebe like, "Oh, that comma should not be
italicized. That's sloppy." Honestly,I know this sounds crazy - I feel like
I can tell when a period is italicized.
Lee Burgess (03:43):
I know.
I think you can.
Alison Monahan (03:45):
I think it's possible.
The other one that really bugs me alot is when somebody right formats the
dates, but they don't have them aligned.
And this is really tricky.
It's actually really hard to get right,which is why I honestly, at this point,
despite doing it on my own resume andthinking it looked nice, I really just
almost don't encourage people to do it,because you have to get it so perfect
(04:05):
and it's really hard to get perfect.
Lee Burgess (04:08):
Yeah, it really is.
So this is another reason why youwant to give your resume to other
people and have them look at it.
Especially non-lawyers can be helpful,but you want the person who has
the highest attention to detail inyour life to look for those things.
Yeah, it just needs to be clean.
Again, if this isn't clean, I'mgoing to assume your work product's
(04:29):
not going to be clean either.
Alison Monahan (04:30):
Yeah.
And the other thing is once you getit absolutely perfect and everything
looks perfect, you save it as a PDF.
That's all you do.
And you make sure that the PDF comesout the way that you set it up, because
sometimes - I know this also sounds crazy- but I have learned that on my MacBook, if
I save something one way as a PDF, versusexporting it, versus doing it in your
(04:50):
postscript, they come out differently.
They're using slightly differentfonts and all of that can
mess up your perfect resume.
So, you just want to make sure thatwhen it comes out as a PDF - and that's
what you're going to send - it is everybit as beautiful as you made it be.
Lee Burgess (05:06):
So true.
But that does not mean thatyou need to have pictures.
Beautiful just means very clean.
Negative space.
We'll get to that, butlike negative space.
It just needs to be clean and perfect.
Okay, number three, which I thinkcomes up a lot for folks, especially
people who've maybe taken a gap yearor spent some time kind of outside
of having a typical job, is (05:29):
You have to explain gaps in your resume.
Because if you don't explain it, thenwe're going to find it, and we're
going to assume that it's somethingthat you didn't feel comfortable
explaining, which is not great, right?
I mean, listen, nobody's going to judgeyou caring for a family member for six
(05:50):
months, or traveling the world for ayear, if you can talk about why you did
it and that it was something planned.
No problem, right?
But if I don't know what that is,then it just looks like you're
trying to pull a fast one on me.
And again, I'm not going to hiresomebody who's trying to see if I
can catch them hiding something.
Alison Monahan (06:08):
Yeah, and I think this has to do with a lot of dates.
Sometimes people willleave dates off a resume.
I think there are ways to finagle dates.
You could use a year versus a month.
Probably nobody's goingto glance that much.
Lee Burgess (06:21):
Or like summer, summertime.
Alison Monahan (06:23):
Right.
"Worked at this job 2017 to 2018."Okay, that probably is not really
going to catch my attention, unlessyou use months everywhere else,
at which point I'm going to startthinking, was that December to January?
Because that would also be accurate.
So, you want to think about howyou're presenting this stuff.
And if you do have things that maybeyou left a job in a couple of months,
(06:49):
there may be ways to explain that.
Maybe, again, there youdon't have to be so specific.
There might be ways to kind ofjust finesse it a little bit.
But if you get it too much into finessing,people start to have questions, and if
you have questions looking at someone'sresume, it's usually not somebody
you're going to reach back out to.
Lee Burgess (07:07):
Yeah.
And cover letters can be a great place tokind of share your narrative, if there are
things that kind of need to be explained.
You don't feel like youhave to explain everything.
Like if you had a personal healthcrisis, I don't think you need to
share everything in your cover letter.
But if you're sharing your narrativeand there is some space there, I think
(07:27):
just giving the recruiter or whoever'sreviewing your resume some sort of
explanation so they don't feel likethey're just going to have to come to
you and say, "A year is missing fromyour resume. What was that about?" That's
the conversation you don't want to have.
Alison Monahan (07:42):
Yeah, I remember my co-clerk asking the judge that we worked
for towards the end of our clerkship,"So, you used to be a law firm partner.
If you saw that somebody had taken alittle bit of time after their clerkship
to become a ski bum, would you still hirethat person?" And he kind of looks at
her and says, "Well, I would definitelywant to have extra time to talk with
them." So in the end, she did notdecide to become a ski bum that winter.
(08:06):
But he's like, "You know, it wouldn'tbe disqualifying, but I would want
to understand your motivations."
Lee Burgess (08:11):
Yeah.
And I think that if presented the rightway, you could talk about what you
could learn by being a ski bum, or maybeyou're teaching skiing, and a lot of
valuable lessons can come from that.
There are things that you coulddo to finesse your experience.
I remember one of my friends inlaw school had worked seasonally at
Nordstrom since she was in college.
(08:31):
That was one of her gigs.
And almost every law firm interview lovedto talk to her about that, because it's
customer service work and they loved it.
They would always talk about that andthe fact that she kept getting rehired
seasonally, over and over again,they took as a really great sign.
So, it's not trying to hideyour story; it's about trying
to make your story work for you.
(08:51):
This is your authentic story and yournarrative, and it's all about your
elevator pitch and why all of yourexperiences make you a great candidate.
If you're trying to hide something,then I think it comes out that
you are what you're hiding.
And that's just not true.
Life is more complicated than that.
Alison Monahan (09:09):
Yeah.
And if you can't stand behind the choicesyou've made, you've got to find a way
to come to peace with them, becauseotherwise you're not going to be able to
present this in a way that makes sense.
And yeah, customer service work is great.
I've worked other places where they alwayslooked for someone being a barista or a
waitress or something in college, becauseyou know how to interact with people.
That's what we're looking for.
Lee Burgess (09:28):
Yeah.
And angry people usually,which is part of it.
Alison Monahan (09:32):
Very true.
Very true.
Lee Burgess (09:34):
Well, linked to this idea is number four, which is that your LinkedIn
profile needs to match your resume.
This should be not a shocker foreveryone, but I think most of the time
now people look at your LinkedIn profile,just as long or sitting next to your
resume, and if they don't match or theymisrepresent things that you've said in
(09:57):
one or the other, that's a huge red flag.
For me personally, if I see that stuffis on your LinkedIn that you've left
off, that seems like it should be on yourresume, that doesn't sit well with me.
If stuff is missing, thatdoesn't sit well with me.
Alison Monahan (10:11):
Well, and also this can complicate the date thing,
because LinkedIn usually doeswant a specific date and month.
So if you have 2017, 2018 on yourresume and you have December 2017 to
January 2018 on LinkedIn - that's goingto probably raise a few questions.
Yeah.
Lee Burgess (10:29):
So, you definitely want to make sure that those two match.
And again, whatever your story is, ownit, but make sure it's a very clean story.
Alison Monahan (10:38):
And honestly, in a situation like that, if you've literally
worked someplace two months, I mightjust consider dropping it everywhere.
Nobody's going to notice a coupleof months gap on LinkedIn or on your
resume, but I probably will noticeif you've left in two months and then
try to make it look like two years.
Lee Burgess (10:53):
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Alright, tip number five is to makesure your resume is tailored to
the job that you're applying for.
We get this all the time, that people justdrop their legal resumes to work for us
and we work in education, legal education.
Alison Monahan (11:10):
Yeah.
They're not exactly the same thing.
Lee Burgess (11:12):
No.
So you definitely want to tailor it.
Alison, what does it mean,though, to tailor a resume?
Alison Monahan (11:19):
Well, I had this conversation a lot with my roommate in
law school, when she was first applyingfor jobs, because her background,
she'd come out of computer science,she had a corporate job, but she
really wanted to be in public interest.
And so, that's a situation whereit's not that we're taking things
off necessarily, but we might wantto emphasize different things.
We might want to play up the non-profitexperience that you had, or the volunteer
(11:43):
work that you did over somethingthat just looks really corporate,
because that's a hard shift to make.
So if you're applying for publicinterest jobs, it needs to really look
like a public interest type of resume.
Same thing if you'reapplying for the government.
These days, I don't know, but maybe peoplestill want to work for the government.
Anyway, same thing if you'reapplying for a corporate role.
(12:04):
You're working at a BigLaw firm and yourbackground is all about how you have been
in public interest - again, you need toshape that to emphasize different things.
That'll at least give you somethingto talk about and make it plausible
that you might actually want this job.
Lee Burgess (12:19):
Yeah.
And you can even highlight in yourjob description, the skills that you
were building in that position thatwill apply to whatever you're doing.
Let's just use teaching, right?
You want to go into academia,you want to go into teaching.
Well, being a law firm partner ormentoring newer lawyers - that's
(12:40):
great, I would love to see that.
That may not be on your regularresume, but you should add
that in as one of your roles.
So it's really just about alsosaying what skills you have.
Like, if you want to go work innon-profit work and in legal
aid, and you come from a moretraditional law firm environment
- did you do client-facing work?
Did you do intake interviews?
(13:01):
Did you do pro bono work?
I mean, there's a lot that you can do, butyou're going to want to highlight that.
I also think that it again goesback to presenting yourself.
If you present this resume thathighlights all of that and someone
can tell that it is a public interestresume or a teaching resume or whatever
it might be - that shows effort andthat you're really invested in it.
(13:22):
If you just drop me a resume that justhappens to be the CV that you updated
last, that shows me that you're not reallytrying that hard to get a job with me.
Alison Monahan (13:31):
Right.
And I think it's hard because oftentimespeople might need to apply to a lot of
jobs, but you still want to try to makeevery one of them feel special and feel
like you really want that particular job.
It's really obvious, typically, ifsomebody has just scattershotted
out hundreds of resumes, hopingone of them might come back.
But really, you're probably goingto get better results if you
actually have something that's moretargeted to that specific role.
Lee Burgess (13:55):
Yeah.
Well, all this discussion of whatto include leads us to tip number
six, which is to think about whatinformation you don't include.
We've mentioned this a little bit.
Is that two-month job worth including?
But, again, if you don't include things,then I assume they don't exist, usually.
So, if you don't include academichonors or Law Review, I assume
(14:18):
that you don't have any academichonors or run Law Review.
If you don't include a GPA or a generalranking, oftentimes I assume that's not
something that's going to bolster yourresume in the beginning of your career.
Alison Monahan (14:30):
To be fair, not every school actually lets you put that.
We were literally, at Columbia,not allowed to calculate a GPA
and not allowed to put about it.
There were no class ranks.
Everyone was above average, of course.
It was very Lake Wobegon.
But if your school permits it, orif you have a generally relatively
impressive class ranking and they letyou put it on there - yeah, these are
(14:51):
the things that should be on there.
If you were on a journal, it should
be there.
Lee Burgess (14:53):
Yeah, like a Law Review or a moot court.
Alison Monahan (14:55):
I would say moot court, yeah.
Lee Burgess (14:57):
Did you do competitions?
Anything that kind of sets you apart.
Alison Monahan (15:00):
I would say if you weren't on any type of journal,
there needs to be something else,ideally, that's making up for that.
So, it needs to be a serious timeinvestment in moot court or whatever
it was that you spent your time doing.
Hopefully there was something.
Maybe you were doing alot of pro bono work.
There just needs to be somethingwhere we can look and say, "Oh,
okay, maybe this person wasn't ona journal, but they were doing this
(15:20):
other thing that was equally valid."
Lee Burgess (15:23):
There needs to be just something.
Show me what makes your law schoolexperience unique, especially if you
aren't going to put included GPA.
Even if your school allows you to doit, if it is not something that is
your greatest asset and you decide toleave it off, then I think you need
to say what else makes you impressive.
(15:43):
So, awards or competitions or clinics oranything that sets you apart, journals.
Even if it's not the Law Review, ifit's a different type of journal,
that's still super valuable experience.
But silence in this areaalso says something.
Alison Monahan (15:57):
Yeah.
I mean, if you wrote anote, that can go on there.
Anything that's there.
Sometimes we just see, "X Law Review,graduated this date", moving on.
Did you just spend threeyears doing nothing?
Surely you did something.
Lee Burgess (16:09):
Right, yeah.
Were you in leadership ofthe Student Bar Association?
Anything.
Give me something.
something.
Alison Monahan (16:16):
Did you lead a club, or even in clubs?
I mean, worst case, join some clubs, putthem down, try to get a leadership role.
You can be vice presidentof any club you want,
Lee Burgess (16:23):
basically.
Exactly, exactly.
So, just include something, because alsothat gives the interviewer something
to ask you about in the interview,and that's very helpful as well.
You don't want to get the questionof, "What did you do in law school?"
Alison Monahan (16:35):
Right.
Or undergrad as well.
Hopefully you were involvedin something in undergrad.
And if you weren't, because youwere doing something else, like
caring for a family member, workinga lot - put that on the resume.
Lee Burgess (16:46):
Yeah, exactly.
Alright, that leads us tonumber seven, which is: Never
overestimate your experience,because you might be found out.
Alison Monahan (16:57):
Yeah, s. For example, if you were not on a journal, do not
put that you were on that journal.
If you did not participate inX moot court competition, do
not put that on the resume.
I feel like this should be prettyobvious, but people like to cross
that line sometimes of finessingthings to just making them up.
Lee Burgess (17:19):
I also think that this can get a little tricky when you
talk about non-licensed legal work.
So, when you are describing yourlegal work as a law student or a
clerk, make sure that you aren'tdescribing it as being a lawyer.
You do not give legal advice.
(17:39):
It is unethical and an unauthorizedpractice of law if you give legal
advice without being a lawyer.
Make sure it doesn't sound like that.
Make sure that what you are describingas your role is actually your role.
If you're a clerk and you appearedin court, that's okay, because you
were granted the permission to do so.
I did that, that's okay.
(18:01):
But you did it under thesupervision of a lawyer.
Just make sure that whatever you'redescribing is not accidentally
sounding like you were doing theunauthorized practice of the law.
Alison Monahan (18:10):
Right, yeah.
And I think this one's tricky in theresume world, because everyone's like,
"Make it sound like it's your work." Well,did you work on that brief or did you...
Lee Burgess (18:19):
You didn't file that brief, because you don't have a license.
Alison Monahan (18:22):
You might've drafted it.
There were cases where I draftedthings at law firms, but I
didn't file it under my name.
Lee Burgess (18:30):
No, you might have contributed to things.
Alison Monahan (18:32):
Right.
I think that's a good line tothink about, is not taking too much
credit, but taking enough credit.
And if somebody asked me, "Did youdraft that brief?", I would say
"yes", and I could talk about that.
And somebody else obviouslyapproved it and signed off on
it, but literally, I drafted it.
Lee Burgess (18:47):
Right, I think that's fine.
I think you just want to be awareof what the role is, and don't
overstate what you're doing.
Alison Monahan (18:53):
It gets comical sometimes, where you're like, "Okay,
wait, so you were a 1L and you didall these things that a partner would
typically be doing? I don't think so."
Lee Burgess (19:03):
Yeah.
And again, if you're the supervisorwho is interviewing someone who
looks like they somewhat inflatetheir work, then you typically don't
want that person working for you.
Alison Monahan (19:17):
Right, no.
I mean, you just want to bestraightforward and be able to support
the things that are on your resume.
Lee Burgess (19:25):
Exactly.
Alright, now let's swing back for number8 to a little bit more about how it
is presented (19:30):
Please don't use colors or make the formatting distracting.
I personally love the color purple.
I nice lavender, it's great.
Not on paper.
I do not like lavender on a resume.
I do not enjoy it.
I'm sorry, I really don't.
Alison Monahan (19:50):
Not on a legal resume.
Lee Burgess (19:51):
Not on a legal resume.
Alison Monahan (19:52):
If you are applying to be a dance instructor or something,
Lee Burgess (19:54):
cool.
Or designer.
Graphics designer?
Maybe.
Alison Monahan (19:57):
Maybe.
Even then, probably not, butdefinitely not on a legal resume.
No.
Lee Burgess (20:03):
Black and white.
Yeah.
Alison Monahan (20:04):
Black and white, standard fonts.
Use Judicious bold, maybe some italics,maybe a few underlines, but that's it.
Don't get creative on this.
Lee Burgess (20:14):
I don't think that's how your resume stands out in a good way.
I think it stands outin a very negative way.
Alison Monahan (20:20):
Definitely not.
It shouldn't be distracting.
Sometimes people get really elaborate,with a lot of columns and things.
Okay, I can see that working.
I've seen good resumesthat have multiple columns.
Most of them do not workwell in that format.
You just want it to be very easy toread, and clean and easy to follow,
because people are looking at thisquickly, they're processing it quickly.
(20:44):
They might be looking at it on a screen,so you want to review it on a screen.
If I'm on my iPhone and you'vegot two columns - come on,
there's no way I can read that.
Lee Burgess (20:54):
Yeah, it's so true.
So, this is a greatthing to think about too.
You can take your resume in its PDF form,you can even print it out, and maybe take
it a generation or two above yourself.
Because I think that sometimes whatis kind of normalized in your peer
(21:14):
group may not be normalized in thepeer group of the folks that will
likely be looking at those resumes.
I think that's another thing.
It's like, maybe go to a mentor,go to a trusted parent or family
friend who is the population that'sgoing to be looking at the resume,
and make sure it meets those norms.
Right.
And this is something that ideallyyour career services can always help
(21:35):
you with, we can help you with ifyou need another eye on your resume.
But yeah, I think that's a great point.
Generally, if you're in your20s, that's not necessarily
who's the hiring person on this.
So, you've got to play to your audience.
Yeah.
Okay, this one - tip number nine - camefrom the recruiter on our team.
So this is one of her least favoritethings, is: Make sure you mix up
(21:57):
the verbs you use in the bullets.
So if you have a list of bulletpoints, you don't want all of them
to start with the same word - which,you might be listening to this
and saying, "Well, sure", but it'sactually kind of hard when a lot of
your roles do the same exact work.
Alison Monahan (22:13):
Right.
And you can only do so muchresearch, but you've got to
get the thesaurus out on this.
What's a similar word to "researched"?
"Compiled".
Yeah, anytime you're using a word multipletimes, whether it's a verb or some other
word - sometimes people just have theirfavorite words I think you've got to try
to mix it up because it does start to lookkind of repetitive and just a little lazy.
Lee Burgess (22:33):
Yeah.
You definitely want to take a fresh eyeto it and say, "If I use 'researched' five
times, that's probably not great." Even ifit's in a sentence, mix up the sentence.
Alison Monahan (22:46):
You can't just have it every bullet point being like, "I did
this, I did this, I did this, I didthis", and they're all the same thing.
You probably did more than one thing.
Lee Burgess (22:53):
Yeah, exactly.
So, give it a littlespice, a little variety.
Alison Monahan (22:56):
Research could then become "assisted partner with research on".
Lee Burgess (23:00):
Collaborated.
"Collaborated with".
Alison Monahan (23:02):
Right, exactly.
These are all taking the rightamount of credit, and also not
just sounding super repetitive.
Lee Burgess (23:07):
Right.
"Initiated research." I mean, thereare lots of things that you can do.
Alison Monahan (23:11):
"Compiled data" is more specific than "research".
Be
Lee Burgess (23:14):
It's
Alison Monahan (23:14):
specific about what you did.
Lee Burgess (23:16):
Yeah.
Because again, if it soundsmore interesting, somebody's
likely to ask you about it.
If you compiled data, then you would say,"Oh, that's interesting. Tell me more
about that." A lot of people hate data.
Alison Monahan (23:27):
"Oh, you can use numbers. Did you use a spreadsheet?"
Lawyers are afraid of spreadsheets.
So that's great.
That's like a whole skillset.
Lee Burgess (23:33):
It's true.
Yeah, you can lean intothat sort of stuff.
Alright, to round out, number10 is: Go ahead and include an
"Interest" section, but be specific.
So I feel like if you haveinteresting interests, include them.
And if you don't, don't.
Alison Monahan (23:51):
Right.
But come up with something.
And this was something I'dreally never seen on a resume
until I got to the legal world.
I was like, wait, I'm supposedto put I like yoga and baking.
Like, what?
But even then, "baking" - not so great.
"Baking sourdough bread"- that's a good interest.
I had a friend who put "cheese" on herresume, and she did it because she wanted
to talk about her interest in cheeserather than what happened in Tort class.
(24:13):
But I do think this is one where youwant to make it as specific as possible.
Like, "reading" is not agreat interest on a resume.
"Reading historicalfiction" that's fantastic.
Yeah.
Lee Burgess (24:23):
I would say even with travel.
"Travel" isn't great, but whatif you do adventure travel or
you're hiking all the seven peaks?
I don't know.
I just have a friend whojust did Base Camp Everest.
I think you should put that on a resume,because that's super fascinating.
If you're somebody who goes and hikesbig mountains, that's super cool.
Alison Monahan (24:42):
Or like "Traveled to X, Y, and Z", unless it is
like Cancun, to sit beach.
Lee Burgess (24:47):
That's true.
Alison Monahan (24:47):
But once you get an interview, these are the things
that people are often going totalk to you about, because we
don't want to talk about what yourfavorite law school class is either.
I might ask you the questionbriefly, but I really don't care.
But if you tell me that you areinterested in reading historical
fiction, I'm going to be like, "Oh, whatkind of books have you read recently?
Who have you been reading about?
(25:08):
What have you been learning?"And the answer shouldn't be,
"Oh, I can't think of anyone."
Lee Burgess (25:12):
Right.
If it's on there, you better havesomething prepped to talk about.
Alison Monahan (25:17):
Yeah.
I wanted to ask someone who put"baking" on his resume because,
as I said, I'm into baking.
This is great, we'll havesomething to talk about.
I said, "What do you like to bake?"And he kind of looked at me blankly and
I'm like, "It's on your resume." And hesays, "Oh well, it'd probably be more
accurate to say I like to watch bakingshows." I'm like, that was a softball
question, and that a terrible answer.
(25:38):
If you'd put "watching bakingshows" on your resume, I would
have been totally down with that.
I'll talk to you about the GreatBritish Baking Show all day.
Lee Burgess (25:44):
All day.
I would love that.
That would make very fun interview.
Alison Monahan (25:47):
But if you put "baking", you better have something you bake.
Come on.
This is not hard.
Lee Burgess (25:52):
No.
I would not put "baking", because I'mterrible baker and I don't do it for fun.
Nobody wants me to put that on a resume.
Alison Monahan (25:57):
Yeah.
But I can definitely do a30-minute interview on the
details of sourdough baking.
Not a problem.
I could talk about that for hours.
Lee Burgess (26:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Or even crafting the perfect coffee, whichyou have also spent a lot of time recently
Alison Monahan (26:10):
on.
But even that, I wouldn't feeltotally confident right now
putting that on my resume.
But if you want to talk to meabout how I grind my own flour for
the sourdough, we can go there.
Lee Burgess (26:18):
Exactly.
I once did an interview with someonewho had been on a pilot of a reality
TV show, and that was on the resume.
And I had to ask about that.
And afterwards, I asked her ifeveryone asked her about that.
And she said "no".
And I'm like, how do you notask about someone being on a
pilot of a reality TV show?
That's super fascinating.
Alison Monahan (26:40):
Right, and that's a total lawyer thing too, because
someone I worked with, actually, sheand her brother won The Amazing Race.
Lee Burgess (26:46):
Oh my gosh.
I love The Amazing Race.
Alison Monahan (26:49):
Yeah, I worked with one of the winners.
Never watched the show.
But yeah, she quit shortly thereafter.
Lee Burgess (26:54):
Oh well, they did get a nice little chunk of money from
Alison Monahan (26:56):
it.
Exactly.
So you never know.
People might think, "Oh, it's so weird.If I've been on the pilot of reality
show, I'd never put that on my resume."But that's actually great to put on
it, because it's something interesting.
Lee Burgess (27:07):
It's something interesting, people want to talk
about something interesting.
I did a lot of performingin my younger days.
I did opera, I did musicals,I was in a cappella.
And I used to put that stuff on resumes.
I did community theater.
People love to talk about that stuff.
And you never know what skillsyou can highlight, right?
Performing is actually a really greatthing to include on a resume if you
(27:30):
want to be a litigator and need tobasically perform as part of your job.
That is what you do.
You dress up in a suit and you performin the courtroom or in front of clients.
That's basically what you do.
So you may say, "Why would communitytheater be something interesting?"
But somebody may want to talk about itbecause it shows that you could show up,
you could rehearse, you're diligent, andyou don't get stage fright and you're
(27:52):
likely able to perform under pressure.
Alison Monahan (27:54):
Yeah, exactly.
It's all about that person is confident,they have put themselves out there.
Those are perfect things thatattorneys are looking for.
So, think about your background,mine it for something.
Even if you're like, "I'm so boring,all I like to do is read." You
know what a lot of attorneys do?
Read stuff.
Lee Burgess (28:10):
Yeah, they read stuff.
Alison Monahan (28:11):
It doesn't have to be like, "Oh, I'm so extroverted
and interesting." It's just, again,reading historical fiction, you'd
be great appellate lawyer, probably.
Lee Burgess (28:19):
Yeah, it's so true.
A lot of great lawyers are a littlenerdy, and spend a lot of time
reading and working on projects.
And that's okay, we're all the same.
Yeah.
So,
Alison Monahan (28:30):
just put those nerdy interests on your
resume and just go with them.
Lee Burgess (28:32):
Yeah.
Alright, well, as we finish up, doyou have any final thoughts for folks
as they put together their resumes?
Alison Monahan (28:39):
I would say my number one is just get other people's
feedback on it and really listen toit, because if they're telling you
something is confusing or they don'tunderstand it or, God forbid, there's
a mistake - just listen and fix it.
Lee Burgess (28:51):
Yeah, I think that's great.
I think the only thing I would addis, just be your authentic self.
I think a lot of times there'sthis pressure to make yourself out
to be somebody that you aren't.
And that comes through in an interview.
If you get an interview based on a resumethat's not really a true reflection
of yourself, just like the guy whodidn't bake, it's going come out.
And most of us, if we weave ourstories, are interesting people.
(29:16):
And you have done somethinginteresting, or there's something
interesting about yourself.
And so, part of this is just reallysitting and saying, "What is my story?
What is my narrative? What is myelevator pitch, and how do I want to
represent that?" But you have somethingthat makes you a unique candidate.
Just don't bury it, thinking thatit's uninteresting or inappropriate.
Alison Monahan (29:35):
Totally agree.
Lee Burgess (29:36):
Okay.
If you enjoyed this episode of theLaw School Toolbox podcast, please
take a second to leave a review andrating on your favorite listening app.
We'd really appreciate it.
And be sure to subscribeso you don't miss anything.
If you have any questions orcomments, please don't hesitate
to reach out to myself or Alisonat lee@lawschooltoolbox.com or
alison@lawschooltoolbox.com.
Or you can always contactus via our website contact
(29:57):
form at LawSchoolToolbox.com.
Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon!
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