Don’t Let Your Resume Drag You Down

Whether you have written your resume 6 months ago or 5 years ago, it is always a good idea to periodically review your resume. As a legal recruiter, I meet many excellent attorneys who unfortunately miss out on great opportunities due to weak resumes. Reviewing your resume will make you spot inconsistencies, mistakes and omissions that will make your resume go to the bottom of the pile. Below are some key reminders that will make a resume clearer, to the point and more noticeable.

1. Summary Statement

Always lead with a summary statement or a statement of goals if you are a junior lawyer. Th is is essentially a quick, no more than 2-4 sentence summary of your top hits – such as your specialty and most relevant experience, and possibly your goal/passion for your future position. In a nutshell – what exactly do you bring to the table. No different than the headline or the lead in a news article, it has to be clear and to the point to entice the hiring professional to read on.

2. Education

After the summary, follow with your education ONLY if you are a recent graduate, roughly 1-5 years out of law school. If you have 5+ years of experience, your education section should appear after your experience section. The employer is more concerned with what you can bring to the table and less about what undergrad you attended. And always list your law school first followed by undergrad. Finally, leave off your GPA and class rank unless they are truly remarkable.

3. Experience/Content

Although this might be time consuming, I highly recommend crafting the content of your experience section to reflect the specific practice area or specific position you are looking to attain. Often job ads state what type of experience they are looking for using specific terms and language. Customize your word choices to fit the words used in the job description. Those will be the key words that hiring managers (and AI scrapers) look for to flag your resume.

4. Action Verbs

Don’t underestimate the importance of action verbs. Go through your resume and change your passive verbs to action verbs. Bullet points with strong action words that start each phrase highlight your proactive and positive approach to work. Action verbs make your experience and enthusiasm stand out.

5. Length

Mind your resume length. If you are a lawyer with 20 years of experience you might have a lot to say, but if you are a mid-level or junior associate no need to have a 3 page resume. Keep it to one page unless you have years of deals or trials under your belt where you have quantifiable information to add and multiple legal positions. Even then do your best to keep it to 2 pages.

6. Formatting

Simplify it! No colors, no complicated formatting, no text boxes, etc. Most lawyers know as much about aperture and alignment as design professionals know about statutory and case law. It’s just distracting. Stand out for your actual achievements and not your ability to craft a sophisticated pdf. Headings and bullet points allow the reader to quickly understand your accomplishments and are as much formatting as a resume requires.

7. Quantifi able Results

Do not hesitate to add data to your bullet points. For instance, how much did you win in your most significant cases; how large was the deal you worked on. Quantifi able results can be a good way to make you resume stand out.

8. Bar Admission

Including bar admission might seem obvious to some, but you would be surprised how often it is left off. Make sure you list where you are admitted and include where you are pending.

9. Proofread, Proofread, Proofread

Sorry, but this has to be said 3 times. You might have great experience, but all the hiring manager will remember are the typos and mistakes. I recommend to proofread once, then put down your resume. Let some time pass and then proofread the resume again with fresh eyes. I sometimes read from the bottom of the resume to the top so my brain doesn’t glaze over a typo.

To summarize, you want your resume to be easy to read, clean, clear and precise. The hiring manager should be able to understand your most signifi cant achievements in a matter of minutes. Put your best foot forward to break through the noise!

Victoria Rivkin is the owner of 3gTalent Advisors LLC, a legal recruiting firm.