Writing an Effective Resume

Your resume is often your first and only opportunity to make a positive impression on an employer. When drafting and revising your resume, keep your audience in mind. Attorneys are known to be strong and persuasive writers who pay close attention to detail. Your resume should demonstrate your ability to evaluate facts and present the most relevant material to the reader in 1-2 pages, depending on your years of experience. [Tip: If you have less than 10 years of experience and you are applying to a private law firm, try to stick to one page.] Including every detail of your work will only show the employer that you are not able to take a critical eye to your background and come up with a concise and accurate summary of your most relevant accomplishments/experiences. Consider your resume a well-organized, clean, concise, persuasive and accurate writing sample.

Well-organized:

A structured resume is visually appealing to the reader and includes a few standard sections. All resumes should include the candidate’s name and contact information at the top of the first page and include at least the candidate’s last name and page number on any subsequent pages. If the pages of your resume are separated, the employer should be able to identify the subsequent pages as part of your resume. As an experienced attorney, you will want to begin the body of your resume with either a brief qualifications summary or jump right in with your relevant work experience in reverse chronological order. Your work experience should be followed by your education, bar admissions, certifications, professional memberships/accolades, publications, civic involvement and language ability.
 

Clean:

a.       Font: Your resume should be easy to read with a good balance of text and white space. Use a consistent font and text size throughout your resume and select a font that is easy to read. To create space, only your name should be in a slightly larger font than the rest of the text. Contact information, section headers and entries should all be in the same size font. Try to refrain from using a font smaller than size 10. Smaller fonts can be difficult to read and are often used to clutter the page with excess information.

b.       Hyperlinks: Remove hyperlinks and color from your resume. Your resume needs to look strong both on a computer screen and in black/white print. Using colored text can result in important information being lost in the printing process.

c.       Proofread: Read, read and reread your resume. Your resume must be free of all typos and grammatical errors before submission. Reviewing the content of a single page is likely something you can get through quickly, but you should take a critical eye to the content and formatting of your resume. If you’ve looked at your resume 10 times and think it’s perfect, ask a friend or professional in the field to review your draft. There may be room for improvement.

Concise:

Keeping a resume to a single page can be challenging, but remember, not every detail of your career, education, or civic involvement, needs to be included on your resume. Tailor your resume to the opportunity and focus in on the most relevant experiences. Many candidates will have a resume they have perfected and use it to apply for every job opportunity. Unless the opportunities are all in the same industry and for the same type of position, consider having several versions of your resume. Tailoring can be as simple as changing a line or two to make the resume more relevant. A great way to tailor your resume is to review the job description or the work and mission of the employer and to pull from your education and prior work any skills or experiences that would be valuable to the employer.

Persuasive:

Your resume must convince the employer that you are a candidate they want to get to know better. When drafting the language for your work experience entries, use strong action verbs to begin each sentence/bullet. Ask yourself whether the language conveys to the reader a relevant skill or illustrates experience within an area of practice. For example: “Assisted with trial preparation” is not as strong as “Identified and interviewed qualified experts.”  If an employer must ask themselves, “What did this person actually do?” then your language needs improvement.

Accurate:

Resumes are living documents and need to be updated periodically for accuracy. Your education, licenses, memberships and experience should be updated as appropriate. For example, you might be admitted to practice in a state but have an inactive status, include this information on your resume. Also, do not include skills or experiences you hope to gain. Focus on your strengths as they pertain to the opportunity and use your cover letter to highlight transferable skills that will help you excel in new areas.

Tiffany Sepulveda Kahlon, experienced recruiter, career adviser and attorney, has counseled hundreds of candidates in their search for legal career opportunities resulting in successful placements across the national legal market. As Founder of The Kahlon Network, Tiffany builds relationships with legal employers and candidates, understanding their abilities, interests and needs while exploring their growth potential.