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Despite the declining number of legal jobs in the industry, students are still enrolling at law schools across the country, which means that these students need to search for legal jobs prior to and after graduation. Finding a job in the legal industry can be a daunting task, but hopefully the tips outlined in this article can help those searching for their first legal job relax and eventually sign a contract.
Concentrate on School and Then the Job Search
If you are still in law school, make sure you maintain your focus on academics and treat the job search as a secondary task. When students begin focusing more on the job search they could see their grades suffer, which will hurt their search for a job in the end. For the most part, employers hire workers who are ready to begin full-time positions immediately, not one year later. This is another reason why school should still be your number one priority right now.
Take Multiple Bar Exams
An excellent way to increase your odds at landing that first legal job is to take the bar exam in multiple states. This will add to the number of jobs you can apply for, thus increasing your odds at being hired for a job. For example, if you are a New Jersey resident, take the bar exam in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and even New York. You will be able to market yourself much better to law firms if you are licensed to practice in multiple states, especially if those firms have clients in various states.
Post-Graduation: Job Search Full-Time
Once you have graduated from law school you can turn your legal job search into a full-time event even if you have a full-time non-legal job. Many students want to sit back and relax following seven hard years of work, but anything longer than a short vacation can hurt your chances of landing that first legal job. Put in full-time hours when searching for jobs so you leave no stone unturned during the process. The more hours you put into the search, the more you will get out of it.
Network
Students are force fed this word from day one of their first year in college and it keeps coming up all through law school. Networking is very important these days and it has been proven effective by data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data from the BLS shows that roughly 70 percent of all jobs are found using networking. That statistic pretty much says it all.
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