The Synergistic Legal Job Hunting Success Scenario

When you move about in this little world of individuals, keep in mind that a valid informational networking approach is to ask for time or names or information. The people who go around asking simply for a full- time paralegal job will meet fewer people and get less help. If there is a job lying quietly in a firm E, unannounced and unadvertised, just waiting to be discovered, and you are at firm A, what scenario will get you to E!

• Scenario #1: 'Always Ask for a Job''

In this scenario, the only way you will get an interview is if you ask A for a job and then go blindly to B and ask for a job, and so on and so on until you stumble into E. No connection gets you to E, because you are always asking for a job. You are relying on luck and sheer persistence.

• Scenario #2; ''Ask for Names and Information"

In this scenario, A does not have a job, but A refers you to B (because you ask for names and information). B does not have a job, but refers you to C (for the same reason). C refers you to D (because you ask for a name). D has a friend at E who knows about the unadvertised opening and gets you an interview. In this scenario, there is actually a path that the information flows along: A, B, and C did not know about E, but D knew E and C, and that is where the synergism came in. If you had not done the work of asking for names and information instead of a job, you would not have got the information until you hit E itself. Remember, D just knew E, D did not know E had a job opening.


The Job That Is Filled Before It Is Open and the Unadvertised Job Opening

In cartoons, the artists communicate speed by drawing a cloud of dust instead of the character running. In the world of hiring, there are openings that are only openings in name, for they will be filled before there is a spot to fill. We all know about these kinds of openings in corporations, in which "Suzie from Accounting" is going to get that job.

The Job That Is Filled before It Is Open and the Unadvertised Job Opening

The job is announced and people are interviewed, but everyone knows "Suzie from Accounting" will get it. And then, before you know it, in the company newsletter an announcement appears. There's an opening in Accounting, formerly occupied by Suzie.

The reasons friendships are so important within your profession is that people in meetings at paralegal associations are often talking about exactly what you would like to know. In the inner world of paralegal synergistic connectedness, friends often arrange for other friends to be interviewed because people in the know are talking about openings that are about to occur. One woman in Jones, Jones and Smith is ready for a change. She hears that her friend at Doubleday and Brown is leaving. They sit down together and chat early on, the former recommending the latter. Often, the announcement of a willing candidate immediately follows the announcement of a departure. Sometimes management is just happy to hire because they are busy and the new person comes with a strong reputation. And thus one paralegal replaces another. Notice is given all the way around, and two people have quietly arranged the future for another. The more you can get on the inside of your professional world, the better off you will be.

All of the recommendations for a synergistic job search-the direct mail, informational interviewing, and networking, joining associations, cultivate your personal group of friends and share one very clear goal: You are seeking knowledge about unadvertised openings! All of the methods and techniques of the synergistic job search are designed to reveal unadvertised openings. If you do not see this clear goal, then you are like a runner who forgets that the race could eventually end, or a sailor who has lost a sense of that dry land he is headed for. Getting lost in the process can make you forget the why of all of these activities.

Advertised leads are said to represent about 20 to 25 percent of the total jobs available. That means that unadvertised leads constitute 75 percent to 80 percent of total openings, depending on the field you are discussing. Why is the job market like this? Because people want quality control over their applicants! They want to do as little interviewing as possible. (An advertised lead means lots of hours spent on resume review, interviewing, and candidate selection.) When people are forced to advertise, they do. There are many reasons why people advertise, but generally if people can hire a "friend" (networked through the back door), they will do it even after they have advertised publicly. This is a powerful mechanism. The sense of security that people have when they use "the back door" (network) is strong, especially when you counterbalance it against the apprehensiveness that accompanies hiring someone "off the street." It may not be fair, but it is human. When you fully engage in a job search campaign and you do it synergistically and with a totality of effort, you are automatically permitting all of these forces to carry you along instead of knock you over.

Yours Journal of Professional Contacts-The Job

Hunting Notebook

The best job hunting efforts that are not properly recorded, logged, calendared, and "tickled" can prove fruitless. The person who does not feel the need to log and record all job search efforts is probably not doing enough of a job search. The first mandate is to record all of your contacts. Document all of the names you come across in your search. Put the names with firms or with other names.

There should be little need to persuade you to create a job hunting notebook: The professional paralegal understands implicitly the importance of documentation and not losing track of important facts. Besides, a synergistic job search demands this kind of attention after only a few days. Any job search that goes beyond a couple of weeks will get totally out of hand without some mechanism like a job contact book, a log, or at least a box or file cabinet in which everything is kept.

Why keep a journal?

The need for a journal of professional contacts is never so keenly felt as when you answer the phone one morning just as you are wiping the sleep from your eyes. The voice on the other end is lively and bright. It seems that you wrote an excited and enthusiastic cover letter three weeks ago, and you were so persuasive about your desire for a real estate paralegal position that you truly convinced them that you have wanted to be a real estate paralegal since you were five.

You pause and take a deep breath. Your brain cannot remember the firm, the contact name, and the job-even after they tell you who they are! "Well, yes, I remember writing you." You look down and on the table near the phone is your job log. You page through it quickly to your copy of the cover letter you sent three weeks ago. It all comes back, suddenly. "Yes, I have been looking for a firm that could take advantage of my title experience; the title experience I mentioned in my letter was at an internship downtown." You restore yourself quickly and engage the caller like the fully "put together" professional that you are, standing there in your pajamas. This example has happened in real life, and it will continue to happen. The well-kept log can assist you in very real and immediate ways.