Career Talk

February 2012 Issue

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Career Lessons to Carry into the New Year

by Charles Volkert, Esq.

Charles A. Volkert is executive director of Robert Half Legal®, a legal staffing service specializing in the placement of attorneys, paralegals, legal administrators and other legal professionals with law firms and corporate legal departments. Based in Menlo Park, Calif., Robert Half Legal has offices in major cities throughout the United States and Canada.

The legal field continues to register growing confidence and strong hiring projections for many positions for 2012. But even though the most recent downturn seems to be behind us, career-minded professionals may still want to pause and recall some of the lessons they learned during the past few years.

Here are several worth etching into your professional memory:

• Be prepared

As we've seen, economic conditions can change quickly and, with them, one's job security. Even top performers can be vulnerable when a business drop-off occurs. Although it's not desirable to go through your career expecting the worst, it's important to be prepared for any development.

This means having a current resume at your fingertips. Keep in mind that the longer yours remains untouched, the harder it is to recall your achievements and the more effort it takes to update it. Having an active network and current skills is also critical to maintaining a career edge. As opportunities become more prevalent, don't allow yourself to become complacent about professional development. Continue to pursue courses, projects and activities that challenge you and help you develop new skills. This will ensure you're in a perpetual state of readiness when it comes to pursuing a new career direction if necessary.

• Find a niche

During the downturn, two types of legal professionals saw their value and career security increase — those with expertise in high-demand legal areas and those who were versatile enough to assume multiple roles or work in more than one specialty area, particularly paralegals and other legal support personnel.

As the recession took hold, law firms increased their focus in legal areas where they continued to have strong demand and placed a premium on support personnel who could assume a variety of duties and work in more than one specialty. Going forward, legal professionals may want to consider in greater depth what differentiates them and keeps them marketable: in-demand expertise or a reputation for versatility. Sometimes both qualities can be found in one person. Both specialists and professionals with broad skills should continue to find opportunities whether the legal job market waxes or wanes.

• Make do

Employees who enhanced their value to their companies during the recession were more likely to escape staffing cuts. Survivors typically found ways to work more effectively, maximize available resources and be more responsive to their colleagues' need for extra assistance.

Heightened resourcefulness and responsiveness can still enhance your value as the economy improves. Firms place a premium on employees who not only pull their own weight, but also show a desire to receive additional responsibility. Displaying a can-do attitude and willingness to help solve problems — even if they're not in your "area" — will go a long way in making you indispensable to your firm.

With the legal field showing signs of renewed vitality, professionals are naturally looking ahead. It can be tempting to breathe a sigh of relief and relax into old patterns and behaviors, believing that improving conditions mean greater job security. But your ability to stay marketable depends a great deal on how well you absorb lessons you learned throughout your career and use them to your advantage in the years to come. As the saying goes, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

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