Mastering Personal Marketing Facilitated by Robert Bircher Lawyers Assistance program

Job Hunting and Marketing Since about 80% of legal jobs are found through networking and informational interviews knowing how to market yourself is critical Many legal jobs are rarely/never advertised-you won’t see ads for articling students or junior lawyers in small firms very often-even with jobs that only hire through ads (gov’t) insider marketing is very useful The harder the job market the more personal marketing you need to do

Resistance to Personal Marketing Despite its obvious value most people resist personal marketing to some degree For some it is because they believe self promotion is tacky or unethical, for others it reminds them of a sleazy used car salesperson-some have a secret prince/princess complex- “a star like me shouldn’t need to do this” What negative story do you tell yourself about personal promotion? What are the benefits to these stories? With lawyers two things will determine how many offers you get-how much effort you put into job hunting and how effective you are at it

Personal Marketing Waiting for job ads that describe you is particularly useless-you will miss 90% of the opportunities yet believe you are looking for a job-also if there are no ads that describe you, you will falsely conclude there is no work out there and become disheartened What works is to conclude you will have to market yourself anyway and job ads are just low hanging fruit-easy pickings

Being Proactive Works Warm contact always trumps cold contact (see p.326) Be aware of hit ratios-it might be meaning you have to make 15 applications to be short listed 3 times for 1 offer Take an attitude of being a resource person trying to match what you can offer to what the employer wants-not a job beggar

Loving Rejection Job hunting is about being selected or rejected-you can hurt yourself with this reality or accept it Everyone likes feeling safe, being right, feeling good, looking good, and avoiding pain-you can choose these rather than getting results- paradoxically-it will make job hunting harder “I won’t do cold calls” is just saying I am afraid of rejection When I am rejected I feel____

Loving Rejection People tend to personalize rejection, buy their negative story and feel crappy about it Another interpretation of this is it is just a selection process for fit or style-it is the same as selecting what clothes to wear –you are not rejecting the clothes you don’t pick It is not “personal” at all-you are the one who chooses to make it personal Have faith in the selection process and yourself-if you are not picked that is great!!-it is their judgment some other person may be better and they are probably right!!

Getting Results The bottom line is that at the end of the day you will have your results or your reasons why not Become an “insider” not a beggar at the door A classic example in law is getting an articling job at the firm where you did a summer job-you may not have even got an interview at he same firm

Getting Results People will hire who they know over who is best qualified almost every time Read about the field, attend Bar seminars and CLE events in that field Create a network in that field, volunteer in the area Informational interviews are useful here-they are low risk and curiosity based

Networking All super successful people are great networkers This is about taking advantage of other people to help you out-every person you add to your list knows about 200 other people If we wanted to talk to someone who has personally met President Obama we could probably find someone here in Vancouver who has or at least knows someone who has within a few hours There is a method of managing your contacts on pages

Networking Most people know how to create a network but don’t want to use it or are very timid about it Most people you have a real relationship with will try to help you You can make requests, if people say no make a smaller request-see page 342 This depends on the relationship you have with the person-inappropriate requests will turn people off-being too timid wastes potential-many people err on the side of safety-it’s the call that gets results!!