Here are our best tips for performing at your peak during an interview:
Last updated: March 2024 With so many resumes out there, what makes a resume stand out and what do hiring managers appreciate? Given law firms typically want to see a more straight-down-the-line resume, it can feel tough to stand out. Here are four key things to remember so that your resume is distinct from your peers: Start with... a short professional summary. This is a short and very specific summary of who you are as a professional and what you are seeking. Done right, this is impactful and punchy and saves the reader any guess work. It should include "your ask" in terms of the role you are seeking. An example: Legal marketer with 18 years of experience in both national and global law firms. Key experience lies in leadership and management roles, and can act as a hybrid in both the strategic and day-to-day. Feedback has consistently centered around being a strong collaborative and energetic team player who can own projects with a solutions-focused approach. Seeking a senior role within a progressive law firm that includes elements of change management, people management, and the opportunity to have upward mobility in years to come. Try to include... the relationships you have built. Even the most qualified and experienced candidates fall into the default pattern of simply listing all their duties. Go beyond this and go deeper. Briefly describe the types of relationships you have with the partners or key leaders. Follow up with how you built that relationship, how you nurtured it, and the lasting effects of this. An example: I successfully brought together 110 attorneys across the firm to form an industry group X which could serve the varying degrees of our banking and corporate clients, including high net wealth and entrepreneurial clients. This included travel to be in person to enhance relationship building and frequent touchpoints with Industry Group Chairs to present key findings and go-to-market strategies. After the start-up phase, most months I would travel to industry conferences with key partners to support their business development efforts, including specific speaking opportunities. For each role... succinctly explain your purpose or focus. Every role you've had was to fulfill a particular need. What was that need and did you achieve it? These little insights give that "laundry list" more credibility and more clarity. An example: Large Law Firm, 2021-present Business Development Manager I am responsible for building a small team of elite players who can support the firms' highest revenue generating Corporate Group, with specialisms in Private Equity, M&A, Securities and Real Estate. Supporting 300+ attorneys across these subgroups and managing three business developers of varying seniority, our group has increased revenue by X and increased its ranking by X. What KHS loves to see... the whole you. You have a personal life and things that "keep your cup full". What is it that keeps you going? Is it friends, family, children, LMA family, hiking, skiing, seeking out a peaceful beach. Whatever those things are, share it with us. We are fascinated by the whole you, and in our experience that often shows another angle or layer which adds to who you are today. Let's celebrate that! Some wonderful examples we've seen over the years: - Marathon runner - Ex-chef - Fly fisherwoman - Amateur photographer - Ballet dancer - Travelled 93 countries and counting
The legal marketing industry is famous for many things. One is how wonderfully confusing titles can be. They can mean everything. They can mean nothing. There is always more context to share in terms of titles. Consider the following, which shows the most common years that we all see and know in titles. The other puzzle piece is the range for each title, which - in my view - are not acknowledged enough. We are all used to the middle column. Let's now unpack the column on the right.
These are the ranges in law firm marketing years that come with each title, and this can be further digested in these salary reports. I see ranges "up to" these years, which means, Coordinators can bring five years of experience, Specialists can bring 11 years of experience, Managers can bring 26 years of experience, and so on. This allows the industry a ton of flexibility and versatility when considering talent and when individual legal marketers are building and crafting their careers. On the flip side of this, there is trickiness in how to compensate these titles knowing the "up to" ranges. Here's my guide on how to break this down:
Applying this formula let's you benchmark within a range. This is hard, and it confounds many, and it is absolutely necessary. For candidates: this self-assessment will give you a meaningful baseline to work from. The top of the range is reserved for the highest level of it's kind and most don't sit within that top spot; and this is not talked about enough. For firms: this will help benchmark based on facts. Socialize this process internally so that the reasoning is understood. Myth #1: A resume should be one page. Substance over length, every time. An Executive Summary or Professional Summary is a one-page document (usually used by more senior professionals for networking purposes). It doesn't matter how short or long the resume is, if it's not substantive and relevant, it won't be read regardless of length.
Myth #2: Only include the professional experience relevant to the role. My view on this is that the "whole professional self" is needed to understand your career journey. Many people now have several careers which can be separated by sub-headings. I have never once seen a prior career in a resume that isn't somehow relevant to where you have got to and the skills you are equipped with to be a high-performing legal marketer. Myth #3: The writer assumes knowledge. Every hiring manager is busy. Make it easy for them to understand your background and career trajectory. Include a brief sentence at the start of each role outlining the type of company or firm you worked for and what your remit was in the role. Myth #4: A general resume is the best resume. Yes and... if you're sharing your resume with someone like myself, then yes. If you're sharing you're resume with a hiring manager, or in response to a specific role, then your resume needs to be tailored to directly answer the role you're applying for. You will naturally want to emphasize certain things which show the reader you understand the role. Myth #5: Create a visually appealing resume. Law firms actually prefer a relatively simple, no flair, resume. A ton of visually eye-catching formatting is likely to distract them, and they will wonder if you understand law firms and how they receive information. Everyone is busy and its hard to see the efforts of your busyness when the pressure is on and every day feels exactly like the last (am I right?).
Further, most of us are balancing all sorts of things from our homes and offices. So even if you do get a little break in your workday, you’re probably bouncing between a child’s "urgent" request, or the various instant messages waiting for your immediate answer, or a load of laundry, or taking the dog out, or figuring out when to get food to eat... this list just goes on. Our lives are very different in 2021. Recognize the need to stay productive amidst the busyness. Here’s my top tips that have served me well:
“I hire for cultural fit. It’s the most important thing to me. How do I test for that?”
Every one of my clients talks about the importance of organizational cultural fit when they add new BD and marketing professionals into their teams. It is one of the first things they tell me when we talk about a potential hire. Consideration for an organizational cultural fit is one of the hardest pieces to be successful on when hiring a BD or marketing professional; or, in fact, any professional. What exactly is cultural fit and how do you successfully hire a professional who is culturally aligned to your firm? Cultural fit is hard to define. At its core, it’s about ensuring all of your professionals share the same beliefs and values that your firm and leadership have established; put simply, it’s “the way things get done around here”. In some firms, it means hiring entrepreneurial professionals in an environment that encourages creativity and risk-taking. In some firms, it means hiring professionals who thrive on competition in a driven and hierarchical environment. In some firms, it means hiring professionals with a more formal and conservative style in a firm where convention and tradition is key. Importantly, each firm is different, so each hire will be different. Before we address “what” to ask, the “how” is key. Adjusting how you interview (see my previous blog on this topic) and really doing away with an overly formal process allows you and your candidate the opportunity to speak, listen and share. People are unique individuals who have points of view, stories to tell, a particular type of sense of humor, and different perspectives to relate on work and life. Getting into these things allows you to really see what a person is like. The technical questions need to be asked, of course. But then cultural questions - like these below - help you consider whether you are culturally aligned:
“I’m a solo marketer at a small firm and I’m hungry for the ‘big law’ experience. What do I need to be aware of with this career move?”
I love working with solo marketing and BD professionals who come from smaller firms. Why? They are typically resourceful, relationship-minded and client-centric professionals. They have also had to be solutions-focused in an environment with minimal marketing and BD leadership, and with little to no resources under and around them. But I find some of the small firm solo marketing professionals in my network feel that they may not have what it takes to go up against their bigger firm peers. And yet, many big law firms seek out skills unique to smaller firm candidates. There are certainly pros and cons to working in both small and large firms. As an eternal optimist, I focus on the pros, but I am aware of the cons. After this, my best advice to the solo marketers seeking a bigger firm is to leverage the things that make you different to your competition (not the things that make you the same). Firms like different. They embrace that perspective and seek it out. And, if you are a great cultural fit for them, then it often does not matter what size of firm you are coming from. As a person who spent her early years in smaller firms before also getting hungry to work in the bigger firms, consider this as you contemplate your ‘big law’ move:
As you all know, professional services marketers and BD’s love to share and learn. In that spirit, I’ll be continuously updating this post with common challenges and solutions that I hear from my network. Check back each month for new ideas.
“I lead the marketing team in my firm and I struggle to keep my senior BDs challenged.” Proactively managing team members is a hard nut to crack. Not only does your management style has to change and resonate with each individual team member, you have to do this on top of your day to day technical remit. Here’s two tactics to help ensure your senior BDs are engaged and challenged: (1) Add to their duties a responsibility around client relationship management. Specifically, empower them to have their own relationships with the firm’s clients as a means to enhance the client experience overall. Some senior BDs and their firms then feel comfortable introducing revenue targets around new business that is brought in as a result of these relationships. Apt senior BDs ready for this challenge love the client facing role and responsibilities and feel like they are contributing to the firm at a much higher level. (2) Give them their own team or people to manage. Odds are you have too much on your plate already, so let the tier below you take some of that burden. Managing people requires a different skill and leadership capability that your senior BDs can learn from you and sharpen as they get more comfortable. “We’re hiring a BD professional, but the candidates we’re seeing don’t have enough ‘true BD’ experience.” The words “business development” mean something different in each firm, and sometimes even to different people in the same firm. There are also numerous ways BD is practiced and executed. For example, the preparation of proposal documents versus responsibilities around bringing new clients into the firm. Often, the gap between the candidates and hiring manager expectations is related to different definitions of the catch-all term “BD”. As a hiring manager, you need to specifically spell out what the role entails to attract the type of BD-focused professional you’re seeking. Consider these two tips: (1) In the job description, explain the proportion of time that will be spent on each task and get specific about this apportionment. Additionally, try to define what you mean by BD. This tells the professional applying to your role exactly where the time will be spent, and that it will – in your case – be spent on true BD initiatives and projects. True BD professionals will be drawn to a role that shows it has true BD. (2) Look at the potential of the BD professional in addition to what they have done. What I mean by this is just because a candidate hasn’t done something you were expecting, doesn’t mean that they can’t do it. Consider what happens if you hire a candidate who can do your role perfectly, where is the challenge in that role for them? Similarly, do you have the capacity in that role to expand it and grow it to accompany the candidate’s learning curve? “I’m a solo marketer at a small firm and I’m hungry for the ‘big law’ experience. What do I need to be aware of with this career move?” I love working with solo marketing and BD professionals who come from smaller firms. Why? They are typically resourceful, relationship-minded and client centric professionals. They have also had to be solutions-focused in an environment within minimal marketing and BD leadership, and with little to no resources under and around them. But I find some of the small firm solo marketing professionals in my network feel that they may not have what it takes to go up against their bigger firm peers. And yet, many big law firms seek out skills unique to smaller firm candidates. There are certainly pros and cons to working in both small and large firms. As an eternal optimist, I focus on the pros, but I am aware of the cons. After this, my best advice to the solo marketers seeking a bigger firm is to leverage the things that make you different to your competition (not the things that make you the same). Firms like different. They embrace that perspective and seek it out. And, if you are a great cultural fit for them, then it often does not matter what size of firm you are coming from. As a person who spent her early years in smaller firms before also getting hungry to work in the bigger firms, consider this as you contemplate your ‘big law’ move:
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AuthorKate Harry Shipham is the Principal of KHS People LLC, an executive search firm for BD and marketing people in professional services firms. Kate has done search and recruiting for 14 years and prior to that was an attorney. She loves what she does, and is always open to continuing the discussion: kate@khspeople.com Categories
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