Top Law Schools

Hey guys,

My undergrad law advisor is not answering my emails (very frustrating) so I wanted to ask you guys a few questions.

1. I have around four years of work experience at two jobs in consulting. I also was an RA in college, so I have a lot of experience with that position. I feel that my experiences are very significant, so I wanted to know if it is okay to go over one page for law school app resume.

2. Margins: Usually for jobs, I adjust the margins to fit everything into one page, but for law schools I'm not sure I should do this or just do the one inch margins.

3. Current Job Tense: Do you use present or past tense. I am assuming present, but HLS has a sample resume that uses past tense for the current position, so now I'm doubting myself lol

Thanks everyone,

McDuck

Would really appreciate some guidance on this stuff. Please let me know if you guys have any questions, as I would like to help you as well!

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Platopus wrote:

ScroogeMcDuck wrote:Hey guys,

My undergrad law advisor is not answering my emails (very frustrating) so I wanted to ask you guys a few questions.

1. I have around four years of work experience at two jobs in consulting. I also was an RA in college, so I have a lot of experience with that position. I feel that my experiences are very significant, so I wanted to know if it is okay to go over one page for law school app resume.

2. Margins: Usually for jobs, I adjust the margins to fit everything into one page, but for law schools I'm not sure I should do this or just do the one inch margins.

3. Current Job Tense: Do you use present or past tense. I am assuming present, but HLS has a sample resume that uses past tense for the current position, so now I'm doubting myself lol

Thanks everyone,

McDuck

I'm no expert, but here's my take:

1. It is okay to go over 1 page if you have actual work experience, which you do. Schools such as UChicago explicitly ask for everything, so I would include. Here's a link from Spivey's blog regarding resume page length: http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/debunk ... sume-myth/ - I'll consider Spivey the final word on such things, so I'm following his suggestions.

2. See above. I think it's okay to keep at 1 inch to avoid looking like everything is crammed in.

3. Can't speak to others, but I use present tense for my current position and past tense for prior positions.

Okay, thanks for the response! I really appreciate your help

The rule for resumes is 1 page per 10 years of substantive experience. I had over 5 years of really substantive things and was able to keep it one page. I recommend it if only to make sure that your real accomplishments are highlighted, not just hidden among more mundane responsibilities.

You can technically go over one page, but you shouldn't. I promise that no matter how significant you think the experience was; it can be summed up in a few words.

Resumes are not for providing a prospective employer/school with an exhaustive account of your time spent researching a highly specific issue or of each client that you provided consultation services for during your tenure at a specific company. Just hit them with the basics and move on.

cavalier1138 wrote:You can technically go over one page, but you shouldn't. I promise that no matter how significant you think the experience was; it can be summed up in a few words.

Resumes are not for providing a prospective employer/school with an exhaustive account of your time spent researching a highly specific issue or of each client that you provided consultation services for during your tenure at a specific company. Just hit them with the basics and move on.

This. I had 7 years of very unique work experience that spanned 5 continents - one page resume.

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Mine is 2 pages. I have about 3 years of work experience but from four or five different jobs. I could squeeze all my WE into one page, but since a lot of schools ask you to list ECs as well, I put all those on the second page.

Strictly confining to admissions, having a two page resume won't really matter. But the resume you use for applying to jobs once in law school will be one page, I promise you.

rachelac wrote:I'd go even further and say that the vast majority of law schools are an exception to the 1 page/decade rule. Most apps specifically said 1-2 pages was fine and they wanted details about things. My work resume just lists volunteering and lacks an "interests" section but enough schools/TLS posts convinced me that they wanted details that I went ahead and included a lot of info on my law school version. I don't have a huge cycle to speak to yet, but I got into Duke off PT pretty quickly and the attorneys I showed mine to really liked it.

I promise that there aren't any adcomms wondering why they had to read such an organized and concise resume. And I promise that the vast majority of people who are pushing for a longer resume here have less work experience than those pushing for limiting it to one page. Once you work more jobs, you really start to figure out that you just aren't that interesting.

This is mostly moot, because your resume has fuck-all to do with admissions.

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rachelac wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:

rachelac wrote:I'd go even further and say that the vast majority of law schools are an exception to the 1 page/decade rule. Most apps specifically said 1-2 pages was fine and they wanted details about things. My work resume just lists volunteering and lacks an "interests" section but enough schools/TLS posts convinced me that they wanted details that I went ahead and included a lot of info on my law school version. I don't have a huge cycle to speak to yet, but I got into Duke off PT pretty quickly and the attorneys I showed mine to really liked it.

I promise that there aren't any adcomms wondering why they had to read such an organized and concise resume. And I promise that the vast majority of people who are pushing for a longer resume here have less work experience than those pushing for limiting it to one page. Once you work more jobs, you really start to figure out that you just aren't that interesting.

This is mostly moot, because your resume has fuck-all to do with admissions.

I'm definitely not pushing to put stuff on for the sake of putting things on and use a 1 page for jobs, but as someone with 3.5 years full-time work plus a lot of volunteering and relevant part time work in college, I found it difficult to provide the information asked for without breaking a page. I just don't think going over one page for admissions is as off-limits as it seems to be presented in this specific thread. As you said, though, I doubt an adcomm is ever going to be upset by a one-page.

As someone with over twice your work experience coming in to school, you will get better at trimming the fat.

I don't think that going over one page is off-limits. It's just unnecessary, and you should get used to keeping your resume to one page. Your CV can be as long as you like, but unless you go in to academia, no one wants to see your CV.

I think an important caveat here (yes, I am a 0L, so please rip me apart if I'm wrong) is that law schools, or, at least some of them, are interested in the WE and ECs that your average law firm would find irrelevant, so your law school resume is naturally going to be up to a half a page longer.

etramak wrote:I think an important caveat here (yes, I am a 0L, so please rip me apart if I'm wrong) is that law schools, or, at least some of them, are interested in the WE and ECs that your average law firm would find irrelevant, so your law school resume is naturally going to be up to a half a page longer.

You're wrong. Law schools use the resume to learn more about you that they might not otherwise find in your app, but they genuinely don't care about the minutiae of your experiences.

The more work experience you get, the more you'll feel an ability to trim fat and get rid of stuff that is unimportant about your work experience and education and what it says about you.

This is a good exercise for any 0L reading this: your resume is a signaling device to whoever you want to read it about what really matters about you as an applicant. Your ability to distill that to a single page is an important skill that professionals reading it will be judging you on it.

As I said originally, it won't really matter for admissions because the resume is a relatively minor part of your application (still important, but more in the don't screw it up kind of way). But as soon as you get to law school, you will be required to cut out most of your hulking behemoth of information on your current resume to make it lean, mean, and effectively signaling to employers why they should hire you. That's when your resume skills will truly be put to the test.