HYSCCN with lackluster at best resume-Help! Forum

[PopcornSeason555]

Hello, again.

After 4 months of job search post-graduation, I've landed an offer with a nationally recognized white-collar litigation law firm. While I am glad that I finally found something, I am also kind of disappointed that I didn't manage to get any prestigious that would look good on the resume, a.k.a legal assistant/paralegal role with a BigLaw firm. I'm targeting the Top 6 (HYSCCN), particularly Harvard. Given that my resume is lackluster at best, how screwed am I? I haven't taken the LSAT yet, but I graduated with a 3.87 GPA from NYU double majoring in politics and sociology with distinction in sociology.

Thanks, guys!

[nealric]

Hello, again.

After 4 months of job search post-graduation, I've landed an offer with a nationally recognized white-collar litigation law firm. While I am glad that I finally found something, I am also kind of disappointed that I didn't manage to get any prestigious that would look good on the resume, a.k.a legal assistant/paralegal role with a BigLaw firm. I'm targeting the Top 6 (HYSCCN), particularly Harvard. Given that my resume is lackluster at best, how screwed am I? I haven't taken the LSAT yet, but I graduated with a 3.87 GPA from NYU double majoring in politics and sociology with distinction in sociology.

Thanks, guys!

Don't stress. Law school is mostly a numbers game. Less than stellar softs might hurt you at Y and S, but neither of those schools would be impressed at all with a biglaw paralegal gig. Biglaw paralegals a dime a dozen among law school applicants.

At the end of the day, your LSAT score is going to be far more important that whatever job you did as a 0L. If you walk away with a 165, you don't have much of a shot at any of those schools. With a 175, you have a reasonable chance at all.

[The Lsat Airbender]

Agree with nealric, and, for anyone reading: Biglaw paralegal is not prestigious.

[PopcornSeason555]

Even for a school like Harvard?

[cavalier1138]

Even for a school like Harvard?

Especially for a school like Harvard. Half the class will be former paralegals from big firms, USAOs, etc. That's not to say it isn't a worthwhile experience, but it's not going to stand out to the admissions team.

Just to re-emphasize: It won't matter. Having any work experience is good, but it's all about the numbers until you get to YS (and even then, you have to have the numbers to be in the running).

[nixy]

You said it’s nationally recognized - that’s fine. The point is more that you have worked than that you’ve done something “prestigious” (and basically very little that you can do from 1-2 years between graduation and starting law school is actually prestigious).

[The Lsat Airbender]

Even for a school like Harvard?

Especially for a school like Harvard. Half the class will be former paralegals from big firms, USAOs, etc. That's not to say it isn't a worthwhile experience, but it's not going to stand out to the admissions team.

Exactly. If anything, the adcomms at T13 schools get excited when they see someone with excellent numbers who's been doing something interesting/atypical, provided it's a "real job". Service industry (tending bar, working a cash register in a mall, etc.) sells especially well -- HLS's then-dean of admissions told me this in person when I asked a related question at a conference once.

Dean Z's take from her TLS interview is pretty good here:

TLS: How important is work experience for those students coming straight out of undergrad? Are students who have had trouble finding internships and held the more "typical" summer jobs (e.g. waiter, bank teller, etc.) at any disadvantage?

You’re talking to a dean of admissions who worked as a CVS technician — that was one of my glamorous jobs — and probably my most glamorous was my two years in a butcher shop.

I happen to believe that those jobs taught me more about working-world skills than any other experiences I could have had. I am very impressed by people who have managed to sustain that kind of job, and I feel like they’re going to have had a maturing experience. I’m also impressed though by people who have fancy internships, not because I think that their 8 weeks in the internship probably taught them a ton; it will have taught them something, but usually there’s a lot of vetting that goes on to get those jobs, so that tells me that someone else who sees a lot of applications, a lot of talented young people vetted a group and came up with Student A to be their intern, so that’s impressive.

I would like to see a job where you could have been fired. I’d like to see that you didn’t get fired — or even if you did get fired. Sometimes people get fired, but I think that’s a very important developmental experience for people, that you have a job where you have to please someone else, and where if you don’t, the forces of the private sector are going to throw you out on your rear end. I think that’s really helpful. Even if you got fired I think that really teaches people something.

[FND]

Hello, again.

After 4 months of job search post-graduation, I've landed an offer with a nationally recognized white-collar litigation law firm. While I am glad that I finally found something, I am also kind of disappointed that I didn't manage to get any prestigious that would look good on the resume, a.k.a legal assistant/paralegal role with a BigLaw firm. I'm targeting the Top 6 (HYSCCN), particularly Harvard. Given that my resume is lackluster at best, how screwed am I? I haven't taken the LSAT yet, but I graduated with a 3.87 GPA from NYU double majoring in politics and sociology with distinction in sociology.

Thanks, guys!

Nobody cares about what work you do between undergrad and law school. Just do really well on the LSAT, and that'll take care of the rest