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My first job out of law school (T10, around median) is in-house. While the job itself is fine, the pay is terrible (especially considering my enormous law school debt) and I hate where the job is located, which is not where I'm licensed.

I'm considering starting to actively apply for jobs in the upcoming months, but I'm worried how this will look to potential employers, considering that I only started working in December. Will applying to jobs 3-6 months into a new job look incredibly flaky? My current job is extremely relevant to several practice areas, so I'd like to keep it on my resume if I could.

Thanks in advance!

I mean, who cares if it looks flaky? Either they hire you or they don't. It will indeed be an issue at any interview, but the other option is just not applying, so I don't see what you have to lose.

I guess maybe it could backfire if your current employer discovered you were applying to other jobs. That's about the only downside I see.

I think it looks weird, but as Kronk noted, you have to do what you have to do.

Leaving your first job after a few months doesn't look great, but it probably looks better than working for low pay in a state in which you are not licensed to practice law.

Some might think that you were asked to seek employment elsewhere so make clear that it's just the money & location.

CanadianWolf wrote:Some might think that you were asked to seek employment elsewhere so make clear that it's just the money & location.

I mean, I think that's pretty much the case any time you're looking for a new job - there's no real reason you'd be more likely to be asked to leave after 6 months than after a few years.

I know a guy that stayed at his first job for 3 months, his second job for 6 months, and now works biglaw.

All this anti-job hopping talk is 100% BS. If they ask, have a canned answer ready, but it never hurts to apply. They will see your resume and know you're leaving before 1 year at the current job, so if they call you in for an interview, its not a deal breaker.

Changing jobs as a form of "course correction" early on is fine. But you don't want to make a pattern of it. So make sure that, wherever it is you would be switching to, its somewhere you are comfortable staying for awhile. The quick change can be easily explained away and raises no flags if its an understandable course correction for whatever reason (i.e. looking to break into a certain area of law that your current firm won't let you get into, trying to get into a different geographic location due to extenuating circumstances, etc.)