What should go on my 0L resume? Forum

[tipler4213]

This is gonna be a sweet thread.

[Moxie]

My question results from many people telling 0Ls to improve their resume if they want to do summer prep. This sounds like a great idea, but what should I put on it/take off of it?

Three specific questions:

1. I don't have any legal experience. I only have some part time work, summer internships, athletics, etc.. that I used for my law school apps. I don't see how I could change it much from how it is now, except for putting the name of my law school on there, which would take two seconds.

2. Would law firms appreciate the fact that I know java, c, and matlab, or that I interned for a power generation company? I'm thinking I should take that stuff off my resume... is that right?

3. Also what about undergraduate extra-curriculars? I did NCAA athletics. Leave that stuff on there or delete it?

Thanks for the advice.

Ok:

1. Those are the things most people have on their resume if they went straight through from undergrad (otherwise they would have work experience)

2. It can't hurt to put those talents on your resume. Those seem like impressive skills (full disclosure: I know nothing about computers) so why would you sell yourself short by leaving it off? Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and it'll interest somebody at the firm who otherwise would overlook your resume.

3. Yes, include these as much as you can (especially ones where you had a leadership role) Of course, try and keep your resume to 1 page, so you're going to have to make a decision about which are most important. NCAA athletics should absolutely stay on the resume.

In sum, keep the resume to one page, and when in doubt, leave things that talk about leadership experience and big time commitments.

[hurldes]

thanks everyone... this is exactly what I was looking for.

[sanjola]

taggers

[FantasticMrFox]

taggers

[gothamm]

taggers

[Dany]

Reworked my resume this weekend!

[NeighborGuy]

Thread revived.

I am almost finished re-working my resume as well, except I have nothing to put down for undergrad. It was a distance degree and nearly all my credit was by examination only. So no extracurriculars or anything. I haven't seen any example resumes that give me any ideas I can use. I am afraid the undergrad education portion of my resume will be one line long: "Acme College, B.S. Business" Anyone else had to deal with this?

[stylishlaw]

Thread revived.

I am almost finished re-working my resume as well, except I have nothing to put down for undergrad. It was a distance degree and nearly all my credit was by examination only. So no extracurriculars or anything. I haven't seen any example resumes that give me any ideas I can use. I am afraid the undergrad education portion of my resume will be one line long: "Acme College, B.S. Business" Anyone else had to deal with this?

Don't worry about this. Just do well for 1L.

[sarahlawg]

Is there a consensus for whether education or work should go first? For my applications I put work because I'm 2yrs out of UG. Should I not flip it so that my law school is on top?

[Dany]

I have read on multiple T14's career services sites that education should always be first. Current law students can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

[beachbum]

Wait, we should include law school scholarships? Even if they're not named?

[071816]

Is 10 point font too small?

[rangers0412]

I look through resumes now for my job to weed out the ones we don't bother looking at. A couple things to be careful with :

A. Punctuation, capitalization, grammar. If you fail at these resume goes in trash
B. Consistent font style/size, nothing looks out of place. Alot of people screw this up probably thinking its no big deal. This dosent mean you can't bold/italicize, but if someone reads it and wonders wtf were you doing its not a good sign and makes you look dumb.
C. Spacing dosen't look weird, i.e. screwed up. Since you are most likely using the MS word wizard, this error tends to happen when people go outsite of the wizard's format to make things fit. Sometimes it works, other times it looks screwy.

FYI I work for an accounting firm and not a law firm, but I doubt its any different how someone reads a resume.

[Gamecubesupreme]

OP: It sounds like, judging by your post, you're pretty must straight from UG, and don't have any legal experience. So, the best thing you could do would be to find a way to make what experiences you DO have seem applicable to the legal field.

1) Leave the athletics . People love it. I played a college sport too and now I am working for a federal judge this summer in a big market and one of the clerks who interviewed me also played the same sport in high school. Got me the interview. Only word of advice is to not let it take over your resume. Especially if you played intercollegiately, you probably could fill up a couple pages of resume based on athletic accomplishments. While it's a great way to get in the door, you don't want to have it be the only thing you have on a resume.

2) Try to spin everything you have (without lying, of course) in some way. You worked retail? You were responsible for maintaining organization of the store. You did an internship? You worked closely with senior staffers to meet client/staff deadlines. It's all true, it just sounds a hell of a lot better than "i folded clothes" or "i made coffee/copies". The best is if you can find a way to make it somehow legally applicable. Like any job, organization, client relations, ability to work well under pressure, etc all translate well to a legal job

3) The best thing you can possibly have on your resume during 1L, other than making whatever work experience you have applicable, is going to be good grades and scholastic accomplishments. List any schollys you might have to the school. When you're applying early in your 1L year (before your first grades come back), if you receive a grade on an assignment (e.g. an LRW assignment midway thru the semester), use it as a writing sample and indicate the grade you got on it, if applicable.

Realistically, your best bet is to just have a shell of your outline ready to go. Get all the work experience/UG experience/athletics you can fit, leave a line for law school accomplishments, and you'll be miles ahead of the pack come the first batch of job applications. Federal judges opened for applications December 1 this past year, right smack dab in the middle of the finals push. You'll be very glad you got it squared away and just need to fill in a couple blanks.

Hope it helps somewhat

Excellent post.

[071816]

Should undergrad GPA go on an incoming 1L's resume?