04 February 2009

Useless, if not actively bad, advice from the career office

Recently at school I attended a career planning panel on how new law school graduates can better manage through an economic downturn. The panelists were a recruitment attorney at a large Philadelphia firm and the head of a local legal staffing firm. Their suggestions:

  • network

  • apply at public-interest firms

  • apply for jobs requiring 3-5 years' experience and multiple state bar admissions anyway

  • network

  • although employers after the economy gets better will understand that you couldn't get a legal job immediately after school, don't fail to get a legal job immediately after school, because it looks bad on your resume

  • network

    In addition to the panelists' complete blind spot about public-interest work (when the economy goes bad, nonprofits are the first organizations to lay off staff and quit hiring), there was no discussion of alternative careers for a person with a new J.D. Where by alternative careers, I mean careers that would earn a new graduate enough money to make the monthly loan payments.

    I've been advised that phone sex is still an option.

    And if I go to one more career development panel where the best -- or at least the most frequent -- piece of advice is "networking," I think I'm going to be sick.
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