Law Technology

How to Ace a Job Interview with Me

I’m willing to give away a few secrets. Here is how to ace a job interview with me:

• Read this Blog Post – One of the first questions I ask is “What do you know about me?” It amazes me the number of people of people that don’t even take the time and effort to type my name in Google and see what pops up. I have a reasonable internet presence and to not even look at my website or weblog, before coming to the interview is slack. I don’t expect someone to know everything about me, but to not even look at the website and the areas of practice shows a profound lack of interest, that I find unattractive in a job candidate.
• Read the Practice Management Section of the Blog – I’ve been writing for 2 1/2 years and have very specific ideas about how I want a law practice to run. My ideas are well thought out, but run counter to a lot of lawyers out there. But you can really get an idea for what I want by reading the practice management section of the blog.
• Be a Real Person – I’m not a high falutin’ person. Just because I have a J.D. doesn’t make me snobby. While I’ll be nice and cordial, I don’t want a hoity-toity employee. Be nice and be yourself.
• Be Used to Dealing with People – I have a Plaintiff’s practice and we deal with the public. We have a lot of workers comp cases and construction workers and other blue collar people. I find a lot of defense paralegals aren’t used to dealing with the public. Very few people really have the knowledge and skills to accurately judge how good of lawyers we are, but 100% know whether we’re nice to them.
• Be Technically Adept – You don’t have to be a power user, but knowing how to do a Google search and find information on the internet is useful. Knowing the difference between a .pdf and a .jpg is helpful. Knowing how to get information on the internets is helpful.

In the scheme of things, the only make or break question is someone that doesn’t even take the time before the interview to type my name into a search engine to see what pops up. So giving this tip on my blog isn’t really that much of a tip-off anyways. And in case you’re wondering, if someone has just moved and doesn’t have their computer unpacked or cable service set up, I will cut them some slack for that.

Full post as published by South Carolina Trial Law Blog on April 17, 2008 (boomark / email).