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Today's Quote: New Paralegal Graduates Should Migrate to Colder Climes

By Lynne DeVenny

Q: I became certified as a paralegal, but my city seems to be awash in paralegals. I thought that paralegals were in great demand. Did I get that wrong? ? K.K.

A: There?s no guarantee that because an occupation is in demand, it?s in demand where you live. College towns, for example, often are awash with jobless graduates who never moved away but who could find employment if they relocated to another community. Competition is almost always greater in warm places than cold, except skiing country. Need ideas? Browse for ?alternative careers for paralegals.? 

This advice is courtesy of yesterday's career column published in the Worcester Telegram, which covers news in Central Massachusetts. I checked the area paralegal listings on Indeed.com, and despite the cold, the paralegal pickings seemed kind of slim, but that's probably because the skiing is good there. I'm wondering what my readers who live in the colder areas of the country think about the advice to relocate to your frigid neck of the woods. You're probably thinkin', "NO! No more competition for jobs up here needed, fly South! It's warm there, and you can live in your car year round, new paralegal graduates!"



So then for fun, I googled "alternative careers for paralegals," quotation marks and all, because I know how literal some of y'all (and me) can be, and this career column showed up in the first eight hits, which wasn't all that helpful to find other things you can do with your paralegal degree, although the interviewing advice is quite good. Mediation appeared near the top of the list, but honestly, at least down here in balmy North Carolina, most mediators are attorneys or retired judges.

And Sam has to be welcome, too.

Then JobQnA listed like six slightly better alternatives, including claims adjusters and title examiners, but also something called sanctuary specialist. I'm drawing a blank on that one, and Google didn't offer much (any) enlightenment. Because I love my TrueBlood, I thought maybe a sanctuary specialist inspected churches to make sure they are vampire-proof, even though who wants to go to a church that would exclude Eric and Bill. That's probably not what a sanctuary specialist is, but that's all I got.

Then a bunch of links were listed that I was afraid to click on, but essentially, "alternative careers for paralegals" is a dud search, with or without the quotation marks. When I tried searching simply alternate careers paralegals, I found an article titled, "Paralegals: The Alternative Legal Career," and my brain started to hurt something fierce, just considering that we are the alternative to the alternative. Which is to go to law school, swell the ranks of unemployed JDs, and have plenty of free time for skiing upon graduation, I guess.

I keep my own list, "What else can you do with a paralegal degree?" updated, and welcome any reasonable and viable career alternatives for paralegals that you can think of (except those that might exclude Eric and Bill).

Source:  Worcester Telegram

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on February 01, 2011 (boomark / email).