Legal Resumes

Legal resumes are necessary whether seeking an entry level legal position or experienced professionals pursuing a career change, and it is important to compose a well formatted resume to ensure optimal success.  Many candidates fail themselves by only listing past experiences. The purpose of a resume is for a candidate to sell their knowledge, experience, skills, and capabilities to employers.  Employers review numerous resumes and therefore only spend approximately 20-30 seconds reviewing a resume.  Extensive planning and research are necessary to compose a successful resume. 

When composing their resume, candidates may choose between chronological or functional formatting.  While chronological formats are the most common and legible, they focus on past experiences, which may hurt candidates who have held many jobs for a short amount of time, or have large gaps in employment.  Chronological resumes include experiences and work history within the past 10 years, with the most recent experiences listed first. 

When composing a resume it is important to include a number of variables.  Candidates are not composing an essay, so first-person writing should not be used.  It is more important to focus on including complete thoughts rather than complete sentences, and wherever possible, include specific numbers, percentages, or titles.  Avoid using redundant or overused verbiage; the purpose of a resume is to stand out rather than blend in, therefore creative language is best.   Action verbs and specific job titles give resumes more validity and are more liable to intrigue readers.  It is important to avoid words such as “responsibilities” and “duties,” because they are common; instead try different wording such as “performance” and “dedication”.  Candidates should highlight the skills they feel will most effectively sell themselves.

Not only is the text important, but the appearance should grab the reader’s attention as well.  Resumes may exceed a page, but should not be longer than two pages.  Margins should be approximately one inch and text should be no smaller than 10 point font.  Although scripted fonts offer a professional look, they are often more difficult to read; therefore, basic fonts are often the most effective.  White space adds to the organization of a resume, as well as bullets, which are excellent for highlighting the most important points on a page.  While professionally printed resumes are more presentable, they often give employers the impression that candidates are unable to complete important tasks on their own, and often hurt more than they help.  Resumes should be printed on lightly tinted, cream, or white high-quality resume paper. 

With increased use of the internet for employing, candidates should compose a plain text resume that contains no special font or characters, in addition to a formatted resume.  Approximately 98% of online job boards and employer email systems accept plain text resumes and practically guarantee that pages will be reviewed.  Formatted resumes are used for mailing or hand delivering, and may contain bold, italic, or underlined text.  It may also be a benefit if candidates use simple graphics, or decorative lines to organize information, but it is important to focus on text rather than fancy graphics. 

Although computer programs and software offer a number of options such as spell check, they are not able to detect the misplacement or misuse of all words and punctuation that are easily corrected by human review.  Candidates should not only proof their own work, but have someone else look over the document to ensure the proper spelling, tense, and words have been utilized.  Candidates should conduct research and plan thoroughly before composing their resume. 

For more information on how to compose a resume for the legal field, please visit the following sites:

• TotalResume.com
• Southworth Company
• Florida Coastal School of Law
• Chicago - Kent College of Law
• Bluegrass Community & Technical College

Let iHireLegal help get your resume out into the legal field.  We offer resume fax and email blasting for legal candidates to companies in your area for a small fee, or have your cover letter sent out for no charge.