Help My Resume's Blog

I graduated from Law School last June and since then, have been either unemployed or working at temporary positions. It is a difficult market for entry level attorneys, and most employment opportunities are fickle and show little opportunity to advance professionally. Accordingly, I have been presenting myself as a business and legal professional, and trying to leverage my law degree to acquire a position in the corporate world.

My Monster/Hot Jobs profiles emphasize my accounting, contract negotiation, administrative, and management experiences. However, I have not had much luck in using my law degree and experiences to acquire a position. When I first got contacted by a recruiter, I was a little excited because surely he must have reviewed my profile and thought that I was an excellent candidate. I promptly replied to his email and sent him my resume. When I didn’t hear from him I called him, and he asked me if I had any experience with the Pennsylvania Unemployment Insurance System. I have spent a few years working with a nonprofit that represents claimants at New York State Unemployment Hearings, but have never worked in Pennsylvania. I was confused, because he had seen my resume and that is not something that I had worked in. He then said, “okay I’ll keep you in mind, thanks,” and never contacted me again.

I was also contacted by another recruiter who told me that I would be an excellent candidate for a $60,000 Business Analyst job. He then told me that I was required to take a class online that was free of charge, which I agreed to do. When I started the class I was asked to pay $300. I promptly stopped taking the class, and sent the recruiter an email the next morning advising him that, if he knew of a position, great, but that I was not willing to spend any amount of money taking a class that was clearly designed for much less experienced people.

Aside from those two particular experiences, I am regularly contacted by recruiters from various search firms looking to fill positions with major insurance companies, support positions at white-shoe law firms, and analyst positions at various banks. Most of these positions are contract-to-hire, which is fine by me. I have productive conversations with these recruiters but, then I never hear from them again. When I send follow-up emails a week later, they are not responded to; I find this to be very perplexing. I’ve noticed that most of these recruiters are of Indian extraction, and for the most part based in New Jersey. Some of them have very limited English skills and on a couple of instances, I’ve found it easier to just speak Hindi with them. I wonder if they are at call centers somewhere, and whether they are paid by the number of candidates that they identify.

As a final observation, I noticed that when I changed the name on my profile to Rob S. Kaushik, employers started to show greater interest in my candidacy. I suppose that Shorav can be an intimidating name, and isn’t necessarily gender-specific.

Filed under: Job Search Skills You Need To Have, Motivation | Tagged: Business, Business and Economy, cover letters free, Employment, facebook, Free Resume Rewrite, help my resume, Help Pay My Bills

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