Should Everyone Be Passive Job Seeking?

Should Everyone Be Passive Job Seeking?

Those are essentially the same steps I would recommend for anyone wanting to network in our industry. Get active in places where Legal Tech folks gather, like LinkedIn, conferences, and networking groups, and volunteer to be a part of some of those same groups. Whether that networking is for career opportunities or just to be connected with people in the field and share tips and information, that’s what I would do.

So, if those actions are what passive job-seeking looks like, we should all be passive job-seeking.

The Obligatory Lessons Learned After Four Months Unemployed
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The Obligatory Lessons Learned After Four Months Unemployed

So after 12 years, I’m back, but it’s very different. Because 12 years is a long time and things change fast around here. This opportunity only came about because I’ve been changing and now have something different to offer, that matches up with how the firm has been changing. I could have resisted learning all these new things over the years, but that would have also limited what I could do going forward. I’m really happy I didn’t do that. It might be the best career move I’ve ever made.

Linked – It’s Time to Face the Three Challenges of Learning

Linked – It’s Time to Face the Three Challenges of Learning

That being said, this isn’t going to change. If the people who work for you aren’t continuously learning your organization is going to fall behind competitors who are learning. The folks who want to learn will end up working for those competitiors. You’ll be left with a group of employees who are comfortable doing the same thing they’ve always done and aren’t interested in learning anything new.

Someone Might Just be a bad Culture Fit, Too.

Someone Might Just be a bad Culture Fit, Too.

Last week, I shared an article and some of my own experiences around “culture fit” being a code for discrimination. We all know that is all too common, and an excuse for organizations to continue to hire “people like us”.

I saw another article over the weekend that reminded us that while that is common, there are some cases where someone is a bad cultural fit and there’s no discrimination involved.

Linked – Culture Fit – Another Way to Discriminate?

Linked – Culture Fit – Another Way to Discriminate?

There’s no simple answer here but I would look at how you define culture. There should be an organizational culture that includes diversity. Think more about “we value a variety of experiences and viewpoints” as opposed to “we like to work in a locker room environment” and then find the diverse group of people who “fit” your culture.

I will agree with Kevin on this though, “culture fit” is too frequently just code for people like me, and that needs to go away.

Notes or No Notes During an Interview?

Notes or No Notes During an Interview?

Maybe instead of telling interviewees that they should be doing immense company research, and practicing their questions and responses so that they don’t ever have to refer to notes we should be calling out interviewers who do exactly zero prep work before an interview. Instead of making excuses about how busy hiring managers are and how we can’t possibly expect them to do any research into a candidate when they are interviewing so many, we should consider how many interviews the candidate is doing and how many companies they are researching. If the hiring manager can have my resume and any notes in front of him during the entire interview, why can’t I have notes too?