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Reader A has a question about truth in advertising… and how to tell a prospective employer that you've been laid off.
I'm a 2010 law grad with an interview at a biglaw firm in the next couple of days. For the last 6 months, I've been working at small law firm, and I was laid off last week. I applied to the biglaw job more than a month ago (before I was laid off, although I did know work was waning). My problem is I'm anticipating the question “Why are you looking to leave your current position” and although I have a great answer prepared about the challenges and opportunities this firm would provide me that my small firm didn't (with more firm-specific details, of course, but I'm choosing to leave those out), I know I also have to mention I'm no longer at small firm. I'm worried because everyone I've talked to has told me that unemployment is the kiss of death in biglaw, and I'm afraid the biglaw firm will toss my application in the trash once they realize I was laid off. Do you or your readers have any suggestions on how I can best phrase this? For what its worth, the small firm job was contingent on workflow from the get-go and there was always an understanding between me and my boss that the position might be temporary. I think I'm a great fit for the biglaw position, and its exactly what I want to do, so I'm really hoping this interview goes well.
First, good luck on the interview!! This can definitely be a touchy subject, but ultimately it sounds like you'll be fine. (Pictured: dark-clouds-over-downtown manhattan, originally uploaded to Flickr by dandeluca.) Some notes:
a) Be honest. You never want to hide something on a job interview. I'd even suggest that you watch your tenses — you don't have to say “When I was there, I did X Y and Z” but you should make sure you talk about your work there in the past tense.
b) Be prepared. I'd script out two or three sentences — and memorize them — to answer the anticipated question. For example: “I was thrilled to get the job at the small firm because I'm so eager to use what I've learned in law school and start practice, and it was great while it lasted. I and the employer both went into it expecting it to be contingent on workflow, with the understanding the position was a temporary one. Unfortunately the end time came last week, but I'm so thankful for what I learned there.” Pause, give the interviewer a second to absorb this, and then launch into “My favorite project when I worked there was…”
c) Focus on the positive. If you're feeling any sense of defeat or embarrassment about the layoff, you need to get over it for the interview. I know it may seem that there are dark clouds on the horizon, but you have to hold your head high, and focus on the vast number of positive things you have going for you. For example: It was a really tough hiring season when you were in school, and the fact that you have legal experience (about 6-9 months worth, yes?) is a definitive positive. (Depending on your work experience at the smaller job, and the experience of a typical first-year at this BigLaw firm, you may be OVER qualified.) Furthermore, you're a go-getter just to have gotten the smaller job in the first place.
d) Wash your hands when you come out of the interview. There was some study done that found the physical act of washing your hands actually helps stop “niggling questions” once decisions are made and situations have played themselves out. We also had a post on dealing with post-interview anxiety a few weeks ago that may be helpful to you.
Ladies, what are your tips for Reader A? How do you think she should handle the situation?
a quick thanks
A quick thanks to TX Attny and the person who posted as Second Chances in response to my post last week about discovering I didn’t pass the bar exam. Your encouragement and advice are appreciated.
TX Attny
You go, girl. It’s tough, but I know you can do this!
anon for this
I was in a similar situation about 2 years ago. This advice is great–especially point b. I’d also ask for a glowing recommendation from SmallFirm.
People in BigLaw are now (personally) familiar with layoffs and most won’t hold it against you. If they do, they are jerks and you don’t want to be working with them anyway.
Agreed
I was let go for economic reasons from a BigLaw firm at the end of 2009. It was common practice at that firm to tell people that it was not a lay-off but a firing- stealth layoff. (Interestingly, over two years they fired 50% of the 70 person department. So, there were a lot of people not making the grade.)
At any rate, I did get a job at an even higher ranked BigLaw firm. I simply indicated in my interviews that I really enjoyed firm XYZ, but unfortunately, there was not enough work available. I was one of many who was let go, and the partners of firm XYZ would be more than happy to assuage any concerns that they may have.
The partners I worked for at firm XYZ were great, and they gave me terrific references. Also, I found that it helped to be upfront and confident about my situation in the interview. Essentially, you recognize that many places are having economic issues and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but your current situation is not indicative of who you are as an attorney. Then, move on…. Do not dwell on it.
Note, I had two interviews where the BigLaw partner I was interviewing with was terrible and rude about my situation, but I have since learned that both firms are difficult places to work.
Anonymous
Make sure to emphasize that the decision to lay you off was a business decision, and not performance based. Make sure that you have refrences from your small law employer, and mention that the attonerys that you worked under will give you refrences.
MG
Exactly. You have to be able to back up that “laid off” wasn’t actually “fired”. I would offer references immediately and more than one reference from this particular job, so that the employer can be satisfied that this was truly the case. When we hire, it is always a red flag if someone is laid off without any references from the job that reflect a positive separation.
msgumby
Reader A, you could be me! One piece of advice I got when I left my last (understood to be contingent on workflow) position was to ask not only for a glowing recommendation, but also to have my former boss write in the letter that the decision for me to leave was based solely on the lack of work. Now that I am interviewing again, I feel much more confidant having that in writing, to back me up when I explain it.
P.S. Good luck on your interview!!
Eponine
I don’t even know if you have to tell them you were laid off, since you hadn’t been laid off at the time you applied. Certainly you don’t have to send them an updated resume. If they ask, you can say you recently left your job at small firm and explain to them why you’re interested in working in biglaw. Obviously you can’t lie or pretend you still work there, but you don’t have to overshare, either.
MG
Disagree. They will absolutely find out and it will look weird is OP isn’t up front with them from the beginning. Some people will consider omissions like this similar to lying. You are basically re-submitting your resume to them at the interview and if it is not current, then you will look foolish.
karenpadi
I also disagree. Updating your resume and staying positive and upfront is the best course of action here.
Anonymous
Lawyers are the gossip-iest creatures on the planet. They’re hear it somewhere, it might as well be from you. Then you get the chance to explain on your own terms, without an initial rush to judgment.
Kady
I disagree also. Given that law firms tend to be very thorough about doing background checks, I think that not being forthright about a change in circumstance like this is just asking to have the situation blow up in your face.
L
I once interviewed at a firm, and I had gotten fired from my previous firm 2 days prior. It was the typical we’re pushing you out, but we’ll give you 3 months to find a different job, etc., thing, and we’ll also give you good references. I did NOT mention that I had been fired at the interviews, and I don’t think the partners mentioned it when they were asked as references. FWIW I think this is typical in biglaw, so that they can say that the person “left voluntarily” when they really mean “we gave him/her 3 months to find another job”.
It sounds like the firm is too small to do something like that, though, and I agree with the posters above that making it clear it was an economic and not performance-based layoff, if you have to mention it, is a good plan.
P.
Kat’s script sentence is great. Congrats on the interview opportunity. The fact that you’ve got an interview with less than 1 yr. experience and coming from a small firm hopefully indicates someone making hiring decisions (or reviewing resumes) is reasonable and would understand this situation.
anonymous
If you already have an interview you’re past the point where they would toss your resume in the trash just b/c you’re now unemployed. Kat’s advice is good (I’m a biglaw partner and often interview), especially the part about being prepared with an upbeat answer to the question, and the anonymous advice above about being clear that the decision was workflow rather than performance-based is also important. If you think you want to be a litigator, this will good practice; part of what a litigator does is to relate facts (even bad facts) in a persuasive way. Good luck.
anonymous
*will be. (I hope you knew what I meant rather than what I wrote.)
Anonymous
And on that note:
For Job Seekers, Company Sites Beat Online Job Boards, Social Media
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576236731318345282.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_CareerStrategies
Bunkster
I got my current job through the company’s website. When I got laid-off September 1st, I was extremely pro-active. I already had accounts with Monster and Careerbuilder because I wasn’t happy at the old company anyway.
And then I made a list of all the big firms in the area and checked their websites. I also looked at the websites of my former company’s competitors. And now I work for one of them. I started working October 13th and have now been here for almost 7 months.
Anonymous
I have an interview lined up for Monday (and currently have my own attendent anxieties). I found the job through the company website.
Jas
It’s amazing the number of people who have called me asking about jobs who haven’t been to our company website.
Primer
Thread hijack – can someone recommend a makeup primer that is mattifying (blocks oil)? I just tried a sample of Paula’s Choice mattifying primer and was not too impressed. I have a very oily T-zone area in particular. Thanks!
AT
I have very oily skin and alternate between Philosophy “The Present” and “Smashbox Photofinish – Light”. I use the Philosophy if I’m just running errands and bumming around, but I use the Smashbox for weekdays and nights out. The Light version is MUCH better than the regular Photofinish for my skin. Smashbox works better overall for controlling oilyness (even when I bike to work and end up flushed and a little sweaty, my face dries down and is fine) but my skin feels a little more nourished, if that makes sense, when I use the Philosophy. (For what it’s worth, Avon has a very mattifying primer-like product – – can’t remember what it’s called, but I stopped using it b/c it actually dried me out too much!)
Primer
Thanks, I will check these out!
Laura
I use PURELL on my hands when I come out of an interview. With all of the hand shaking, you must make sure you do not have any bad bacteria when you go to eat. That is why I always have some Purell with me. Many men do not wash their hands when they come out of the toilet, and the last thing I need is to shake hands with them and then eat.
Nonny
Welcome back, Ellen! We missed you.
Kady
So sorry to hear about Alan. Hopefully you will soon find a MANAGEING PARTNER who will wash his hands and give you the ring you deserve.
visitor
If the interview is for an associate-level, partner-track position at a prestigious firm, I think being laid off could put an applicant in a very difficult position. But most of the big firms with which I’m familiar did not take laterals except people from clerkships, maybe very, very occasionally, someone who had exceptional expertise in an area they needed covered.
Not trying to be cruel, just candid.
Good luck.
JJ
I disagree. Outside of Cravath/Skadden and the like, most firms seem happy to hire laterals. Especially because they won’t have an initial sunk cost in training up a just-out-of-law-school associate. In Texas (where I practice) the lateral market is alive and well at top firms.
And FWIW, if I was interviewing someone and they told me that they had been let go for work-flow reasons just a few days prior, the only thing I would think would be “That sucks.” We all know people screwed by stealth lay-offs at this point because work dried up. I don’t think it reflects negatively on the vast majority of associates.
cbackson
Oh goodness. My biglaw firm prefers to hire laterals rather than first years for all groups except litigation.
n
Our litigation group prefers laterals — they get court experience from smaller firms, that are willing to train them, and then we steal the best ones in court. Actually, our laterals do better than our home grown associates in litigation.
visitor
I think other people have said something similar, but if it’s not too late, reframe it as a temporary position, a post-graduation internship perhaps (although that might sound odd). Try to rewrite history and make it seem as if there was never an intention of staying there. You wanted to see what small firm work was like before committing to working at a big firm which is all-encompassing, blah, blah, blah.
Yankee-Peach
I also went from SmallLaw to BigLaw in very similar circumstances. The advice here about being honest and being prepared is excellent. I worked out stock answers to almost every imaginable question from the very concrete to the very abstract. You can do this! Best of luck!
Totally anon here
My firm has a practice of telling people they have x amount of months to find another job. They are told to say they are still employed. They are kept on the firm website and letterhead until they find new employment. Sometimes that can be months later than originally anticipated and the attorney is no longer working in the office or getting paid – but they are still “employed” according to the old firm.
I worry that this practice could get an attorney in trouble if their new firm ever found out the truth. Also, it prevents the laid off/fired atty from filing for unemployment.
I’m hoping it never happens to me but if it does, I’m not sure how I will handle it. Would I follow their “plan” or would I decline the fronts and go forth totally honestly.
Anonymous
ANON,
From an HR point of view, if your current firm for the next 3-6 mo puts you on the letterhead/website; gives you a PAYCHECK; provides you with HEALTH INSURANCE; and confirms to potential employeres that you are currently emplyoyed, then exactly what is your concern??? Even if you spent your last 3-6 month at your job checking monster.com listing and phone interviewing, it does not matter. Your former employer wants you out of their hair with little legal risk of a lawsuit, so this is why they are willing to play along with this charade, and there is little risk of the beans being spilled. Lawyers are accustomed to molding the facts to suit an argument on the job, so (within the bounds of ethics) why should they not do so in their job hunting?????
Totally anon here
Because in some of these instances the people are not being paid and given health insurance and are not coming into the office — if it takes them longer than the original allotted time to find work.
I agree that when you are in the office and on payroll you are still “for real” employed even if you are not doing any work and are asked to leave. It is when you are sitting at home with no money that it is a little bit more difficult to swallow.
I agree it is nice of them to keep people one the website and letter head though.
Anonymous
Understand your point, but in HR terms (I was a HR rep before law school)the situation described above is classified as “leave without pay”, and you can still legally say that you are employed at firm X.
Anonymous
Sort of off topic, but I’m in a similar situation (laid off, looking for a new job) and I asked my former employer for a reference and was asked to write my own letter. I have no idea what to say. Obviously I want to make it as positive as possible, but I have no idea if they agree with my assessment of me. I feel like I’m putting words in their mouth, but that’s…exactly what I’m supposed to do I guess? Does anyone have any suggestions?
Been there
I got the same response in a previous job, as well as for college recommendation letters (foreign teachers). I started by describing the kind of work I had done — I found that easier than “tooting my horn”–, and then asked a mentor/experienced friend to help me spice it up with realistic but flatering adjectives. Once I had a draft I was comfortable with, I sent it to the employer in Word version and asked that they return it in a closed envelope. This let them edit and feel comfortable that I would not see their changes. In reality, my employer and teachers all emailed me back with a much more flatering version, and said I had been too modest.
I think all they want is a working draft with a description of what you did, so they don’t have to do the hard work and can simply spend a few minutes editing. So focus on the description and use positive but neutral adjectives that they can enhance easily. You can look at google samples of letters to get ideas.
Good luck!
Kaye
If you’re way too uncomfortable writing this yourself, try asking a friend who is familiar with your work to either write it for you, or edit your initial overly modest draft.
Eventually though you need to learn to write good marketing copy about yourself :)
Anon
Actually, I just interviewed 3 people of 5 total for a position I am hiring for. Those 2 I could tell were not currently working since January or longer. They did not offer explanations, so in all cases I had to ask, which I didn’t enjoy and was awkward. They all had good stories when asked, and I understand why they didn’t offer the information, but absolutedly yes this is something people will notice and want an explanation for. I am offering one of the currently nonworking people the job. Due to his qualifications.
Anon
meant the 3 not 2 were unemployed…
Shosh
Just want to mention, you don’t need to say that you were laid off if you prefer not to. You could say that you resigned.
Unless someone from biglaw firm has personal connections at old small firm, they will never find out. And Human Resources is never allowed to disclose to a prospective employer (or to anyone actually) why you don’t work there anymore – they can’t indicate if you resigned or if you were laid off. They can only legally say the period of time you worked there, and your position title, not why you left.
As to why you “resigned”, you can say it was for personal/family reasons, or for any other reason, or that it wasn’t the right fit for you.
Why would someone “resign” from a job in this economic climate, without another job in their hand? Not everyone lives paycheck to paycheck, and some people can afford to resign while looking for something better.
Anonymous
Completely disagree with the above. HR departments and background checks have all sorts of tricks for getting this information out of a former employer, even if they cannot legally get a verbal answer to the question (for example…HR new asks HR old–‘can you indicate if the person was fired’ and HR old coughs’).
It’s always best to be honest–why put potential employment at risk because your new HR thinks you deliberately misled them?
Anonymous
Uh, yeah, and I used to work for a firm whose sole purpose was to pose as a background checker to see if anyone in HR would give “coughs” about a previous employee. When an HR resource broke the company policy and revealed even a crumb of info beyone title and dates of employment, we would report this to the general counsel, and they were fired usually within a week.
Such behaviohr is a legal risk to the company (risk of defamation ect), and therefore a risk to the steady paycheck of any HR worker, so I assume most just bought some cough syrup to deal with the “coughs” that might occur when a purported background checker called.
Shosh
If you ever feel that an HR department of a former job gave any indication that you were laid off or fired, even if you were, you can sue them. It’s considered “defamation” because they are keeping you from earning an income. That’s why most HR departments will NOT indicate if someone was laid off or fired. They are deathly afraid of lawsuits (in fact that’s one of HR’s primary purposes, to avoid lawsuits). Go ahead and say you resigned. HR won’t contradict you. They know they can’t. Why do you think that so many incompetent people who were forced out of good jobs get hired again to do the same task at a new company?
CA NY Anon
As one who has hired thousands of lawyers for NY and CA law firms, I can state definitively that we never saw big law hire anyone who had been laid off or unemployed at any time in their careers for any reason.
We went to extreme lengths to verify information and often ‘held’ positions for months and watched candidate credit reports to determine debt direction. Coupled with other factors we could make a determination as to the candidate’s actual status.
We also employed professional investigation firms to create a complete profile of candidates over a 3-6 month period – including following those candidates through their daily activities, credit reports, background checks, dumpster diving etc. We even set up small faux legal firms / jobs to interview target candidates that are in the process of pursing employment at other law firms.
A complete candidate profile would be more detailed than you can ever imagine. Not just a background check, but all assets/liabilities, credit purchases, daily activities, associations, family, marital status, educational background going back to H.S., residence, all public records, etc.
Big law was protected by knowing nothing more than we thoroughly screen candidates. We in turn hired many investigative firms to provide the background information on each candidate. This applied to all candidates even those making as little as $125-$150k.
At the higher ends of the legal spectrum we poached candidates from other firms.
Additionally, it’s my understanding from speaking with our partner investigative firms that they employ legal temps, mailroom clerks, janitorial services, etc. to enter target firms and determine who is actually employed at those firms.
Investigators also monitored the coming / going of employees at smaller firms. Today we couple facial recognition software and investigative approaches that put the CIA to shame.
We are highly sought after by law firms because they could be assured that no one slipped through the cracks using tactics such as previously described in this thread.
We still send unemployed / laid off candidates to the big law firms for interviews, but they have no intention of ever hiring those candidates. It’s more a CYA approach. The information packet / jacket is color coded and in each file different type of plain paper is used to distinguish desirable and non-desirable candidates.
Anonymous
If the email that I am replying to is not a simply a sarcastic troll, then the statement that “biglaw knew nothing about what was going on behind the scenes other than the fact that we throughly screeded candidates”, is complete and total bu&^&^sh*&!! The sort of through background investigation that you speak of is similar to that done for the top secret security clearance that is performed on candidates for certain jobs in the military or for military contractors.
This sort of clearance costs the company 10-15k. Your headhunting firm is passing along the cost to their client, and knows EXACTLY why you cost 15k more than their competitiors who do a more relevant (and more legal) background check. What they purchase on ther credit card? Personal assoications?? This is a employment lawsuit from hell waiting to break. Ugh..no wonder people are leaving big law.
Anonymous
I really think this post comes from a troll. As a former HR person/current employment law attonrney I am aware that Credit Reports cannot be accessed by anyone unless the creditor has signed a release giving them information. Marital Status??? Personal Associations???Boy, I smell a big time employment lawsuit against your clients,(Dumpster Diving???) and a bigger invasion of privacy suit against your purpoted “recruiting firm”.
Westsidebee
Related question — I have been job hunting for some time, and am in the middle of phone interviews for a position. I just found out that I an newly pregnant (6 weeks). I have been pg before and it ended in m/c, so I am still going full steam ahead with my interviews. But at what point do I need to disclose it to the new employer?