More hurdles for job seekers -- bloodhounds of the web!

The New York Times features an in-depth article on the start-up Social Intelligence which helps human resources do deep background checks on possible hires. They scour the web, looking not just at social networking sites, but all sorts of sites such as Craig's List or Flickr, to see what sorts of things might be revealed about the applicant. The applicant is first asked if he or she consents to a background check. (Don't be a fool! But what will it say about you if you refuse?!) Also, the individual is shown the results of the search before it is reported back to the potential employer. And apparently the searches shouldn't cover the sorts of questions that are out of bounds for an employer to ask in an interview (Like, are you married? Do you have children?)

The biggest problem for young people is that they cannot control what others put up on the Internet. If a friend posts a picture of them, even if they ask very quickly for the photo to be taken down, it already may well have been duplicated and shared across the web in places they know nothing about. It is very difficult for "digital natives" to control images in particular, though they can certainly be circumspect themselves.

The best rule is not to post anything online that you would not want published on the front page of a major paper. Sadly that flies in the face of the current youth culture!

The article in the Times recounts several examples of people who failed to get a job because of "dirt" uncovered by "Social Intelligence." There was a woman who applied for a job at a hospital, but the company found nude photos she had posted at an image sharing site (well, the article made it sound as though she had posted them). The Times also reported another applicant who was using Oxycontin, as found through Craigslist. They don't talk about photos of wild parties, but I am sure that is something that employers don't want to see.

On the other hand, perhaps, by looking on the Internet, the company will uncover evidence that will support your resume's list of awards and even have nice comments from colleagues or teachers or peers about your abilities (we can hope!). That's the nice little carrot that Social Intelligence holds out to applicants at their website.

Photo of a bloodhound is courtesy of http://dogsranch.com/the-bloodhound.html/bloodhound

Starting Pay for New JDs is Trending Down

NALP (National Association for Law Placement) issued a press release on the employment and salaries secured by the graduates of the class of 2010. It is not a happy picture, which should come as no surprise.

They had earlier reported (in June) that 50.9% of the 2010 grads had jobs compared to 55.9% of the 2009 class. And more of the jobs are in smaller firms than in earlier-graduating classes. As we will see, this tends to depress the salaries. Part-time jobs make up about 11% of the jobs reported to NALP overall of the jobs requiring bar passage. But part-time jobs are especially prevalent in the academic sector and public interest sector, for jobs requiring bar passage. Only 68.4% of the class of 2010 reported to NALP that they had obtained jobs for which bar passage was required by the time of this report, and only 64% had full time employment in jobs requiring bar passage. 27% of the jobs were temporary, including judicial clerkships. Excluding clerkships, the percent of recent grads holding temporary jobs requiring bar passage is 19%.

2009

Nat'l.
Median $72,000

Nat'l
Mean $93,454

2010

Nat'l
Median $63,000 (down ~13%)



Nat'l.
Mean $84,111 (down ~10%)


* All figures for those reporting full time work. Note that there is a large discrepancy between large firm salaries, which tend to cluster between $145-160,000 and small firm and other salaries, which cluster around $40-65,000. This means that there are very few salaries that actually fall anywhere near the mean or median points. They should actually skip this national overall analysis and just do the separate analysis for large firm rates and small firm and alternate practice rates, I think!

By type of work:

Law firm:

2009

Nat'l.
Median $130,000

2010

Nat'l
Median $104,000 (down ~20%)


Adjusted
Mean

2010

$93,748 (they did not include the 2009 figure)

Virtually no change from last year for public service & government salaries. So most of the downward pressure on the salaries is coming in the law firm market.

I recommend reading the short report in full, though it is not happy news.

Surfeit of Lawyers?

The New York Times Economix Blog reports today on the number of lawyers passing the bar per state, compared to the number of openings for lawyers in existing firms, and whether that amounted to a surplus or shortage. They created a nifty chart, including hourly wages for the 2009 bars. They conclude that the most over-lawyered states, in order:

New York
California
New Jersey
Illinois
Massachusetts
Pennsylvania

There is a fairly sharp drop down to the next states below these, if you are tracking the surpluses. There are a few places where the production of lawyers is not so far out of line with the demand. And you must keep in mind that not all those who pass the bar are looking to take jobs advertised with law firms. There are people who want to work in academe, business, finance, health care with a JD degree and have the bar behind them. And there are a number who take the bar exam planning to hang out their own shingle or work in a small firm or who already have a job in hand. But, it is a disturbing analysis, especially when you look at the overall total for the nation: In 2009, we produced 27,269 more lawyers who passed state bar exams than there were advertised positions for.

US News Likely to Change its Law School Ranking Methodology

Robert Morse, at " writes that US News and World Report may change the way it computes the percent of students employed at graduation and 9 months after for rankings purposes, following the ABA's shift in its requirements for law schools filling out annual questionnaires. The Morse Code refers to the blog, Law School Transparency for reporting on the ABA changes to the rules on reporting post-graduation employment in a clear manner.

Are Lawyers Sponges?

Andy Kessler writes in today's Wall Street Journal that lawyers are "sponges," members of a profession that "earned their jobs by passing a test meant to limit supply," i.e., the bar exam. Other "sponges" are "cosmetologists, real estate brokers, [and] doctors," all of whom "need government certification. All this does is legally bar others from doing the same job, so existing workers can charge more and sponge off the rest of us." Ouch. Kessler's analysis appears in his article, "Is Your Job an Endangered Species?", and if he's correct, today's anemic job market for lawyers is not an aberration, but the wave of the future.

Kessler is a former hedge-fund manager and the author of a new book, Eat People and Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs. He looks at the terrible employment situation--"26,000,000 Americans are unemployed or underemployed"--and says that technology is to blame. It is "eating jobs." Kessler points to toll takers, bank tellers, phone operators, travel agents, postal workers, stock brokers, and stock traders and says these jobs are "nearly extinct." They have been "displaced by technology and the Web. Librarians can't find 36,000 results in 0.14 seconds, as Google can." Never mind whether anyone really needs or wants us to find 36,000 results!

What other jobs will disappear in the near future? Kessler divides the workforce into two types of workers in order to answer this question.

Forget blue-collar and white-collar. There are two types of workers in our economy: creators and servers. Creators are the ones driving productivity--writing code, designing chips, creating drugs, running search engines. Servers, on the other hand, service these creators (and other servers) by building homes, providing food, offering legal advice, and working at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Many servers will be replaced by machines, by computers and by changes in how business operates. ...

But even the label "servers" is too vague. So I've broken down the service economy further, as a guide to figure out the next set of unproductive jobs that will disappear.

Within the server category, Kessler lists the following subtypes: "sloppers" (people who move things, e.g., government workers who push paper or information around); "sponges" (see above); "supersloppers" (people who mark up prices based on gimmicks, not true market value); "slimers" who work in finance--some will always be needed, but nowhere near the number employed today; and "thieves" who have a government franchise to make money, e.g., phone and cable companies and regulatory inspectors.

Kessler believes that eDiscovery is going to decimate the legal profession because it "scans documents and looks for important keywords and phrases, displacing lawyers and paralegals ... Lawyers, understandably, hate eDiscovery." Far fewer lawyers will be needed, which will eventually result in dwindling enrollment in law school. Kessler is probably correct that the discovery process can be facilitated through the use of technology, and certainly legal research can be as well, but I do not believe that legal reasoning and writing lend themselves particularly well to a technology "fix." I agree, however, with his conclusion that fewer attorneys will be needed in the future.

Interviewing Hints for Lawyers & Librarians

I am looking at the Brainstorm Column by Gina Barreca in Chronicle of Higher Education Ideas (What to do When You are Looking for a Job Part I, Sept. 1, 2009). She is writing specifically for English PhDs interviewing for faculty positions on faculties at colleges and universities. But some of the points made in the column seem transferrable to other professionals, and inspired me to write a post here. (I sort of figured I owed librarians one after the post about why MLS folks don't get a look-in for clerical jobs at libraries).

Barreca's column takes the form of asking her colleagues around the country, English professors at various universities, to give advice to her graduate assistant on the best approach as she looks for a full time position on a faculty somewhere. Here are the most useful comments translated for lawyers and librarians:

1. Aside from the obvious (publications, stellar recommendation letters, etc.), what is it about an applicant's file that would make you insist on interviewing him or her?

*Superb -teaching- evaluations.

Strike that word, teaching, and insert whatever is the key verb that you will be doing in the job you are applying for. If you are applying for an attorney position, you need evaluations for some lawyerly task; if you are applying for a librarian position, you need evaluations for a librarian's task, preferably in the area of expertise you are applying in.

(snip, intervening stuff has NO relevance!)
3. How can an applicant make his or her letter not sound like everyone else's but not be disturbingly quirky?

*By writing in the kind of iceberg-crisp prose you are likely to find at the start of each week's New Yorker-- sentences of no more than 15 words--with real verbs--and no jargon.
(Well, these ARE English professors! But still, don't you think this kind of prose is going to grab your readers' attention?)

4. What are you REALLY looking for when you interview someone? I mean, really?

*Easy self-confidence

(Snip, Then, the article goes on with detailed comments from individuals:)

* A consistent sense, from the entire application package, that the candidate would offer something to the institution that is needed, perhaps lacking, and which would complement what others at the institution contribute.

(snip)

* A) Tailor the letter to the institution, speaking in its own language and focusing on any shared values (if it truly is a target for employment);
B) honestly communicate what the candidate sees, in/at the institution, that would provide for a rewarding career or work experience...a kind of "at _____ I could offer, do...." approach. Above all, I think an honest communication of who and what the candidate is key here;

(snip)

* [E]nthusiasm communicated clearly and with pleasure.

* Thoughtful engagement with interviewers' questions--not canned, not so quick as to sound canned, and definitely tailored to the question at hand. Avoid the hop-skip to what you THINK is being asked (as in "Oh, yeah, that's the future-projects question...") because interviewers can always tell. Listen patiently while the interviewer asks the question; pause, think, and then respond genuinely.

* Maturity of the candidate--how he/she handles the stress of the interview, how she/he handles hostile or even lightly probing questions.

* THE FIT, something the candidate has no control over: Only the interviewers know the make-up of their faculty and are able to do a gestalt prediction about how that candidate will mix with the existing department.

* Worth stressing again: Enthusiasm. I've talked to academics outside of English who look for the same quality and say that a candidate who is truly excited about the intellectual adventure of his/her work often has an edge over others with better CVs. This is one of the reasons why departments should never skip interviews.

Keeping in mind that these comments are English department faculty discussing hiring new colleagues, there are, I think, some relevancies that apply when law firms hire or when libraries hire. We DO look for a new hire who will fit into an existing team. I mentioned this earlier when I spoke about the clerical position issue. It's a major consideration when we hire, and one of the worst mistakes if we choose the wrong person. It can literally poison a department or a whole library's work environment. It's one of the reasons so many workplaces have a trial period for newly hired employees when they can be let go without the lengthy termination process that is required for a long-term employee. You hope you never have to use the trial period in that way, only as a training period, but it's an escape hatch if you really find you've made a dreadful mistake of judgement.

The other points, enthusiasm and quiet confidence are worth keeping in mind as well. The speakers in the Barreca column are speaking specifically about enthusiasm for the applicant's dissertation or research project, but often lawyers or librarians have research projects to talk about. These can be major talking points in an interview. Bring a copy of your paper, especially if the topic will be relevant to the interviewer. Be ready to talk about the work you did on the project. You may be surprised how much interest your interviewer will show.

Tough Times for Job Seekers

Today's New York Times features an article, "Downturn Dims Prospects Even at Top Law Schools," that makes clear just how tough the job market is this season. The dire situation is summarized in the opening paragraph: "This fall, law students are competing for half as many openings at big firms as they were last year in what is shaping up to be the most wrenching job search season in over 50 years." The article talks about firms that are slashing hiring, cancelling recruiting, and postponing recruiting while they wait to see if the market picks up. On-campus interviewing is down even at the top-tier schools, and students who once assumed that they could count on corporate law jobs that would enable them to pay back their student loans are now looking for jobs with public-interest organizations and the government. Of course, none of this is news to readers of the Above the Law blog, which provides a daily chronicle of the legal employment market. The article doesn't discuss the repercussions of this unprecedented hiring crisis on students who go to less highly ranked schools, but finding a job is even harder for them. One positive result of the contraction in the demand for legal services is that it is forcing firms to look at the "economic inefficiencies" that have long gone unquestioned. Firms have been reexamining the billable hour, "apprenticeships or tiered systems that depart from the traditional 'up or out' partner-track models. Some industry observers say their moves represent first steps that may ultimately give firms greater flexibility in hiring." As the article concludes, none of this innovation is going to offer much relief to members of the class of 2011, who are victims of a "unique logjam created last year. After the September financial crisis, firms chose to defer their new hires at the price of steeply cutting recruiting this year." Many law schools are welcoming slightly larger classes than usual this fall, but I wonder how long this will continue. At what point will students look at the amount of debt they will incur to go to law school and decide that the chances of their getting a job are so low that it just doesn't make financial sense to attend law school?