This is an article in a series of articles called Your Ultimate Guide to Law Student Recruitment. Don’t forget to read the previous article here: Law Student Recruit Cover Letter Template
Introduction
Along with a cover letter, you need to submit your resume to hiring law firms during the law student recruit. And although law firm recruiters will generally read your resume after your cover letter, it is arguably the most important document in your application package. It’s more detailed than your cover letter and it gives the recruiter an idea of who you are. Where did you go to school? What adversaries have you overcome? What are your skills, experiences and qualifications? What are you passionate about? Your resume should tell your story so far and it is what will set you apart from all other applicants because no other person will have the exact same background or experiences as you.
Resume Template Free Download
If you need help writing your resume, follow this resume template that I created and used as a law student to get several interviews with different law firms:
Note: Due to formatting, I’m unable to insert the template directly into this blog but the above link should suffice.
Tips for Writing Your Resume
- Resume format should be:
- 1″ margins
- classic font like Arial or Times New Roman
- black font colour
- 12 pt font
- Use headings and sub-headings
- Don’t try to get crazy with the design (make sure your resume is easy to read
- Arrange your education, work experience, and volunteering in chronological order (most recent at the top)
- Don’t overlook the interests section as most law firms use it as a conversation starter
- Make sure to describe your role in each work/volunteer opportunity in detail (use the STAR method)
- Start your descriptions with action verbs like “organized” and “managed”
- Here is a list of action verbs from Harvard that you can use on your resume
- Try to include what skills you learned in each work/volunteer opportunity in your descriptions and how those skills will help you succeed as a lawyer
- Get someone else to proof-read your resume, whether it’s a lawyer in the family, a professor, a parent, or a friend – it doesn’t matter, just having a second set of eyes to catch any mistakes and give you a different perspective can help you write a better resume
- Also, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I think if you have any personal projects, you should include those too e.g. you started a non-profit, you organized a food drive in high school, etc. It shows initiative and makes you interesting
- Keep your resume under 2 pages
- If you have a lot of work or volunteer experience, you don’t have to include them all (use only your most recent experiences or pick and choose your highlights i.e. the most relevant experiences or the ones that make you stand out. You can talk about the experiences you left out during the interview if you get the opportunity to)
Conclusion
Like the cover letter template, this resume template is just a template so don’t be afraid to make changes as you see fit. The more personal your resume, the better. Show the recruiter what makes you, you. And don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get it right the first time. In fact, you likely won’t. Expect to have to edit your resume many, many, MANY times. There is always something to improve. I can’t count how many times I had to revise my resume. It quite literally took me 3 years of editing to create a version I was happy with. Be patient and slowly but surely, you’ll get there. Best of luck!
This is an article in a series of articles called Your Ultimate Guide to Law Student Recruitment. Check back again soon for the next article!
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