Where are All the Jobs? Tips for Inexperienced Paralegals Looking for Work

Lured in by promises of explosive growth in the job market (some studies suggested there would be an 18% increase in paralegal jobs between 2010 and 2020), newly minted paralegals may feel as if they've been subjected to a bait and switch now that they actually on the job market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics currently predicts there will only be an 8% increase in paralegal jobs between 2014 and 2024 (source), which is merely an average growth rate for most occupations.

The challenge isn't simply that there aren't as many jobs available as were predicted, it's that the jobs available are going to candidates with significant job experience. 

On participant on the Facebook Group "Paralegals Connect," shared that he had been looking through job postings and saw one for entry level paralegal. This entry level position required five years of experience. "That doesn't seem like entry level to me," he lamented. The truth is the market is glutted with people looking for jobs and employers want a big bang for their buck. In this case, they want an experienced candidate who will work for an entry level wage.

I'm going to share with you three key strategies for breaking into the paralegal career.

1. Networking. 

Join a paralegal association in your area. When you meet other legal professionals in the area, they may be able to tell you about job opportunities. Only a fraction of available jobs are posted on job boards or in newspaper classifieds.  Talking to people who have the inside scoop on developments at law firms is a must. I didn't go looking for my most recent job offer. A former co-worker of mine told a friend of hers about me--a friend who happened to be the human resources director at a law firm--and that person called me, I went in for an interview and the rest is history. Good connections make a huge difference in your career, so it's never too early to start cultivating them.

Social networking on LinkedIn and on Facebook is a fantastic way to get your name out there, all from the comfort of your desk chair. Unfortunately, a lot of job seekers don't put enough effort into it to reap the rewards. The mere act of creating a profile on a social networking site isn't enough.  You will need to answer all of the questions, fill out all of the fields and follow any advice you can find about optimizing your profile. (I still have a lot of work to do on mine!)

After you've created a profile you're proud of, it's time to start making connections. In addition to connecting with coworkers and other professional acquaintances, I recommend connecting with recruiting agencies, individual recruiters.  They are the people who know about job openings and have a vested interest in finding the right person to fill the spot.

To make the most of social networking on the web, join a variety of groups and read and respond to the topics posted there. Why not go the extra step and publish topical and informative articles in your particular field?
LinkedIn Groups

• Paralegal Jobs & Continuing Education
• Paralegal Network
• Paralegal Gateway
• NALS LinkedIn Group

Facebook Groups

• Paralegals Connect
• Perfectly Paralegal

2. Get Your Foot in the Door

May of the neophyte paralegals I've encountered on social media vent about how they can't find paralegal jobs. I sympathize with them.  It seems unfair that they've done all this work and they're eager to get started, but no one will let them. Here's the thing though. It's a blessing most inexperienced paralegals can't get full-fledged paralegal jobs.  The work is tough. Expectations are high. Deadlines careen at you like bugs on a windshield. Book smarts don't teach you the most critical aspects of job: dealing with extreme pressure, coddling difficult personalities and managing work flow. Some of us learned to swim by being tossed into the deep end. There is a much gentler approach that's less likely to result in job loss due to error or burnout due to unreasonable expectations. Start at the bottom. Take any job in a law firm to gain experience: mail room clerk, document clerk, runner, receptionist, junior legal assistant. Any one of these positions gains you experience and creates opportunities for learning and proving yourself. I have seen scores of people start out this way and earn promotion after promotion due to hard work, a positive attitude and enthusiasm for the job.

3. Tailor Your Studies for the Job You Have and the Job You Want

Whether or not your legal department/firm will pay for your continuing education, you need to prioritize learning throughout your career. You either learn new things or you stagnate. Those of you who chafe at the same old, same old will love the variety of courses and opportunities for professional growth. Those of you who find comfort in doing things the way you've always done them are going to have to give yourselves a stern talking-to. This industry may be slower than some others when it comes to adopting new ways of doing something (you didn't choose to work in cell phone development, after all), but it's not completely isolated from social, economic, technological and political developments either.  You must keep your skills up-to-date or you will flounder and may even find yourself out of a job.

When considering what types of courses to take, determine whether or not there is a gap in your current skill set that, if remedied, would benefit you at your current job.  For example, if you're frequently asked to work in Excel, and your skills are only rudimentary, seek out courses that can help you become a confident user of that program.

If you want to take on higher level assignments, but are afraid to ask for them because they're outside your comfort zone--or your confidence is high, but the attorneys for whom you work are reluctant to assign those projects to you because you don't have the training, you can boost your confidence and demonstrate your readiness for new, more challenging assignments by taking a class. If your legal writing has been restricted to mainly routine documents and you'd like to try writing a motion or a research memo, take a legal writing course. Talk to your employer about the class you've taken and show him or her a sample of your work.

You can even use course work to help you climb the career ladder. As a senior paralegal, I thought I had climbed the career ladder to the very top and stared at the ceiling above me thinking with disappointment, "is this all there is?" I didn't want to go to law school, because the prospect of taking on debt was unappealing. I also have children, and law school plus a full-time job meant I'd never see them.  Luckily, when perusing continuing legal education sites, I discovered there are some options for paralegals who want to take on new challenges. I'll discuss the options I've learned about in another post, but suffice it to say, education can reinvigorate one's enthusiasm for the job and help you see opportunities where you didn't see them before.

Great list of job resources:

http://www.paralegal411.org/jobs/