Career Counseling Articles

Practicing law sure looks great... on TV! Hollywood lawyers like Elle Woods, the team on Boston Legal, and any of the fantastically gorgeous and oft-rotating A.D.A.'s on Law & Order lure a lot of people to law school. Despite what you may have heard about being able to do anything with a law degree, law school is, at the end of the day, a trade school. Sure, some of them - especially the top ones - are gussied up with an intellectual veneer, and their course listings make law school look like an advanced degree in the liberal arts ("Greek Tragedy and the Law," "Postmodern Legalisms," "Anthropology and the Law"), but you really have no business applying to law school unless you know that you want to practice law.Read More...

1. Parents are too involved Millennials routinely involve their parents in the smallest details of their lives, even after they graduate from college. Recruiters have come to expect heavy parental involvement in the interviewing, recruiting, and negotiation process of recent college grads. Recruiters aren't thrilled about it, but they have adapted to that reality. You'll stand out from the pack as exceptionally mature and professional if you keep your parents' advice entirely behind the scenes; recruiters shouldn't experience any direct involvement by your parents.Read More...

1. Show them what you learned on the job.

Most college seniors and recent graduates haven’t had very glamorous jobs. That’s OK – everyone has to start somewhere. If you’ve done internships or other kinds of entry-level jobs, focus on what you observed or learned about the industry or profession rather than on what you did. “Observed the inner workings of a high-paced PR firm” sounds more interesting than “answered phones and updated calendar.”

2. Show off your activities.

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