Several years ago, I was sitting in my office and the most amazing candidate came across my desk. The attorney had a degree in a hard science discipline from a school like CalTech or MIT (I believe it was physics), had gone to a good law school, and finished first in his class. Not only that, he was currently working at one of the top law firms in the world and was in a practice area that wasn’t just desirable at the time, it was white hot. His practice area was so in demand at this particular point in time that one law firms I’d been dealing with offered another candidate of mine (an attorney only three years out of law school) a

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Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. “Oh, I already have a friend there. I’ll just contact him.” In the job market, it’s one of the more common things we hear after informing a job seeker that a certain employer has a job opening. There is a lot you need to consider before you decide to apply to a job through a friend or relative, or take a job working for a friend or relative. First, it’s exceedingly rare that a friend or family

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In the early 1990s, a very rigorous scientific study was done in Berlin on music. The study’s objective was to understand why certain violinists were more talented than others. This study is relayed in a fascinating book by Geoff Colvin called Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everybody Else. In order to do the study, the researchers created three groups of violinists–best, above average, and good. Each of these three groups were spending the same amount of their time involved in music-related activities. One of the most interesting things going into the study was that the violinists all seemed to know what particular activity mattered most in order to make them better at the violin: practicing alone. In fact, all of the violinists seemed to know this but, of course, they all didn’t do it. The researchers quickly discovered that the amount of time the various groups spent practicing alone varied dramatically. The study discovered that the advantages of consistent practice built-up over time. All of the test subjects were asked to estimate how much they had practiced. The results were significant: Best Violinists-By the age of 18, these violinists had accumulated 7,410 hours of lifetime practice on average as a group. Above...

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Several years ago, I was sitting in my office and the most amazing candidate came across my desk. The attorney had a degree in a hard science discipline from a school like CalTech or MIT (I believe it was physics), had gone to a good law school, and finished first in his class. Not only that, he was currently working at one of the top law firms in the world and was in a practice area that wasn’t just desirable at the time, it was white hot. His practice area was so in demand at this particular point in time that one law firms I’d been dealing with offered another candidate of mine (an attorney only three years out of law school) a

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I started my career selling asphalt maintenance door-to-door in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Not only did I sell the service, but I did the work myself and then, over the course of several years, built up the business. In fact, it was something I planned on doing for the rest of my life until I made the decision in March of my senior year of college to take the Law School Admissions Test and apply to law school. It’s a funny thing about that test. On the day before I took it, I remember coming down with a

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