Over Deliver Because It’s Not About You

Several years ago, I was in the midst of opening up various legal recruiting offices around the United States.  In my sheer enthusiasm for the business, I would bring new recruiters from around the country to Los Angeles and have them live with me for several months while training them in my method of recruiting.  The new recruiters would sit in my office and I would observe them recruiting and critique their performance.  I would have dinner with them each night and discuss recruiting as well. While I am not good at a lot of things, I [Read more]

Career Lessons from Mother Teresa

I have found that by examining the careers of the most successful people out there you can learn a ton of lessons. It does not matter if the person is a business person, a musician, or a religious figure: They all have lessons to teach. While I am not particularly religious one way or another, for the past several years I have been studying Mother Teresa in short on and off bursts. I purchased a video and a few books about her. The reason she is so interesting to me is that I never truly understood why she [Read more]

You Need to Stop Competing and Seeing Differences Between You and Others

If you are looking for a job, trying to improve in your current job, or simply wish to experience a better life, there is one thing you need to do: You need to be friends with everyone you meet in business, and stop competing and seeing differences.   This is a statement that falls on deaf ears for most people.  In fact, this is the exact opposite of the way most of us think.  Instead, we view others as competitors and the slices of pie as limited.  We view opportunities as few and limited, and feel the need to compete for what little there is. What are the rewards for looking and seeing commonalty between you and others?  They are incredible.  In the Year 2000 I started a legal recruiting firm.  I did not start the firm until around March of that year. I had no legal recruiting experience and knew absolutely nothing about the market.  Since I had been a practicing attorney for years, the fact that I was now recruiting seemed almost surreal to me in many respects.  I had decided to just enter a zone where I did not care what happened to me.  When you are in the recruiting business, what typically happens is that law firms will call you in a very formal way to tell you they have no interest in a candidate of yours.  The conversations will typically last no more than 30 to 45 seconds. “We are calling to let you know that we have no interest in John Smith,” they might say. “Thank you,” would be the standard response. After several weeks of this I began to feel that the entire situation was somewhat absurd.  This is what recruiters do all over the country. I decided that the best [Read more]

Robin Hood and Appealing to an Employer’s Noble Motives

I grew up in a suburb of Detroit and went to school with several kids whose parents were in the Detroit Mafia. I would name them but to be completely honest I am afraid that if I did I might turn up dead. I do not want to upset these people with any slight–no matter how insignificant. I know they were legitimate members of a mafia family not just because when I was growing up everyone talked about it, but because years later when I started working for the Federal Government I met a US Marshal who told me all [Read more]

You Need to Bring a Singular Focus to Everything You Do

What makes a person really good at something? The answer to this question is identical to the reason for exceedingly high success in any profession. There are people who are really good at finding jobs. People who are good at finding jobs bring an incredible level of focus to their search. This is the level of focus I want you to bring to your job search as well. In order to get the position you are seeking, you need to be focused and follow one very simple rule. In order to be good at your job you need to be focused as well. No one becomes good at something and stays that way without focus. If you understand the rule I am about to share with [Read more]

The Importance of Planting Seeds: My Experience With the Scientologists

“And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable: a sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bore fruit a hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”—Luke 8:4-8.

For several years I underwent a ritual throughout various suburbs of Detroit that year after year resulted in my dramatically increasing my income and customer base in the asphalt business. This ritual became effective year after year due to the power of “planting seeds” in my prospects’ minds. I have continued to use the power of “planting seeds” throughout my career to start businesses and expand various businesses year after year. When you plant seeds in prospects’ minds, they are far more likely to think of you when a need comes up in the future than if you [Read more]

The Dangers of Getting Jobs Through Friends and Family

Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. –Tacitus (c. 55-120 A.D.) “Oh, I already have a friend there. I’ll just contact her.” In the legal recruiting realm, this is one of the more common things we hear after informing an attorney that a certain law firm 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 is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. The reason for [Read more]

Success Requires Ignoring Group Norms

When I started legal recruiting, within a few months of starting the business, I met a man who was one of the founders of the dominant legal recruiters association. At one time, he had the largest legal recruiting firm in California. As I spent time getting to know him, he told me that he had been ”kicked out” of the recruiters’ association he started because he had started a job site to help attorneys get jobs as well. Apparently, the recruiters’ association viewed the job site as competitive with legal recruiting—despite the fact that less than 1% of attorneys are even qualified to use a legal recruiter. I found this very odd, but at the time I realized that there were certain rules and dynamics associated with being part of this organization. Several years later, I largely forgot about what had happened to this recruiter and joined the organization myself. Soon thereafter, I started receiving all sorts of correspondence from them stating that I should not make any statements that my job site for attorneys (LawCrossing) was a good way for attorneys to get jobs (because doing so was competitive with recruiters who were also members of the association). To my astonishment, in order to be a member of this organization in good standing, it was a virtual [unwritten] requirement that you only be in the legal recruiting business and have only one opinion about how attorneys should get jobs. You are most certainly surrounded by people with all sorts of opinions regarding what is ”normal” and ”expected” in your life and career:

• What your opinions should be
• What lines of work you should be doing
• How you should dress
• How you should act
• How you should spend your free time
• Who you should associate with

In fact, no matter your profession, my guess is that there are certain norms regarding what is expected of you with respect to items such as [Read more]