ACC Northeast & Latitude Present: Personal Branding, Visibility and Opportunity: Positioning Yourself in Today’s Legal Job Market

Good afternoon, and welcome to the ACC Northeast monthly webinar sponsored by our wonderful sponsor, Latitude Legal. You are here for the personal branding visibility and opportunity positioning yourself in today’s legal job market, and we are thrilled to have you join us. And we’re very grateful to Candace Reed and Megan Grossman of Latitude for not only being our sponsor, but also giving up their time today to share their insights with all of you. I can attest after having spent quite a bit of time with them over the last few months that they have some fantastic insights to share. We are not gonna do any PowerPoint today, but we are gonna have materials after the session that will be circulated. So keep an eye out for those. It’ll be a fantastic resource for you to have available at your fingertips after today’s session. Thank you all so much for joining us. And without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Candace Reid. Thank you, Marissa, and thank you, Julie and everyone at, ACC Northeast for inviting us to have this conversation with you today. We’re looking forward to it. We feel like we are prepared to cover a lot of information, but if there are questions that you have throughout, the next hour, please use the chat feature. I will be monitoring that so that, I can, try to get to all of your questions. If I don’t ask the question right away, just know that it’s probably because it’s something that we were prepared to address, so we will get to it. On the agenda for the day, three primary topics that we are going to discuss. First, we’re gonna talk briefly about inflection points in the middle of your career. We are assuming that most everyone, who is joining us today has some level of experience but may likely be looking at making a job change at least one more time in your career. So whether you, have just transitioned in house or whether you’re currently serving as general counsel and asking yourself what’s next, we feel like the content that we’re gonna share today is gonna be relevant. Then we’re gonna talk about market trends. Megan Grossman, my colleague who’s based out of Philadelphia, will let you know what we’re seeing generally across the country when it comes to in house hiring. And then we’re gonna move into the meat of the conversation and talk about, personal branding and positioning yourself in the market, how you get noticed among a lot of, attorneys and job seekers alike. So that is the agenda for the day. We’d like to start by assessing where everyone is at in terms of your own, career or your career mindset. So, here is a poll question. Can everyone see it? No. Not yet. Well, good thing I asked. How about now? Yes. So the question oh, no. Wrong one. Sorry. You knew there were gonna be technical difficulties. Part of what we’re showing you is how you just roll with the punches. No big deal. Let’s go back, and see if I can get the right poll. Here we go. Can everyone see this one? Okay. Career mindset. That was just a little teaser, the first one of what’s to come. So how many of you are actively seeking a position, open to new opportunities but not really searching yet, focused on growth within your current company or employer, or just curious and, you know, maybe hoping to learn a few new skills to prepare for a someday job change. I’ll let this run for just a minute. Okay. Can you all see the results? I can. It looks like the majority, let’s see. Oh, there we go. There we go. There we go. It looks like the majority of you are open to opportunities but not actively searching that with, the second being you’re focused on growth within your current employer. I will tell you that this this is where I love to talk to people. When you are not necessarily in the midst of a job search, so maybe you’ve already done a few things. If if you’re talking to us on the front end, that usually means that we can be more helpful. You know, that they’re it it’s kind of like you’re starting with a clean slate. You have time to do some things that take time, and you can start to implement some of the strategies that we’ll talk about today now with the expectation that they’re gonna yield results, you know, months or even a year from from now. So what oh. Oh. Hey, Cheely. Welcome. And then so what we’d like to talk about first is that when various inflection points. Okay? So there are those inflection points that we have in the middle of our career that we oh, no. There we go. That we are prompting. Right? So, like, maybe you’re you you are looking for ways to move up, within your own company. Maybe you are looking for a job because you’re currently bored or you’re wanting to relocate or want a new challenge or maybe just a job that better aligns with your current goals and values. Then there are others of us who find ourselves in the middle of a job search, not necessarily one that we planned, but maybe your company has recently merged or maybe, there have been layoffs. We see this a lot in corporate America. Right? Like, companies are not static. A job is not a, life sentence or a lifelong opportunity, if you will. There is usually some movement, either up or out. And so, we just want to tell you that regardless of the reason that you’re looking, it’s fine. You’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine. I personally have had the experience of working in house and my company being acquired by another company, and so there were those redundancies, which, you know, is, like, corporate, lingo. And, my position as the chief, ethics and compliance officer was redundant, And there was already one of those in the company that acquired my company, and so I was no longer needed and, had the opportunity to leave and, search or do something, different. And it my story is that’s when, we started Latitude thirteen years ago. So, it ended up being a great opportunity for me, and, you know, there there’s nothing wrong, with just being part of the life cycle of a company. So, to those of you who may be in the middle of a job search, not from your own desire or making, just take heart. My advice would be to approach your job search with, a feeling or sense of optimism like, oh, boy. I get to do this. Like, this wasn’t on my bingo card for twenty twenty six. But now I’ve been given this opportunity to look at something, that could potentially even be better. That shows talking and when you’re interviewing and networking as opposed to, like, being bittered and mad that you’re having to do this. So your outlook is is crucial. Okay. So I’ve introduced myself a little bit. You know, great way to introduce yourself. Hi. I’m Candice. Let me tell you about one of my big failures in life. But, there was an upside, which hopefully you caught that part too. So now I’d like to turn, to Marissa and ask you to introduce yourself by telling us a little bit about your career journey and the pivots that you’ve made along the way. Thanks, Candace. And I would say not one of your big failures, one of the pivots that happened to you. Right. It was yeah. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. I would just echo, Candace’s comments. I think that for so many of us in house, it’s really oftentimes not about when you’re ready to make a move. It’s something has shifted in your company and knowing that that is never your fault. It’s just how the life cycle of companies in America work these days. And I would say my career journey has been full of lots of pivots and twists and turns that I did not expect. I graduated law school during one of the recessions, and it took me quite a while to find my first job. So coming out of a program that had had a ninety six percent job placement rate the year before to a six percent job placement rate by the time I graduated, what I thought I was going to do and what I ended up doing were two really different things, and I ended up in an in house role that was phenomenal. It was such a great fit for me as a human being culturally, personally, and obviously from a job perspective. But when we talk about the pivots, about a year almost the day from when I started, I was informed that the company was being acquired and that there would not be a role for me in that future company. And, you know, given where I had come from and being in that type of economy, I didn’t do the things that we’re gonna talk about with you all today. I didn’t take the time to self reflect. I didn’t take the time to figure out what was the best fit for me. I took one of the first jobs that was offered to me, and it turned out to be not a good fit for me. And I learned that really quickly, and I was able to pivot and get into a role that has been a a great fit for me for a really long time. But it it has been something over the years since then that I have really spent a lot of time on self reflection. We’ll talk more about that and understanding who am I and what do I want. And, most recently, I was, serving as general counsel of a company that did a merger of equals, and I’m now deputy general counsel at the resulting company. So lots of opportunities to grow over the years, and, really looking forward to chatting with you all more about that in the next hour. Thank you, Marissa. Megan, what about your career journey? Yeah. Hi, everyone. I started my legal career as a defense litigator, mostly a products liability defense, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. I did that for twenty years and got very burned out by that. I was working a lot of long hours, was traveling all over the place for the litigations, and was fighting a lot. And so I was burnout and thinking and looking for my next steps, and I actually came upon Latitude Legal in the sense that I was thinking to myself, maybe I’d want to be an engagement attorney. I the thought of being able to work on a more flexible basis was something that was really attractive to me. I thought, oh, maybe I could try a new alternative type of law, or maybe I could be trying to make that pivot into in house that I because I had always been at a law firm. And when I happened upon the Latitude website, I saw that they were hoping to open an office in Philadelphia. So in twenty twenty two, I joined Latitude as, the leader of the, Philadelphia market, and I’ve been here ever since. And, yeah, the the biggest thing for me or the hardest thing for me, I’m putting that in quotes, was just making that switch from being a practicing attorney to doing something different, which is, again, something we’re gonna talk about a little bit later. But that was, like, a, that was the hardest thing for me to get over and to do, and I’m happy that I did. We are too. I am too. I am too. So, Megan, I know that part of your job and part of mine as well is to have an understanding and knowledge of various legal markets. Right. Obviously, our audience is focused in the northeast. And so what opportunities are you currently seeing for in house counsel, both, you know, making moves laterally from one company to another as well as internally with within, the same company. Yeah. So it will be of probably no surprise to anybody that’s on, this Zoom, but, one of the big areas that we’re seeing is people who are in the technology industry and people who are open to using technology, people who are open to using different AI tools, who have used AI tools, and who are not gonna fight against it but are willing to learn it, to embrace it, to utilize it as part of their their practice, that’s one area that you can be sure there are lots of different jobs in that area right now. There’s also industry specific positions. So if you have a very specialized or regulated industry that you work in, biotech, pharma, even some health care, more like the health care in house type things, we are seeing more positions in that area as well. Anybody who is interested in commute who has the ability to communicate more business value as opposed to just legal information, there seems to be more roles like that so that you could be open to even doing legal adjacent jobs, more transitioning from just being in the legal department and saying, I’m gonna make the move into COO territory, some other business development territory. Sometimes board of directors are looking for people. I know private equity companies are often looking for people with a JD to come in and and start working in in a different capacity either as, like, a COO or a CEO to help getting other companies up and running. We’ve also seen that there has been some uptick in people who have regulatory and compliance expertise and anybody who has any sort of, like, cross functional collaboration. And and in the PowerPoint presentation, we’re gonna send you there’s actually some links some to some articles that have some more statistics specifically about these areas, so that you can check out kind of the the percentages and the increase in the numbers in those areas as well. And when you say cross functional experience, you’re talking about attorneys who are working with various teams across the business. So sales and marketing and technology and security and operations. Correct? Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I will add to what you’re saying a couple of points that the company’s insistence on using technology and AI has really quickened the pace for everyone. So whether you are at or in a technology company or not, the pace is getting faster. And so the expectation is that legal is getting faster, or at least businesses’ expectation is that legal is getting faster. And so, the ability to kinda, you know, roll with the punches, make, good, business decisions backed by legal, then that is something, that I think a lot of employers, both within legal departments and then outside within the ex the external business, are looking for. There’s also a lot of opportunity generally because we are seeing more growth in house, particularly the last ten to fifteen years, and it just continues to increase year over year. So even when we may be in a period of time where it seems like there aren’t a lot of people or a lot of employers hiring, and that tends to happen when things outside of the business are in flux. So if there are changes to the economy, sometimes changes in political administrations, you know, wars, etcetera. We do see some shrinking in the legal market initially. But over the period of several months to a year, it historically evens out. So you may see jobs that, you know, you you did see a posting and then you go back three days later and that posting’s been removed. That could be a short term response. But in the long term, I think, you know, if past is present or past is prologue or whatever that expression is, we’re gonna continue to see more opportunities, you know, a growing in house market, even if in the short term hiring, may be stalled. Also, lots of opportunities in legal ops or legal operations. So we’re seeing a lot of attorneys move into that business role, essentially, like a chief of staff of the legal department or, you know, the chief of op operations, if you will, running legal for a business from a legal ops position, not necessarily a general counsel position, which may be considered more strategic. So working with vendors outside legal counsel, you know, billing guidelines, tech, all of that type of stuff. And even if the legal market, if it’s if companies are on a hiring freeze or if companies are not in in the mindset that they wanna be bringing in somebody on a full time permanent basis, that’s why you’re probably also seeing a lot more companies like Latitude who are out there helping to fill that need on a more engagement or contract basis. And it’s a good opportunity for attorneys who are in that in in that in between to come to someone like us to help them to develop a different skill for themselves. It’s really important in this tech time that you are able to show your human skills as opposed to just your technology skills. So being able to, you know, show your ability to have problem solving, adaptability to change, your communication skills, not just only being able to communicate via the computer, but having good communication skills orally with people, having showing your ability to have creativity, negotiation skills, and, of course, emotional intelligence. These are all skills that make you stand out as an attorney as opposed to just the focus that everyone has right now on how are we gonna use technology to make things different. You have to be able to, yes, be adaptable and use the that technology, but then also show your human skills that, will will make you stand out. I think you’re moving us into the topic of branding, where, you know, years ago, I first started in this flexible legal talent space in two thousand five. I came in and out for a a couple of times, but, you know, it used to be that attorneys identified or branded themselves by the type of law that they practiced. Right? I’m a health care attorney. I’m a contracting attorney. I’m a litigator. Now we’re talking about differentiating what you do or yourself between or among from the computers. Right? Like, this is what the skills that you are talking about are this the human skills. I often hear them referred to as soft skills, but then I heard someone once refer to them as power skills. And so now I’m I’m doing what I can to make that the new brand for those skills. But when we are talking about distinguishing ourselves or, you know, putting ourselves out there, as something different than AI, even if part of what we bring to the table is that we use AI. What what are we talking about? What is branding? What does what does that mean to you, Marissa? Thanks, Candice. And and I would just underscore everything you and Megan said about the human skills, the power skills, that really is what we’re seeing is in house counsel, and those are areas that we wanna continue to support, the Northeast members in growing. Because that’s really what will differentiate us as attorneys as we continue to work through this season of AI. And when we think about personal branding, oftentimes people think negatively and think, well, it’s just self promotion, but it’s really not self promotion. It’s about how you tell your story to the world around you. It’s the who, the what, the when, and the where of what makes you you, what makes you unique. And one of the best analogies that I have heard for this is the story of the glass or the analogy of the glass jar, where what’s inside the glass jar is who you are. It’s all of your hard work. It’s all of what you do to either do your job or make yourself who you are, and nobody else can see that. That’s hidden behind the label. That’s hidden behind the jar top. And the label is really how you’re projecting yourself and how you’re telling your story to the outside world. So folks might not know anything about your clients and your in house clients might not know how much time and effort you put into a work product because they can’t see inside the jar. All they can see is what you present to them. And if you think about that in terms of your LinkedIn profile or your resume, you really want that those areas to speak. And I know Megan’s gonna talk a lot more about this, but to speak for you and who you are as an individual. What differentiates you as an attorney from the attorneys sitting next to you or the next profile next to you? What have you done? Who are you? And what are your personal values? And keeping those things updated and current even when you’re not looking for a role is really critical. I think a regular cadence of self reflection of here’s what I did this quarter. Should I update my resume? Should I update my LinkedIn profile to highlight things? And, regularly and we’ll talk about this more. Think Megan’s gonna talk about this more. But becoming a thought leader on LinkedIn is an important thing to do, whether you’re posting sessions like this on behalf of organizations that you’re a part of, posting articles, things that really speak to you, all of that helps to build your personal brand. And when I step back and look at my profile, I think about things like reading it and saying, okay. If somebody isn’t in my industry, are they gonna understand what I do? Are they gonna understand that value that I bring to an organization? And then read the words. As attorneys, most of us are really problem solvers at the end of the day. And are the words that you use to describe who you are and what you’ve done, do they show the problems that you solve, or are they more sort of legally speak that folks outside of the legal industry aren’t going to know? Because if you’re looking for a general counsel role or you’re looking for chief legal officer role, you’re often gonna be interviewing with business people, not other lawyers. So you wanna tell your story and make your brand something that people outside of legal can understand. So it’s really important to take the time to do that and to be authentic when you’re doing it because you don’t wanna have a brand that isn’t who you are and get offered a role that doesn’t align with your personal values or the things that you do really well. At the end of the day, then you’ve just stepped into something that isn’t a good fit for you, and you’re gonna be looking for another job again pretty quickly. Yeah. And you don’t wanna put a peanut butter label on your jar if you’re really jelly. Right? And then somebody, like, thinks you’re peanut butter. And, I mean, we could we we could go down a rabbit hole with this with this analogy. I love it. But time for another quiz. I am curious how many of you have updated your label or your resume lately? Say so is this something that you’re doing on the regular, hoping to manifest a new job? Is this something, that, you do perhaps at the end of every year, almost as like a self evaluation, last updated it when you last got a job, or believe it or not, there are some folks that have been able to transition from job to job without a resume, and so they may not have one that is current. Okay. So it looks like most of you update your resume occasionally, maybe once a year. I think that’s pretty good. Megan, what are some other things besides the resume that folks can do to create this label or this brand that Marissa has talked about? Yeah. Along with your resume, you should also make sure that you’re keeping your LinkedIn profile updated. I know some people probably don’t like to use LinkedIn, or they kind of think of it more as, like, something that’s annoying or that people just go on there to talk about their accolades, but, it is something that employers are always looking at. They look at it to confirm who you are, to get eyes on you, believe it or not, you know, just to see because oftentimes, they get your resume. It’s just piece of paper. They wanna take a look at your profile. They wanna see to make sure that everything on your LinkedIn profile matches everything that’s on your resume. They want to see the types of things that you’re talking about online on on the social media account. So this is an an important place to make sure that you have a professional looking photograph of yourself, that what you write about you you know, there’s a section that says about you section. You wanna make sure that that section accurately reflects information about yourself. Take some a little bit of time to craft it so that it’s giving some information about what you actually do as opposed to just your job titles. You wanna make sure that you’re giving some descriptive information about the types of tasks that you’ve completed on your jobs. Just saying I was a general counsel could mean very different things to very different people in very different positions, so you have to make sure you’re giving a little bit of more information there. You wanna make sure that you’re also, keeping it up to date with any sort of speaking opportunities you’ve had, any sort of upcoming events that you’re attending. All of those things are important to have on your LinkedIn profile. You also have to make sure if you have any other social media sites that you have them on the correct settings, whether it’s you know, I wanna have it completely private because I don’t want people to be able to see any of my personal social media, or if you’re open to that, making sure that that is also carefully curated because as you can as I’m sure you know, you can Google someone and all of that pops up. So you wanna make sure that you’re keeping it all professional, consistent, and, authentic to you so that, there’s no issues when people are going to take a look at that. You wanna make sure that you’re adding on the, oh, no. You wanna make sure that, you’re adding on if you’ve had any speaking opportunities, like if you have spoken at any CLEs, webinars, if you’ve if you’ve authored anything, blog posts, any other articles, if you’ve been on any podcasts, all of those things, LinkedIn is a great and probably the best place to make sure you’re just compiling all that information. Some people also keep their own website. Like, if you’re, somebody who’s working as a fractional GC, you often have a website for your own purposes of trying to also go out and do business development. Again, you wanna make sure that that’s professional and matches everything and links everything together. It’s really important that you’re that you’re doing all that. And I also wanted to just if I can just go back a second, Candice, when you were talking about the resume, one of the things that I think is is a good practice for people to get into is if you’re doing evaluations of yourself. If your company is a self evaluation type place, anything that you’d put in your self evaluation, you could automatically transfer that over to your resume because we often forget things and tasks and and and things that you’ve done over the years. And if you’re putting them into a self evaluation, automatically just put them into your resume because at the end of the year or every five years when you’re updating your resume, you might forget some of that important information. So it’s a good way to make sure you’re just automatically putting it on there. And, and I spoke to someone a couple weeks ago who told me, which I thought was a cute thing, she says she keeps an attagirl file. She keeps a file of all the great things that she’s done over the years and or a file of that people have given her some sort of accolades. They’ve sent her an email saying, hey. You really did a great job on that position on, you know, on that project. She keeps that to the size that then she can later on remember to either add that into her resume or add it into what she’s gonna discuss when she’s during the interview process. Sorry. I went backwards there a little bit, but I just wanted to make sure. I think it’s a great point. I have, my own file that I call sunshine. Yeah. Which I know makes me sound like very Pollyanna. But, you you know, all of those emails all of the emails Yeah. You know, that you get where a client says, I really appreciated this, or maybe in our case, it might have been an attorney who got a new job through us or something like that. I also would encourage you to keep write your stories. Okay? And I don’t mean, like, your life story. Think about stories that illustrate some of the power skills that Marissa and I were talking about earlier. A time when you showed leadership, and I know you think that you will remember it and you don’t need to write it down, but if you just like, it doesn’t have to, you know, be like the great American novel. I’m talking about writing a pair you know, keeping a a Word doc in your in your AttaGirl file or wherever, you know, on your personal laptop that has stories that you can look at before a networking event, before a job interview, before, you know, a roundtable at the ACC annual meeting. So where those stories are fresh in your mind and instead of talking about, you know, your favorite baseball team, which we all know who that should be, and, you know, that’s important too because people wanna know who you are. But you’ll be primed to talk about or share stories of when you showed leadership, when you showed how you were an effective communicator, when you utilized AI, when you stayed calm in the midst of a storm. You know, these are the kinds of these are ways that you can brand yourself that are separate from your LinkedIn profile, which you absolutely should have, by the way. Even if you don’t use LinkedIn, you need a storefront, and LinkedIn is your personal storefront. Even if you’re not commenting or liking or posting, make sure that, you at least have essentially your online resume on LinkedIn. But those stories, I have found, time and time again, those are what people remember about you, and those are, ways that you can humanize yourself or distinguish yourself from the computers because computers don’t tell stories. Okay? They just, you know, like, regurgitate information. So, Marissa, I see you nodding. Is there anything you’d like to add to that? I do the same thing. I love that. And I think I also put everybody gets asked. Right? You see me, like, internally rolling my eyes. Everybody gets asked the question about, well, tell me about a time that you handled a difficult situation. So think about that. Throw those stories in there so that you have them to tell. But as Candice said, that’s what differentiates you in the interview. When I was hiring, folks to support me in my in my last role, that’s what stuck out was the people who had really good stories. And if somebody says, I’ve never had I’ve never had a difficult situation. I don’t have anything I need to work on. That’s usually a red flag. So think about those things and continue to maintain them. So I I agree with you. I think that’s a really important thing to do. And it’s not bragging. I I think you made the point that branding isn’t necessarily self promotion. I mean, it’s not the humble brag on LinkedIn where you’re like, oh, I’m so honored to receive this major award. It it may be that may be part of it, but the other part, is just making sure that people know who you are, how you are to work with, what’s important to you, and something now I’m gonna go back a a little bit, Megan, because something that you said when you were talking about your resume and even, when we shared our various experiences, you know, most attorneys have done a lot of stuff. Okay? Make sure when you look to brand yourself, whether it’s in personal conversation or through a resume or particularly on LinkedIn, something that may be very, you know, outward facing, you are branding yourself for the job you want. Okay? Not the job that you burned out on, you know, after doing it for fifteen years, and you never ever want to go back to doing that again. So I know the skills section of LinkedIn, a lot of people are not using that anymore. But several years ago when it was a little more popular, I noticed that even though I wasn’t asking for people to, like, verify me, you know, there it was an automatic prompt that LinkedIn said, you know, like, hey. Is Candace good at this? And it must have taken from my contacts, which, of course, a lot of them are when I was first started you know, first practicing law as a young commercial litigator in bankruptcy law. And so I was getting lots of, you know, check marks or whatever verifications for commercial bankruptcy law. Y’all, I never wanna practice commercial bankruptcy law again. That was my top skill on LinkedIn. That was not an accurate brand. Yes. That was something that I did, and I’m grateful that people thought I was good at it when I did it the first five years out of law school, but that was not the job that I wanted. You know, it didn’t reflect my current experience and where I was going in my career fifteen years out of law school, twenty years out of law school. So, you know, I deleted that Right. And make sure now that those skills are skills that show what I’m currently doing and why I would hope people would reach out to me now as an expert in, staffing, career development, recruiting, speaking, those types of things. So just make sure that you’re branding yourself for the job you want, not necessarily the job that you first had when you got out of law school. Exactly. And you said something really important that that I just wanna touch on. It’s make sure you’re you’re branding yourself for the job that you want and also utilize your network. Have a trusted adviser that you feel like you can bounce your profile off of, bounce your resume off of, have people in your life that you can send these things to because it is it makes a huge difference. And if you don’t have people, there are companies out there that you can hire. I have talked to some of them in the past just to have a understanding of what they do. They’ll work with you. They’ll tell you all about LinkedIn. You talk to folks like Megan and Candice. But know know that you don’t have to do this alone. This is something that everybody has some sort of group, whether it be, you know, friends from law school, whether it be other friends in in business that can support you in this and can comment. Like Candice said about the bankruptcy. Well, if you didn’t notice that or you thought, oh, well, that’s just a part of my history, and then you showed it to your trusted person and they said, hey. Do you still wanna practice bankruptcy law? Is that something you wanna do? And you’re like, no. No. I don’t wanna do that. Well, that’s that’s where you really wanna be able to have someone who can help you refine it. And it helps with the resume as well, having somebody that can say, hey. You know what? It’s fantastic that you did these twenty things, and you have all these bullets on your resume. Can you consolidate all those bullets into one or two sentences so that a prospective employer understands your skill set versus the tasks that you completed? Right. And it’s good to that we all now have AI tools in order to help us with both drafting resumes, helping with our LinkedIn profiles, but also you have to make sure that you’re putting it in your own voice. Don’t just rely only on AI to do that for you. And and, actually, as Candace and Marissa and I were talking the other day, I told them how I I’ve heard that everyone who’s doing these AI headshots now, which look gorgeous when I see people have those pictures up there. I’ve heard that there’s now something that pops up on LinkedIn that says this is an AI image when you put that as your profile picture. So just keep that in mind. Take a look at it. And like Marissa said, have somebody else look at it to let you know if that is indeed popping up on there. But, yeah, use those tools, but make sure you’re also going back in there and and actually putting it into your own voice. Because as some of us who look at resumes and LinkedIn profiles a lot, you can start to see the words that AI uses over and over and over again. That’s probably why they’re getting jammed up in some of those, AI bots that are looking through resumes too. So, just keep that in mind. I know we’re we’re running short on time, so I wanna make sure we go into the next topic there. Yeah. I wanted, Marissa, you talked about how everyone has a group, and, so that’s a natural segue into, a synonym, which is everyone has a network. Right? So now let’s talk about networking and what it is, what it could be, and also what it isn’t. So last poll question of of the hour. Let’s see here. You you you saw a bit of it, earlier. How often do you network? I just felt love it. Everyone is it looks like most people are are trying, and at least engaging with their group of peers, which it that’s what networking is. Or I may have, like, spoiled the lead, there. I love the first one. Never. I hate cocktail parties. They take me back to middle school. I will admit. I I wrote that one because I have a middle schooler. Who says that lunch is their least favorite, period of the day? And I’m like, oh, my little girl. I know. I know. I remember that. But, it looks like that most everyone is engaging with ACC on a pretty regular basis, which is what we would expect given that this is an ACC Northeast crowd. That’s fantastic. Let’s take a step back. Marissa, in your you know, put into your own words, what is networking? What are we talking about when we say network? So when we talk about networking, we are talking about continuing to grow relationships. And I think that one of the key things is that continuing. It’s not just when you’re looking for a job, but it’s a lifelong process that we’re doing. And it’s wonderful that we are all engaging and networking with ACC. And as somebody involved with ACC, please keep doing that. But we also wanna be involved in networking within the business lines that we’re working in because that is often a great place to meet people. And if you’re looking for your next role, you’re generally gonna find that through a business connection. And, so networking is really about making connections with people, staying in touch with them, and building ongoing relationships. So, I have a spreadsheet that I keep, and I I have all of my network, folks in it. And I actually track when is the last time that I talked to that person so that I’m making a conscious effort to make sure that it is an intentional relationship. It’s not just something, oh gosh, things are changing in my life, and I may need to find another role. Let me reach out to Megan, but we haven’t talked in six years, and she may not remember who I am after all of that time. So it’s really building relationships and getting to know people. Megan, you wanna take a crack at the same question? What what is networking to you, or what are some networking activities? Yeah. Well, I would say we you know, as you put in that poll, you know, most people think of networking activities as organizations related to attorneys or cocktail parties. I I like to throw cocktail parties because I think that’s where a lot of people like to come and network, any sort of CLE events. But then it’s important to also think that networking could be going to the gym. You know? Something that you something that’s already your hobby, you might be able to be meeting people while you’re engaging in your own hobby that could also be somebody who’s opening an opportunity for you later. Pickleball. That’s a big one now that a lot of people do. Mahjong. I heard a lot of people get into Mahjong now. Any anything that you is something that you enjoy doing, you never know that you might be able to be meeting people at those events who could be a good connector for you, could be doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gonna be somebody who’s offering you a job, but they might know someone who could know someone. You know, you have to be able to, utilize your networks in in ways to get connected to people. Looking at LinkedIn you know, back to LinkedIn, that’s another way to network, meaning engaging in LinkedIn, engaging with other people’s posts, commenting on their posts, engaging thoughtfully about what they’re writing, not just saying congrats on the new job or not just liking a post, actually having some engagement with what they’re talking about so that, you’re showing your interest in what they have to do. Those are other ways that you can make sure that you’re networking. Yeah. I would add that networking doesn’t have to be an event. Networking is making and keeping friends. And, just like most of us, you you your network is who you know, the people you know. So, again, let’s humanize it. It’s not if you don’t like going cocktail parties, don’t go to cocktail parties. Because guess what? If you’re, like, cowering in a corner somewhere, it’s kind of a wasted trip. Right? Like, that’s not you’re you’re not going to expand your social circle necessarily, if you are begrudgingly doing something. So, introverts and extroverts alike know how to make friends, and it can be something simple as asking someone to go to lunch. You know, Marissa, you talked about getting to know people within your own company outside of the legal department. That’s not only going to help you potentially with your career trajectory or promotion. It’s also probably gonna make you a better lawyer and have an easier time in your current role. Right? Like, if people know you and like you outside of legal department, they’re more likely to come to you, before there’s a crisis, than in the midst of one. So it’s just, you know, going across the hall. Hey. You wanna go grab lunch? I’m walking downstairs. Do you want anything? Do you want me to pick you up a cup of coffee? You know, it’s just like being a little friendly. You don’t even have to be, like, the most gregarious person in the office. I also think that when you are at an inflection point, like we talked about at the beginning, when you are looking for a job, when you are wanting a promotion, when a when an opening at your current company comes up, you know, the general counsel leaves and you want that job, that is when you let your network know. Like, don’t hide that. Asking for help, is a way to create trust, which is one of the I’m a psychology nerd, so it always comes up. But trust me on this. There’s lots of studies that I could tell you about or cite too. If you’re interested, we can take that conversation offline. But there are studies that show that trust is like a crucial ingredient for every relationship, and one of the ways that you build trust is by asking for help. You know, I would really like to position myself to be considered for the general counsel role, how would you suggest I go about that? Or is there someone on your team that could put in a good word for me? Or, hey. I Candice, I noticed that you guys are, you know, advertising for this role, and, you know, I saw this job posting. Like, is that something that you might consider me for? Let people know that you’re interested and that you would like their help. And I have found over the years that most attorneys are very open to helping, but you have to give them a specific task. You have to make a specific ask. You know? So could would you please allow me to list you as a reference? And, you know, I would I would love it if you could talk about that time when I did x, y, and z for your team. The more specific the request, the more likely it is that someone will do it. And recognize that not everyone in your network can help you in the same way. So, you know, assess when you’re being intentional, as Marissa mentioned earlier, assess your network. Like, what people might be able to connect you to other people? Like, we all have connectors among our network. We have champions. We have advocates, like Marissa mentioned, someone who’s willing to review your resume for you. Like, make sure that your ask corresponds with how that person knows you and what they like to do and are good at, so that they’re more likely to do it. Right. When when you were just saying that I was I mean, this is less about my career path, but more about just making the ask. Even in my role here or or Candice and my role here at Latitude, you know, I attend a lot of ACC events as as a vendor. And and I often talking to people, and I’m just letting them know I’m here, and this is what we do. This is what we do. And most recently at at an event, I just somebody who I’d been talking to for a while, I just came right out and I said, hey. By the way, do you use flexible legal talent? Like, it was something that I had never asked before. So it’s kind of the same thing with your career path. A lot of times, just think, oh, if I’m just around people or if I’m just with them, they’ll eventually get to know, or they’ll think about me. And, and instead of just coming right out and asking, and and I asked this person, he said, you know, we actually don’t do that. And I was like, okay. You know, like, now it was like the the it’s out of the bag, and then I can just, like, have other conversations aside from that. So, it’s it’s making sure that you’re just being asking, being intentional. Not everyone, like Candice said, is an extrovert or or as they like to call me here at Latitude, blunt. I’m very I ask the questions. I say what I wanna say. Not everyone has to be that exact way. But Direct. Direct. Wow. But it is good. Exciting. I’m so boring, everyone. So all us northeast people together together. In your team. But, yeah, you have to make sure that you’re being your authentic self and making sure that you’re acting the way that you want to be acting and and talking to the people that makes you feel the most comfortable in making that ask for yourself because it’s important when you’re thinking about your own career and where you’re gonna be going for sure. You won’t know until you ask. I I asked somebody who is farther along in his career than me several years ago, hey. Would you be a mentor for me? We live in different parts of the country. We work in different industries. He said yes immediately, and we meet quarterly. We have a great conversation, so you don’t know. It might have gone the other way. It might have said, you know, I’m too busy. I I don’t have time to take that on, but you don’t know until you ask. And so it’s really important to ask. And I know we’re we’re bumping up against We’re coming at we’re pretty much at the end of the hour. We just have a few minutes, so I would love to hear your your parting words or, final piece of advice. And, Marissa, I’ll call on you to to go first and, tell us what what would you share as, like, your number one piece of advice? Just be authentic and know yourself. I feel like that’s been a theme that we have sort of woven throughout this, this hour together, but it’s really true. You have a unique perspective, and your story and your life matter. And you’re not gonna be everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. But for the people whose cup of tea you are, you’re gonna be critical in their life. So taking the time, and I know I keep saying self reflection, and if anybody wants to understand what does that mean, feel free to reach out to me. I’m happy to chat about it. But take the time to really know yourself. What makes you tick? Who are you? Who is the authentic person here, and what do you bring to the table, and what do you want for the rest of your life or the next the next season? Because that’s the other thing, and I’ll and I’ll wrap up. But we have different seasons in life. So what I wanted when I was twenty is different than what I wanted when I was thirty and is different than what I want today. And that’s okay because we grow and we change as we go throughout our lives. So being able to know yourself and know those see those shifts and those changes is so critical for who you are as a person and your success in your career as well. Definitely. Great point. Megan, what would you like to share? I would say be brave. Be open to opportunities that might not seem like the, you know, the normal course. You know? Like we said, some I I went outside of being a practicing attorney and and found a great role. Be open to those opportunities that you might not even be thinking about as your next step, because those could be the most important and, what would make you fulfilled and happy going forward. Okay. I will And you and you, Candice. What what is your part of it? I’m like, oh, I get the last word. No. I as kind of repeating repeating a a common frame here reframe is to be intentional, and I would encourage you to set goals and identify specific steps or specific action that you were going to take towards the completion of those goals. So look at your job search as a goal, and then break it down for those of you who may be familiar with SMART goals. You want something specific, measurable. Instead of when you were talking about LinkedIn, for example, instead of saying, oh, I’m gonna be more engaged on LinkedIn, give yourself metric. I’m going to comment on three people’s posts who are outside of my company a week, or I’m going to post every Sunday night, or I’m going to, you know, ask three people, three three people, to give me a reference that I can include on Linked In to, you know, fill out my profile. Or if you look at a networking event, think about who is going to be there, you know, why are you attending, Who do you hope to talk to? What do you want to get out of that event? And the the you know, I often approach networking events like speed dating. It’s like thirty minutes, and I’m in and out because I wanna be able to make some quick introduction, But then I wanna have a longer conversation with folks after the event. So I’m going in with the expectation or hope that, you know, we can have lunch together after after the cocktail party at some point. But approach each piece of your job search, like, you know, set a goal, make it specific, and then include measurable actionable steps that you will take that you want to take in order to achieve the goal. And call Megan or I if you have questions or if you are interested in just exploring different roles or even different types of roles, as Megan said, we do a lot of the high end contract work where a lot of in house counsel thrive on a flexible basis. So we’re always happy to have those conversations. And with that, I think we are at our conclusion. We do have additional supplemental materials that we will share with everyone that will allow you to kind of go further down this rabbit hole if you are interested, and our contact information is at on the last slide of the PowerPoint deck that you will also receive. So with that, thank you all, for being here, and thank you, Megan and Marissa, for making this such an enjoyable experience. I’ve really had fun, preparing and presenting, with you both today. And thank you, Julie, and ACC Northeast. Thank you. Thank you, Candice and Megan. July when we see you at the next party. Yes. Yes. And, thank you, Candice. Thank you, Megan. Thank you to Latitude for sponsoring this on behalf of everyone at ACC Northeast, and thank you all for joining and attending. We really appreciate it, and wish you a great day.