It’s a tough time to be working in tech. Many companies ranging from small startups to tech behemoths are being stretched thin, resulting in workers being laid off, including GCs and even entire legal departments. If you’ve been affected by layoffs, how can you make sure that you land on your feet? And how can you leverage the resources you have to secure an in house counsel job that’s going to help you continue to move forward in your career as a general counsel?
Below, we’ll outline a few tips that will help you successfully navigate this tough time and come out ahead.
Check in on your mental health
Before you start your next job search, make sure you check in with yourself. Losing a job can be a traumatic experience for many, especially when you’ve been with the same company for years or if a round of layoffs comes unexpectedly.
Looking for your next in house counsel job may be a marathon, not a sprint, so make sure you’re mentally prepared for what’s coming next. If you have the means to, now might be a good time to take a break to spend time with family and friends.
Before you dive into your job search, make sure to set aside time to think about what you want (and don’t want) in the next stage of your career.
Think Strategically about your next in role
Now’s the time to really think about your next role and what types of jobs you want to interview for. Consider what your career arc has looked like thus far, and what your overall strengths and deepest areas of legal expertise are.
Employers want to hire good lawyers, of course, but they also want to hire people that are passionate about their product or industry. If you go after roles that align with your interests, you’ll naturally be more excited and knowledgeable during the interview process.
Think hard about what you want your career to look like in 5 or 10 years, and what skills and experience you need to acquire in your next in house counsel job to reach those goals. Be strategic when applying for a role and throughout the entire interview process. Use your interview time to investigate how the role will help you grow into the legal professional you want to become in 10 years.
Take full advantage of your professional network
During your legal career, you’ve probably amassed a sizable network of friends and coworkers. Use your network to your advantage by reaching out through LinkedIn, alumni groups, clubs, or private communities like TechGC to see what companies are hiring.
Here are just a few of the ways you can take full advantage of your network:
- Reach out to close connections to get information about in house counsel jobs before they’re posted to the general public, giving you an advantage over other candidates.
- Schedule short coffee or zoom dates with connections (or connections of connections) that work at companies you’re interested in. Keep these meetings extremely casual and low-commitment – preface the conversation by saying that you simply want to know more about what their day-to-day and current company is like.
- Tell people you’ve enjoyed working with (old bosses, direct reports, coworkers, other corporate counsel you’ve worked with) that you’re looking for your next role (and explain what you’re looking for). If someone has had a good experience working with you, they’re more likely to open doors and make connections for you that you didn’t know were possible.
Use this time to build up your personal brand as a legal professional
Working on your personal brand doesn’t come naturally to many lawyers, but in 2022, having an online brand – especially on LinkedIn – is a vital part of increasing your professional visibility and increasing the reach of your network.
In addition to posting regularly on LinkedIn (where you can weigh in on industry topics or share insights from your career), you can build your brand by commenting on other people’s LinkedIn posts to offer your own perspective, or by speaking at events or on podcasts.
If you’re a TechGC member, there are other tools you can take advantage of. Reach out to us at support@techgc.co if you’re interested in speaking at one of our events or if you think you have an interesting story/perspective for one of our Firesides. You should also make it a point to remain active on the Braintrust platform – respond to other member’s questions whenever you can in order to build your public profile within the TechGC community. Your next job may very well come from another TechGC member, so put yourself out there to stay top of mind.
Before you do anything else, make sure you have the basics down. Your LinkedIn profile should be optimized for your job search and present you in the best light possible to potential employers. Get a headshot taken if you don’t have one, and make sure you highlight your major accomplishments for each of the past roles you list on your profile.
Operationalize your job search
Your search for an in house legal job will likely involve doing the same things over and over again, so save time (and decrease your stress levels) by operationalizing everything you do. Here are a few ways you can build processes into your job search:
- Create email/LinkedIn templates for the different types of outreach you’ll be doing within your network.
- Use a task manager (or even just a google spreadsheet) to keep track of the status of everyone you’ve reached out to along with potential next steps.
- Build a relationship with an executive recruiter (if you’re TechGC member, there are several that have been highly recommended on the Braintrust platform). They’ll help you tighten up your resume and tell a more cohesive story about your career journey, while also saving you a ton of time during your job search.
- Sign up for job alerts with whatever job board you’re using so that you spend less time every day manually searching for jobs
Looking for your next in house counsel job can be challenging, but if you build processes that help you save time while taking full advantage of your network and personal brand, you’ll much more likely to end up with a role that will help you continue to move your career forward.
And once again, if you’re already a TechGC member, make sure to use our member forum to reach out to connections and ask for advice during your job search. If you’re not a TechGC member, you can sign up for our jobs newsletter or request a membership invitation to join.