Overview of the Job

It is the function of this job to assist lawyers in their work. This job is also called legal assistant. This person does legal research, writes reports, and tracks documents for the attorney. The paralegal will, as needed, talk with clients to obtain basic information. Whatever the type of attorney, a paralegal is required to assist in legal preparation.

This work is done almost exclusively in an office. A great deal of computer work, research in law libraries, and document preparation is required. This job is typically a 40 hour work week. It is not unusual for legal secretaries, with appropriate experience, to become paralegals.

Education and Experience Required

• 2 year Associate degree

• An appropriate combination of education and work experience in the field

• Detail oriented

• Ability to prepare clear, accurate reports

• Good computer skills

Future of the Occupation

The number of jobs is expected to increase as the number of lawyers and their need for legal assistance grows. However, more people are choosing this field so there will be competition.

The median pay is between $31,000 and $50,000 depending upon the size of the law firm and the number of clients.

Writing resumes is tricky business for most. What should be said, and how to say it are often the two most difficult parts of writing resumes. The various elements of resumes all hold their own important place in career success, but what most people don’t understand is the power of the words that they use. When it comes to resumes, how you state your experiences often means the difference between catching the reader’s attention and having your resume tossed aside.

The first way you can use words to help you is to focus on keywords from the job listing. These keywords and phrases describe Perfectly what the employer is after, and if you use these words in your resume, you’re more likely to grab their attention. For example:

Human Resources Manager

Payroll experience, familiarity with employee relations, training, and familiarity with hourly status reports, Excel spreadsheets. Must have 2 year degree or higher in business and/or management, with experience in Accounting. Minimum five years experience with employee base over 100.

From this listing, you can gather about five or different words and phrases that you can use on your resume to catch the attention of the reader. For example, under your skills section, you can list the following:

Payroll experience

Employee training/relationships

Excel use

Accounting experience

Work with 100+ employees

This will make your task of writing resumes much simpler, as it creates a focus for the reader, and shows two things: your ability to pay attention, and your dedication to following the rules and meeting requirements.

Another way to use words to your advantage is to focus on what are known as power words. This simply means revising your resume so that the language you use is more gripping. There are ways to say things that are better than others, but you want to make sure you’re still being direct and not wordy in your resume.

For example, instead of this:

Gave assessments to employees, handed out paychecks, tracked company hours.

Say this:

Responsible for employee assessments, payroll processing, and hourly tracking and reporting.

You can see how much better the latter sounds to a prospective employer. It’s still direct, but changing a few words and the way you say things can make all the difference in the world.

Whether it’s through using more powerful words or simply utilizing the keywords in the job listing, you can make a much greater impression on the hiring manager that reads your resume by using powerful words. There are other elements of your resume that need to be polished as well, the objective for instance ,but the words that you use when writing your resume will make a huge difference in whether your resume gets the attention it deserves or not!

The first point is your objective can should be only a few sentences in length. It should be direct and brief. The purpose of an objective is to summarize your abilities in regards to the position you seek, and to establish your professional identity. You don’t want the objective to be generic or indirect, because this will make you appear the same way to the employer. You should write a different resume for each position, and a new objective that is directed toward each different company you’re applying with.

The resume objective is the point at which you need to catch the eye of the reader. If you don’t gain their interest here, they will likely discard your resume and move on to a more interesting one. Your resume objective shouldn’t be self-oriented. Instead, you need to focus your resume writing on what you have to offer the hiring manager. Don’t assume that if you list your abilities that they will be able to make the connections to how that will affect them. Be specific and relate exactly how your skills will benefit them. Otherwise your resume won’t get a second look.

The Office of Personnel Management says that the SES is “charged with leading the continuing transformation of government…possess well-honed executive skills and have a broad perspective of government and a public service commitment which is grounded in the constitution.” Designed as a corps of executives, these are key positions just under those appointed by the President. As expected, the SES resume can be quite long and detailed when compared to a standard Federal resume, and especially when compared to a private sector standard resume. It also generally includes the ECQs, or Executive Corps qualifications, responses to specific questions relating to the position applied for, generally not more than ten pages, and separate from the SES resume itself and the cover letter.

If seeking an executive level federal job is important then getting assistance in preparing an SES resume from a team that specializes in writing this high level of resume is essentia

“Most people limit their job search to one or two jobs that they feel qualified for. Unfortunately, this approach eliminates many jobs that a person could do and enjoy at the same time,” write The Editors at JIST in their recently-released book Top 300 Careers, Eleventh Edition. They say that too many job seekers search for employment with only one or two job titles in mind. In doing so, such job seekers miss out on opportunities that require the same skills and experience they may already possess. For example, an individual may think the only job title that applies to him or her is “market researcher,” yet economists, operations research analysts, and urban and regional planners use many of the same skills as a market researcher.

In Top 300 Careers, The Editors at JIST encourage job seekers to broaden their job targets to find more opportunities, more quickly in the world of work. They offer the following tips:

• Explore a variety of occupations: To learn more about other jobs they may be suited for job seekers can study a variety of job postings online or in classified ads, conducting informational interviews, or reading about occupations in reference books like Top 300 Careers or the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

• Match skills to occupations: People tend to enjoy doing things that they’re good at. Having a strong skill set and pursuing a job that connects with those skills will often lead job seekers to the kind of careers they will be successful in and find rewarding.

• Don’t abandon your experience and education too quickly: Much of the knowledge people have developed in previous jobs or other settings can play a significant role in related jobs. People who are aware of how their experience, skills and education connect them to various jobs are typically the ones who make the most successful career changes.

Top 300 Careers, Eleventh Edition, is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). To speak with The Editors at JIST, contact Natalie Ostrom. JIST, America’s Career Publisher, is a division of EMC/Paradigm Publishing and is the leading publisher of job search, career, and occupational information books, workbooks, assessments, videos and software.

The Institute of Spa Management has always been proud to make spa management education accessible to students worldwide, and now ISM looks forward to bridging the gap between career professionals looking for spa management positions and employers looking to hire the best management talent in the spa industry. Spa related job postings can be emailed directly to jobcenter @ spamanagementschool.com or visit ISM online at www.spacollege.org for more information.

About Institute of Spa Management:
The mission of the Institute of Spa Management (ISM) is to further the spa industry by offering advanced college-level training for spa professionals that is accessible, affordable and self paced. ISM offers Spa Management and Spa Ownership programs at reasonable prices in an effective combination distance education and online learning format that enables learning and knowledge retention. ISM believes that the future of the spa industry belongs to those who treat clients with the highest level of integrity and provide innovative services in well run facilities. These necessary elements for spa success can only occur when quality education is the premise for spa managers and directors.

“When you compare the results of this year’s survey to previous years’ results, it’s clear that the situation is getting worse, not better,” said Lou Adler, President of The Adler Group and author of Hire With Your Head, 3rd Ed. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the new Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! Using Performance-based Hiring to Build Great Teams (2007). “Despite all the new recruiting tools and technologies that have been introduced to help recruiters, an astonishing 89% of respondents indicate that hiring top talent is getting increasingly difficult.”

775 recruiters and recruiting managers participated in the survey, which included questions on their most significant recruiting challenges, the quality and consistency of hiring processes, the effectiveness of specific recruiting tools, use of metrics, and a self-assessment.

“Recruiters report even greater difficulty in finding highly specialized technical positions including scientists, engineers, health care workers, and software developers,” commented Bryan Johanson, Chief Operating Officer of The Adler Group, who analyzed the survey results. “Still, overall it does not appear that companies are managing their recruiting resources and processes to effectively meet their rising sourcing challenges.”

The biggest problem identified in the survey is not seeing enough qualified candidates for important positions:
- 76% of respondents indicated this is a growing or a huge problem
- 63% felt that the quantity and quality of candidates from major job boards is dropping

Another major issue is the lack of a consistent hiring process and trained hiring managers:
- 60% of recruiters feel that hiring managers aren’t strong at assessing competency
- 60% of recruiters feel that hiring managers won’t devote the time needed to recruit properly

Unfortunately, the feeling is mutual. Recruiters’ legitimate concerns about hiring managers’ commitment to a quality hiring process is also a sign of the growing frustration managers feel when working with recruiters. “Hiring managers feel that recruiters don’t have enough job knowledge, and recruiters feel that each hiring manager has his or her own way of doing things, and most of them are pretty ineffective. It’s hard to make hiring a core competency of an organization when there is no consistent process,” commented Adler.

For a copy of The Adler Group’s 2007/2008 Recruiting and Hiring Challenges Survey Whitepaper, please go to adlerconcepts.com.

An SES position means Senior Executive Service, which represents high level employment in an executive capacity with the Federal government. Currently the Federal government is the largest employer in the nation because of the job security, superior salary and outstanding benefits given to their employees. Because jobs with the Federal government offer a myriad of advantages to their employees, the number of applicants for these positions always exceeds the number of available positions.

To get the edge in the competitive Federal job market during a time when there will be more applicants than ever, consider hiring a professional resume writer. When you apply for a coveted Federal position, it is essential to follow all the specifications for application, format your resume properly and use relevant keywords or you may not even qualify for that dream job. Hiring a professional resume writer who is familiar with the Federal job application process can mean the difference between landing a lofty SES position or just wishing you did.