How to get hired for Legal assistant position?

Charis P

I'm assuming that you are applying for an entry level position and are in the United States. Keeping in mind that in the current economic climate, it will be very difficult to secure an entry level position as a paralegal, generally speaking, you should contact legal recruiting agencies, send them your resume and set up an interview with each one you decide to use. It costs you nothing to use them (they charge a placement fee to the employer).

There is a lot of area to cover between there and the interview but since your question focuses on the interview aspect here are a few guidelines:

1. Research the field of law for which you are being interviewed. Your legal recruiting agency should be able to at least provide you with the general area of law for the position for which you are being interviewed. Researching the field will prepare you to ask and answer questions specific to that position in your interview and enable you to highlight whatever skillsets you have that are relevant to the field

2. Take cues from your interviewer. Your interviewer should provide you with a clear idea of what the position entails. For many paralegal fields, such as corporate law, the job responsibilities and training will vary widely from firm to firm. If you feel the parameters of the job are not clear, the first questions you should be asking should be to clarify those parameters. Besides helping you decide if you want the job it will show your interviewer that you are detail oriented which is a desireable underlying skill for a paralegal.

3. Second sets of questions should be about job environment. In professional offices such as a law firm you are going to find in the long term that job environment tends to be the most important intangible pro or con to the job. What kind of training will you receive? Who will be supervising your workload? Who will be supervising your actual work (i.e. is the firm so compartmentalized that you will only be working with junior attorneys or a handful of attorneys or will you be working with the entire department)? and.....

4. Work hours: be careful about how you phrase questions about work hours. This is sometimes where having a good legal recruiting agency can benefit you. They may already have a firm and department profile to let you know if this employer generally expects long hours and offers lots of opportunity for overtime or if it is more of what is known as a "lifestyle" firm with regular hours that allow for a more manageable personal life. You can then phrase your questions accordingly to either make it seem like you are amenable/eager for extra work or that you want a lifestyle firm environment. These factors will often come in if it comes down to the wire between you and one or more other candidates who otherwise are deemed equally qualified by the prospective employer. It is often referred to as how well one would "fit" into the "firm culture" and it often becomes quite important for entry level positions.

5. The last set of questions should always be about job benefits, e.g. salary, health plan, vacation etc. This should really be a general rule of thumb for all job interviews. It's general interview ettiquette that the interview should always be about the employers needs first and then your needs. It may also give you a general sense of how you came off in your interview to the employer. If the employer is actually trying to sell you the compensation package it may be indicative that they are interested in hiring you whereas if they lay it out like a general bill of goods take it or leave it that may be indicative that you did not come off particularly well in your interview.

6. Follow up: In no less than 24 hours you should send either a letter or an email to your interviewer letting them know how much you appreciated being considered for the job position and confirm your continued interest in the job.

Good luck.

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