My first "real" job interview after high school was for a small privately held medical supply company doing data entry. The job description didn't sound very hard and I was pretty confident that I could do the job well. I got the job, and a month after I started my boss told me that he almost didn't hire me. He wasn't sure from my interview whether I was really confident in my abilities or just cocky. If it wasn't for a reference from a friend of his, he would have hired someone else. Ever since then I've been worried about sounding too cocky and have often undermined myself by sounding like I lack confidence in my abilities.
Fast forward to last week, I was discussing my career path with a mentor. As part of the discussion she started listing my skill set. I almost immediately started qualifying her list. I do employment law, but I don't know ERISA very well; I handle our internal litigation, but it's really only managing outside counsel... etc. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew that I was doing it again - I was downplaying my experience and expertise. Doing this doesn't win you any promotions, or gain the confidence of any of your business clients. In all reality I could take an employment position in house and do well. I could join a litigation team in house and do well. I have a broad base of skills that I've worked very hard to cultivate. But I'm too afraid of sounding cocky so I hedge them with qualifications making me seem less competent than I am.
On the other side of the coin is a friend that I met with a few weeks ago. He was in the running for a new job and asked me to review his resume. He had embellished a bit on his experience. Calling the securities work he did, "transactional" and including IP in his wheel house because he worked on valuing it for public offerings. He's never actually done daily business transactions or registered a trademark or patent. But he felt confident that he had the fundamentals from his experience and could easily pick up the rest. He got the job.
Now I'm not advocating lying on a resume. We all know where that gets you. But you should feel confident in the skill set that you have cultivated. And you should feel confident in presenting that skill set in a way which reaches your client base, and your resume isn't the only place that you present your skills.
My HR team doesn't understand the difference between an ERISA attorney and a employment law generalist. So why would I go out of my way to inform them that I'm not an ERISA attorney? They don't care. They care that I can answer their questions about ADA accommodations. My dev team doesn't care that I don't prosecute the patents myself, they care that I manage the process in a way that gets them their bonus on time and gets the most valuable ideas protected. My marketing team doesn't care if I have ever argued in front of a judge, they care that I know the basic advertising laws and when/how to stop competitors from unfairly copying their hard work.
Being confident in how I present my competencies to these teams will define the relationship with them. Qualifying my skill set with nuanced explanations is lost on them and will only hurt my chances to get the next promotion, or better job, or to even be told the next time there is an issue that legal needs to know about.
So kids, this week's lesson is one I'm still learning - justified confidence is not cocky. So go out and start to be confident today.
Fast forward to last week, I was discussing my career path with a mentor. As part of the discussion she started listing my skill set. I almost immediately started qualifying her list. I do employment law, but I don't know ERISA very well; I handle our internal litigation, but it's really only managing outside counsel... etc. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew that I was doing it again - I was downplaying my experience and expertise. Doing this doesn't win you any promotions, or gain the confidence of any of your business clients. In all reality I could take an employment position in house and do well. I could join a litigation team in house and do well. I have a broad base of skills that I've worked very hard to cultivate. But I'm too afraid of sounding cocky so I hedge them with qualifications making me seem less competent than I am.
On the other side of the coin is a friend that I met with a few weeks ago. He was in the running for a new job and asked me to review his resume. He had embellished a bit on his experience. Calling the securities work he did, "transactional" and including IP in his wheel house because he worked on valuing it for public offerings. He's never actually done daily business transactions or registered a trademark or patent. But he felt confident that he had the fundamentals from his experience and could easily pick up the rest. He got the job.
Now I'm not advocating lying on a resume. We all know where that gets you. But you should feel confident in the skill set that you have cultivated. And you should feel confident in presenting that skill set in a way which reaches your client base, and your resume isn't the only place that you present your skills.
My HR team doesn't understand the difference between an ERISA attorney and a employment law generalist. So why would I go out of my way to inform them that I'm not an ERISA attorney? They don't care. They care that I can answer their questions about ADA accommodations. My dev team doesn't care that I don't prosecute the patents myself, they care that I manage the process in a way that gets them their bonus on time and gets the most valuable ideas protected. My marketing team doesn't care if I have ever argued in front of a judge, they care that I know the basic advertising laws and when/how to stop competitors from unfairly copying their hard work.
Being confident in how I present my competencies to these teams will define the relationship with them. Qualifying my skill set with nuanced explanations is lost on them and will only hurt my chances to get the next promotion, or better job, or to even be told the next time there is an issue that legal needs to know about.
So kids, this week's lesson is one I'm still learning - justified confidence is not cocky. So go out and start to be confident today.
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