Law And More

The Non-Comeback of Hedge Fund Master Steve Cohen

In the good old days of SAC, master of the universe Steve Cohen averaged about a 30% ROI for investors.

That was then.

He had been banned by the SEC to accept outside investor funds. After the two year hiatus was over he launched hedge fund Point72. Bloomberg reports that fund earned investors 1% in 2018.

In contrast Bridgewater Associates' Pure Alpha Strategy fund yielded a 14.6% ROI for investors. That was even though many other hedge funds were, like Point72, floundering. 

Investor money could drift away from Cohen and new funding might not come.

Is Cohen finished? This will be a closely watched drama in 2019.

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

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Cover Letters - Conjuring Up Spells

Employers, temp agencies, and prospective customers/clients pick up on "it" immediately.

That "it" is the stink of a generic pitch - or cover letter.

To them, a canned outreach represents disrespect. It is also a sign of a lack of authentic enthusiasm for the opportunity.

Sure, those searching for work have a pattern in mind for applying. Usually, that's in Word documents or the DropBox as a standard cover letter.

However, it should only be a guide. Also, it should contain the selling approaches which have proved effective. Those will change over time.

So, from the get-go in reading a help wanted or hearing about a job opening hunker down and create a fresh cover letter. It will contain material from other pitches. Essentially, though, it will deliver a me-to-you communication that will reach into the recipient's mind, heart, and pocketbook.

Yes, me-to-you pitches during the search for work do cast spells. The power is that of voodoo. The applicant made an investment of thought, energy, and time. That carries an aura.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

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Cover Letters - Pitching What You Can Accomplish, Not What You Know

Cover letters are the most important sales pitch those searching for jobs, contract assignments, and clients will ever make.

Your living depends on their success.

That means that, just as high-producing professional salespeople do, you focus on what you can accomplish for the recipient. You spend very little time focusing on yourself as a person.

The context is not social. It's all about benefit to the recipient.

In addition, it's not about credentials, at least not in isolation. Employers value them less. That's one reason applications to the M.B.A. programs, even at elite institutions such as Harvard and Stanford, are in decline. 

If you discuss credentials it should be in relation to how they help you generate results. For instance, after you received that certification in Conversational Spanish, you increased business for the law firm 54% in seven months.

The focus on what you can accomplish for the employer or prospective client essentially has two parts.

The first is what you have accomplished for others who are similar to them. Make that specific.

No, you don't say, "As a marketing communications expert in the legal sector, I have an excellent track record in increasing responses to Calls to Action."

Instead. you say, "For a 45-agent real estate law firm I boosted responses to Calls to Action 35% in two months and for a 120-lawyer personal injury firm I increased Calls to Action 43% in four months."

Then, you briefly explain strategies and tactics in marketing communications you can introduce for them immediately and with low cost. However, you don't want to suggest that the organization isn't doing things right. You also don't want to sound unduly aggressive.

The way to reduce risk is to position and package your recommendations this way, "The most effective tactics, I have found, include tightening up the landing page, continually using A/B testing in e-mails, and graphically showing possible results through calculators."

Next, you ask for the opportunity to learn more about the details of their business by meeting with them. Provide your contact information. 

When applying for a broad range of work possibilities, of course, you will develop a broad range of different cover letters.

As with formal sales calls, if your specific approaches aren't generating interviews, then reverse engineer the entire process.

Examine:

• Kinds of work you're applying for. You may not have the experience needed or too much experience. Regarding the latter, more employers are imposing experience caps.
• Whom you're directly contacting. If sending unsolicited letters, find out from your network or human resources who does the hiring. 
• Opening two sentences - Cite specifically why you are excited about this particular opportunity. State you are the best professional to achieve the results needed.
• Examples provided for accomplishments. Are they recent? If not, because you have been unemployed, get new ones by doing unpaid assignments. Few will turn down free.
• Length of pitch? Is it too long or too short? There are no absolutes here. The help-wanted ad will guide you. A long detailed one usually means the expectation of a long detailed cover letter. Some ads state for you to stick with four sentences. 
• Tone? In selling, you mirror everything about whom you're pitching to. If it's a large brandname law firm, the tone will be formal. If it's a tech startup with two lawyers, the tone will be casual and to the point.
• Have you proofread? If you make changes in the cover you have to proofread the entire letter all over again. 
• Are you customizing for every pitch? Recipients hate generic letters.

Assistance with cover letters, resumes, interview personas, and approaches to a job search available. Sliding scale fees. For complimentary consultation, please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Even Tiger Moms Are Mortal

Not everything of note is happening inside the beltway.

In New Haven, Connecticut, reports Kathryn Rubino at Abovethelaw.com, Tiger Mom has been hospitalized. As the world knows, Tiger Mom is Yale Law School professor Amy Chua.

Chua became famous through her unique child-rearing practices. Those she published in the brisk-selling book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom." 

No details about Chua's illness have been disclosed. However, it's shocking that this creature is not immune to any and all human illnesses.

Her contracts course at Yale has been taken over by another professor. 

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission. Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

Aging & Underemployed/Unemployed - Lawyers Have to Return to Caveman Survival Ethos

The documentary - "Aging Out" - by Huffington Post presents the soul-wrenching plight of Andrew Altenburg.

Beyond young adulthood but, at 53, too young for government entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, he is mired in financial difficulties. That's because he has been unemployed for a long period,  despite his persistent job-hunting.

Usually the search ends abruptly at the interview stage when the "mood shifts." Employers seem to rule him out because of his age.

That experience of the "mood shifts" is palpable in the conference rooms of much of America when an older applicant enters. 

Altenburg is based in New York City and, although his partner has a good job, he has to bring in income to pay his fair share of the high cost living there.  

No surprise, Altenburg fears homelessness. According to the Center for Elders Independence, about 50% of the homeless are over-50. 

The good news for Altenburg and those over-50 searching for jobs is that there are proven strategies and tactics to get, hold, and move on to better work.

Since the market crashed for lawyers in 2009, I have been coaching seasoned professionals on how to continue to bring in income. That has included lecturing at the New York State Bar Association to unemployed Baby Boomers.

Here are 6 recommendations that can be used collectively or a la carte. Regarding the latter, sometimes simply re-locating from an age-biased region like the New York Metro area to one less embedded with age discrimination, such as southwestern Arizona, can flip the switch on joblessness. Often, professionals in New York City can age out by the mid-40s.

Change mindset from continuing a career path to building /increasing marketability. 

Immediately that removes the concern about "hurting" a resume through jobs not related to a career. The secret sauce there is the old truism: Nothing gets you a job like a job.

A 58-year-old client's specialty in communications had collapsed.

His first step out of that nightmare was to land a contract job as a security guard in retail. Within months that became a full-time job with benefits. He was invited to join the marketing department of the loss prevention firm.

That's not where he saw his future. But it gave him the confidence to try out how he could enhance his overall marketability through experience in the hospitality industry. He worked the front desk.

The next stop was to get an entry-level job at a call center. Quickly he became a supervisor. Currently he is part of middle management. 

Re-do all job search materials to prevent the perception of being overqualified aka "too expensive." 

Hyper competition has forced organizations to be brutally cost efficient. They will not pay for more experience than they need.

The two years experience of the email expert in generating results is enough. They will toss the application of those with 10 years, assuming their expectation for compensation will be too high and/or they will bolt when a more lucrative opportunity comes up.

Take charge of the interview. 

Interviews for work are really sales calls. Top salespeople take charge of the process but do that smoothly so the prospect does not realize those doing the pitching are in control.

For example, the aging sense that the interviewer has ruled them out.

That interview can be saved.

What has been effective is to shift from presenting the general to parachuting into the specifics. After all, the aging job searcher has nothing to lose.

A 53-year-old employee in land development had been looking for a better fit for a job for two years. After coaching, he decided to experiment with being direct. He said, "Here is what I can do for you." On the first try, he received a job offer.

Experimentation applies to all aspects of a job search. Those range from where to apply to testing out different cover letters and resumes. 

Don't take labor market personally. 

There are solid career guides such as "What Color Is Your Parachute? 2018" which explain how the demand for manpower has changed radically since The Great Recession and keeps changing because of digital technology.

Millennials have encountered their own dark night of the soul in their search for a living wage. In Youngstown, Ohio, for example, many have come to consider $9-something an hour okay. 

Follow opportunity.

That can take the form of becoming certified in a skill, such as Google AdWords, which is in demand. Unlike studying for a degree, certification is usually fast and affordable. 

Another way to be where the opportunity is, as referenced above, to re-locate where age bias isn't intense and there are more survival jobs in which to apply for and work at in order to start over.

No one knows what can come from that experience. Working in an inbound call center in Tucson, Arizona can produce the ah-ha moment to launch an enterprise scripting for call centers. 

A third way is to play around with side hustles. One or more can be the foundation for a business. The dog walker can spot the marketability of a mobile grooming service and then figure out how to be trained and get the funding for the van. 

A fourth is to search for and apply for telecommuting jobs that can be done from home. There are more of them. And many do not require an in-person interview.

The entire hiring process is online and on phone (not SKYPE or with iPhone face time).

The trick is to provide the "right answers" to the online interview questions.

To do that, applicants have to balance the policies of the company with the unique needs of each customer or client.

Those evaluating the answers want to see evidence that applicants understand the importance of the organization's policies along with extreme commitment to excellence in customer service. 

Ditch ego. 

In a sense, everyone who needs to earn income starts over again every morning. There is no guarantee that the work will be there. The hunt is analogous to what the cave man had to get the hang of in order to survive. In primitive times there was no welfare or unemployment.

For one client, a former middle manager in human resources, there was shame in being "seen" working as a clerk in Home Depot (an employer whose mission is to hire the aging).

The solution, we decided, was a behind the scenes start-over in a telecommuting sales job. The training for the service was done online. After 90 days there were benefits and bonuses.

If Andrew Altenburg is reading this, he can contact me (janegenova374@gmail.com) for 90 days of pro bono coaching. Since I am originally from the BigApple, I get how his mind and value system operate.

Meanwhile, here, free to click on and download, is my book on finding an exit ramp from whatever is keeping the aging stuck - and without work Download Over50OutsmartingYourComfortZone.

And here is a backgrounder on my coaching for over-50 services Download BACKGROUNDERJaneGenovaCoaching.

Coaching, auditing, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on ageism.  

 

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The displaced over-50 get back to work. Mature professionals who are working advance their careers. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Legal Marketers - Promote Results, Not Experience

In business, as well as other professions such as law, the term "experience" had been sacred.

Now, it carries negative connotations. That's exactly why on job applications it has become a kind of trick question.

The iconic career guide - "What Color Is Your Parachute -2018" - documents how the language of job search is in play.

Many job applicants assume they should tout their years of experience.

Yet, what employers want to hear is talk about what that particular applicant can get done - and better than all the others wanting that opportunity.  In coaching, I hammer that the displaced older professional frame a job search search with "Here's what I can do for you." A mistake is to go out there with the elevator speech, "I have X years of experience in media."

The bottom line is that employers don't want to pay for more experience than is needed to get the job done. The game is cost-control and manpower is a major expense.

In addition, everything is changing. That ranges from business models to technology. A cover letter or resume indicating years of experience raises red flags. Employers wonder: Are these applicants set in their way? Also, lots of experience can scream "older." Yes, there is age-bias in the work world.

However, not only employers are reluctant to buy what they consider "too much" experience. So are clients. 

That's why it's puzzling that public affairs agency - The Dilenschneider Group - explicitly lists on the website the decades of experience of its principals and counselors. Here, prospects find out that, for example:

• Stuart Pinkerton has 40 years experience
• Jonathan Dedmon has 27
• Leo Murray has 35.

And the agency head - Bob Dilenschneider - has 35 years.

The same default is evident in the legal sector. Years of experience are promoted.

What prospects want to see is evidence of wins. What should be highlighted on websites is what the lawyers have achieved for clients.

Sure, with superlawyers such as Ted Olson and David Boies, years of experience might be relevant. But, as the business of law also keeps changing, don't bet on experience automatically transmitting a value message.

Meanwhile, seasoned professionals can read about how to outsmart their comfort zones. Here is a free book Download Over50OutsmartingYourComfortZone. Law firm partners who can't adjust to the new cost-conscious mindset of clients are on short time. Also, the demand to bring in more business is ramped up.

Coaching, auditing, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on ageism.  

 

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The displaced over-50 get back to work. Mature professionals who are working advance their careers. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Cover Letter - Create Picture of Your Future at the Law Firm

Cover letters are sales pitches.

In this downsized legal market, they have especially high stakes. You want that job. And to get it you have to pass on to the next stage in job-search process: the interview.

Of course, there is no one absolute way to put together the perfect cover letter, that is, the one generating the invitation to interview.

Also, you have to find out the kind of template particular law firms prefer. Usually the firm's human resources will clue you in. Or, if you know lawyers at that that firm, ask about the format and what catches the reviewers' attention.

But, you can and should experiment with a variety of tactics. After all, the edge comes from differentiating yourself from all the rest competing for that opportunity. How to stand out from the rest in your cover letters usually requires practice.

The tactic which the high producers among salespeople frequently use is this: During the sales pitch they create a picture of how the future will look if the organization purchases, for example, the software product. 

Here's an example: 

"Once your team is trained in this software, you can sit back in your office chair, relaxed. You won't be anticipating any more crisis over the mistakes in payroll. This software is bulletproof. And, because it is your expenses will be about 25% lower. Given the high accuracy, you can reduce the manpower in your quality control unit. So, look at yourself looking like you're at the top of your game. You are."

For you, the picture of the future you create could be of a law firm with an emerging brandname in cybersecurity. It will be the vendor prospects pay attention to at proposal time. And, Bloomberg Law contacts it for quotes on cybersecurity issues.

To support that picture of the future you then provide links to your articles and media interviews on cybersecurity. You ask if you can confer with the law firm's marketing department with recommendations how to position and package that niche.

In essence, all sales pitches, including the cover letter, are about the future.

The past is about results achieved for another employer or client.

While some of that background is relevant, what the current employer is focused on are the results you can accomplish for it. So, only cite details of the past which help shape the version of the future you are outlining. 

The job you are pitching yourself for takes place in the future. Not the past.

Coaching, auditing, lecturing, and publishing thought leadership content on ageism. Complimentary consultation.

 

Coaching Introductory Offer - $19 for 15 minutes. The displaced employees get back to work. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

 

Displaced Lawyers - Leaving JD Off Resumes

There is that moment of clarity: Displaced lawyers realize they may never practice law again. That ah-ha experience could come to them on their own. Or it could dawn on them through working with a career coach. 

Then comes The Next.

What they decide to try is no longer a radical experiment.

More unemployed lawyers (and even some newbie law school graduates who can't land jobs after 10 months) are taking this step. That is: Leaving the JD degree off the resume. And, not mentioning it in the cover letter and interview.

That makes practical sense in the search for a way to make a living outside the practicing-law box.

Here are 4 of the reasons why.

Employers fear lawyers. Since lawyers have the legalities down cold, there's no telling what problems they might spot in the workplace. That could trigger anything from whistleblowing to litigation.

It has been known for a long time that some landlords refuse to rent to lawyers.

Fear the lawyer is on short time. Hiring is an expensive, time-consuming process. Employers have to rule out applicants who might be looking for a port in a storm. Since many employers are unaware how glutted the legal market is they assume lawyers will only stay with the job or assignment until they can get back into law.

Advanced degrees of all kinds can increase the expectations about compensation. Employers spot a degree beyond the BA/BS and grow concerned that the salary they are offering will be resented. When I was between careers, my own career coach recommended I cut back my education on my resume to the bachelor's degree. After I took that step, the next job I applied for I got. 

Concern about difficulty in retraining. Three years of law school shapes a mind a certain way. That way might not align with what employers need. Retraining can be costly and it might not be effective. Incidentally, more employers prefer to train new employees in how they do things. 

In my coaching of lawyers over-50, I have found out from them that this tactic of eliminating the JD from the resume has been effective. More doors immediately opened up. That has even been true in fields such as loss prevention which seem related to law. 

The ethics? That wasn't their concern. They had bills to pay. 

Mature JDs who are struggling in career transition may find these 2 free books useful:

Download Over50TheFourMonstersoftheMind

Download Old

Coaching on all aspects of aging, from careers to retirement. Complimentary consultation. Sliding scale fees. Please contact aging expert Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com. Read her syndicated site http://over-50.typepad.com.

 

Cover Letters - No, You Are Not Special

To every help-wanted ad for a job or freelance assignment, 300 applications might be sent in.

No surprise, employers are overwhelmed by the process of sorting through all that.

Some have tried to make the process easier for them by stating in the help-wanted exactly what they want in your cover letter. No more. No less.

Increasingly, they warn that the letter will not be read if those elements aren't there. Or, if unrequested ones are. A classic instruction is to only include two paragraphs of five sentences each.

In fact, some put those must-includes or must-not-includes in order to test if the applicant has the ability to follow simple instructions. A growing number do not.

Maybe that's because of an attention-deficit condition.

Or they assume they are special and don't have to follow the rules.

Also, some assume submitting cover letters is a numbers game and don't put careful thought into each one. That's a big mistake. A well-thought-out cover letter, customized for each particular opportunity ups your chances of being invited for an interview.

No directive, no matter how dumb or irrelevant it sounds, can be ignored.

For instance, to track if the applicant has even read to the end of the ad, some employers list in the last sentence to put "I love jelly beans" in the subject line. Yes, you must comply. Don't  do that and your letter will be tossed.

Some of you I coach ask: Jane, suppose the ad specifies, in italics, one defense strategy for a case. Can I present myself as an go-getter and list several?

My answer: That represents a risk which may not be smart to take.

Invest your energy instead into making that one idea brilliant and take the time to discuss details.

To not comply could signal to the employer that you do not have the mindset of being able to conform to the organizational culture.

 

Takeaway: Following orders is part of earning a living. That starts with your cover letter. When you are managing partner you can make the rules.

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Boies Schiller Flexner - Great Having David Boies on Resume, Not Great for Staff Attorneys, Staff

Time will tell if the branding of Boies Schiller & Flexner (BSF) has been tarnished by its association with disgraced Harvey Weinstein. And, if that will hurt business.

Essentially that branding, the BSF website hammers, is about "high-stakes litigation."

According to the Bloomberg article on Boies and BSF, business has not been impacted by the Weinstein connection. At least that's what the firm's founder - David Boies - stated in the Bloomberg interview. Good trial lawyers make for good spin. 

As the legal and business media aggressively reported, Boies contracted for spies to find the dirt on both journalists and those accusing Weinstein of sexual misconduct. Ronan Farrow broke that story in The New Yorker. The New York Timcs Co. fired BSF.

Since then, curiosity about both Boies and BSF has grown.

What is Boies really all about?

And is his law firm truly all that elite?

Some who had revered both are now willing to look beyond the mystique.

If they take a peek at the 27 anonymous employee reviews on Glassdoor, they might be stunned that BSF received only a 3.0 rating out of a possible 5. Here you can read those assessments.

In comparison:

• Cravath is at 3.7
• Skadden, Arps is at 3.5
• Jones Day is at 3.3.

Essentially, the collective meme is that it's great to have David Boies on your resume. That halo effect applies both to lawyers and staff.

In addition, it's fun to be involved in cases being covered in the media. After all, the boutique does handle high-stakes litigation.

However, investing in acquiring the Boies credential and having the heady experience of high-profile cases should take up only a year. Then, the smart thing to do is to leverage that to land a better job. Unlike Skadden, BSF isn't positioned and packaged on Glassdoor as the place to build a career.

The overall beef is that only established brandname laterals are treated well, including with high pay. The rest perceive themselves in low-status hell. Those include lawyers without brandnames, staff attorneys, and staff. They contend compensation isn't competitive.

Another beef is that the technology is old. Therefore, tasks are done inefficiently. That can be frustrating. 

Some lawyers complain that staff hiring isn't done right. For that reason, those lawyers state that they are often saddled with incompetent support staff.

In turn, staff members rant about the unprofessional behavior of lawyers who hang in the corridors talking loudly. That makes it difficult to get work done.

Human Resources (HR) is a particular target of bad ratings.

Some posters label HR "a joke," It's not the function to manage employee complaints. For example, if X is having trouble with Manager Y and brings that to HR, likely there will be no follow-up. That could make BSF a sitting duck for employment lawsuits. 

The number-one issue is: This is the  post-Weinstein era. How much value is there still in the brand of the firm's founder? Should getting a job at BSF remain a goal for those in legal services? 

As late Fox News head Roger Ailes was falling from grace because of alleged sexual misconduct, former producers for shows on that cable network consulted with career experts. They asked: Should they remove the Fox News experience from the resume?

One did. He covered over that hole. And he was able to receive plum offers for producer jobs in both Manhattan and D.C.

Place your sponsored content (short and long form) and links on this site. Affordable fees. Strategic guidance/ghostwriting also available. For complimentary consultation, please contact Jane Genova (janegenova374@gmail.com).