Legal support professionals face no shortage of advice on how to grow their careers. With so much information available, it’s easy to feel pulled in multiple directions – and even easier to lose sight of your passion.
Yet passion is essential to career success. When you work in a role or an organization that specializes in the topics and processes you enjoy most, you set yourself up for career success. You make it easy to arrive at work every day engaged and enthusiastic about new challenges, and you increase the chances you’ll meet each challenge successfully.
Here’s how to find your passion and start looking for the job that allows you to harness it:
Finding Your Passion…
To identify your passions, start by making a list of past jobs you’ve held. Begin with positions you’ve had in the legal support field, but include other jobs you may have worked.
Then, for each job, list 3-5 things you really liked about it, as well as 3-5 things you didn’t. If you can’t find 3-5 things you genuinely loved about a job, don’t reach; the goal is to list the elements that made you passionate about work, not the things you found merely tolerable.
Finally, compare the lists for each job. Chances are certain elements in each list will stand out. For instance, perhaps you loved previous jobs that let you spend time researching deeply and writing, while you disliked jobs that demanded you spend a great deal of time talking to customers or clients. This list will become the basis of your “passion search.”
…And the Job That Supports It
Start by considering your list of factors you liked in previous jobs and factors you didn’t. For each item, list one or two skills or abilities that are directly connected with it. For instance, if you were passionate about research, related skills might include both an understanding of legal databases and an ability to organize and convey information.
With your list of skills in hand:
- Target job listings. Look for job postings that ask for the skills that relate most directly to your passions, as well as offering duties that align with the work you love most.
- Network and reach out. Use your lists as the basis for an update to your resume and LinkedIn profile, and discuss them with members of your professional network.
- Talk to a recruiter. Your recruiter can use the information on these lists to help connect you to jobs and employers that will help you fulfill your passions.
At Kent Legal, our recruiters strive to connect legal support professionals to some of the best legal support job opportunities in the greater Toronto area. Contact us today to learn more.