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I have a bachelor's in psychology and certification as a paralegal (just finished school). I haven't found any good job offers. The one offer that was made was for $8.50 an hour for a debt collection firm. Mind you I spent about $80K on school. Needless to say, I am mad as he*&. My education took 5 1/2 years to obtain. I need your help and advice people. I'm 28 years old with no kids or husband, living in my mom's basement right now searching for work. It gets more depressing day by day, to levels of despair I did not think I was capable of experiencing. How do I lift myself up? What should I do? I can't find work ANYWHERE. Even at McDonald's (I applied to a dozen of them!). I really just feel like doing a Nicholas Cage in Leaving Los Vegas and locking myself in a motel with all the cheap scotch I can charge on my Visa. Is there any reason to hope at all?
Under American Labor law, a college degree is a prerequisite for many "professional" jobs and positions that are exempt from paying hourly overtime.
If you wanted a job, you may have made a mistake. If you wanted to enter a profession or get a position, based on an annual salary (not hourly wage) you didn't make a mistake.
You might need to do a little study in the job of getting a job. I suggest reading: What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles. It is a book for job-seekers that has been rewritten every year since 1989.
The best advice (I recall) is that contacting the person who has the power to hire / fire, is far more effective than sending resumes and reading "want ads".
To illustrate, if you want a paralegal position in your town, check out the biggest law firm, find out who is the senior partner / head honcho, and do a little research on them and their company. Then contact them directly, and clearly convey your desire to work for them, how you can help solve their problems (that you researched), etc., etc. There is nothing more flattering than shared enthusiasm for a common goal. And you might wind up as an executive assistant instead of an entry level peon. If they don't need / want you, they still might give you a referral to someone who could hire you.
If you try to walk in a minimum wage institution and they see you with a degree, they'd be inclined to disregard the application right away. They figure since you have an education, you'd only work there temporarily until you find a suitable job. I suggest to leave the state.. Michigan is about the worst place to be in right now. Consider moving to Canada possibly.. i dont know.
I don't think your dumb at all. A degree is something to be proud of, and if you did your planning and got a degree in a profession that you really want to work in then you have to keep focused on that , even if it takes you out of state. Right now in MI EVERYONE is having a hard time finding a decent job.
I did not go the college route, the profession I wanted to go in to (auto body design)at the time (17 years ago) was not one that required a degree. It was a lot like and apprenticship. Well now with this downturn and with companies trying to run leaner they have combined Engineering and Design into a "Product design engineer", which requires a degree. This was fine when I was working as one, but since my layoff in Jan. I'm having a really hard time getting back into the field since I don't have a degree. So now I'm kind of wishing I would have continued my education while I was working all these years.
Sure your degree cost a lot of time and money but it WILL pay off ... it has to doesn't it ?
However, a BA/BS in psych makes you nothing. I should clarify, that a BSN, makes you a nurse, a degree in engineering makes you an engineer. But a bachelor's degree in psych does not make you a psychologist or a counselor of any kind. (I know I have a BA in psych from U of M.) You have a degree that qualifies you for anything that lists, "a degree in liberal arts," or "a degree in a related health care field." You might find something at a non-profit, if you want to use your psych degree. If you want a decent job while using your psych background, unfortunately you have AT LEAST a master's degree in your future, if not a doctorate.
As for your para-legal training, I can't speak to that.... But I have to believe that it is more marketable than a bachelor's in psych.
Unfortunately, it sounds like you needed more direction when you were chosing a major-- God knows that I did. But education is always a good thing and something will happen. Might not be in MI, but give it time.
In the mean time, I'd apply to the larger health systems in your area, also no-profits and see if you can get hooked up with a temp agency, you might find some leads there. Your school might also have an alumni network that will allow you to post some info to try to get a job lead through an alumn...
1. Get soem expereince in the legal profession. Work as a legal secretary or in a half and half job. A paralegal certificate really means little. If you have no experience, you do nto really know anyhting about the job. I would hire a paralegal with five or more years of experience and no certificate befroe I would hire a certified paralegal with no experience. Do not feel bad, someone just out of law school also knows nothing about the legal business. You could get some time in volunteering with a non brofit like a legal clinic for battered woen or something simlar. There arte so many people out there saying "I am a paralegal" that you would not beleive it. I have had "certified" paralegals working for me who were less than useless. You would thinkg that law firms woudl be willing to teachyou, but except for the huge firms with a paralegal departmetn - no way. I need to produce roughly 1900 to 2000 hours a yer that are billable and collectable. That means actually doing about 2500 hours a year of work. ThenI have anohter 500 -1000 hours of administrative work that I have to do and no one esle can do for me. I also must spend a great deal of time marketing (getting clients). How liekely do you think it is that I am going to want to spend another 500 hours training someone who will just quit the first tiem a slightly higher offer comes along?
Thus, it will be incredibly hard to get a job until you get some experience.
2. Find something that seperates you from the hoards of people out there proclaiming "I am a paralegal" MAybe you can use you psychology degree and apply to family law practitioners.
3. Do you have business contacts? If nto make some. Join Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions CLub or something simlar. Get really active in Chruch, social clubs, sports groups and whatever else you can come up wiht network network network. You will get to know some lawyers who might know someone who can uyse you. If you make enough contacts, you become far more valuable. Marketing/getting clients is far more valuable to a law firm that knowlege of law. There are a lot of knowlegable people out there. There are even quite a few people with law degrees from thrid or fourth tier law schools looking for joba as paralegal. If you have experience and/or business contacts, you have a lot more to offer.
4. Just sending out resumes is not going to get you a job. We get hundreds of them a month. There is no real means to evaluate someone based on a resume and cover letter. You can eliminate a few, but not do any real evaluation. Naturally, they all look good on paper. Lawyers donto have time to interview 150 people to fugure out which ones are the choice candiates. Usually if we interview someone they alreay know someone connected with our firm on some level. Often they worked for an oopponant or co-counsel of someone inthe firm.
5. Big firms might hire someone right out of school with no job experience. However keep in mind. that everyone looking for a job thinks that the big firms are the way to go. They get all the resumes so they pick only the most highly qulaified candidates to interview. Is your Psych degree from Havard? At least from U-M? If not, how are going to compete with those who are?
Your better bet is to apply to a small law firm or solo practitioner. A good hearted solo might be willing to take the time to train you. Most simply cannot afford to since you will leave at the first opportunity.
5. It will be very hard to find a position. Do nto give up. Even as a lawyer with a michigan law degree, I sent out 103 resumes and cover letters. From those I got less than 10 interviews (not counting on campus interviews). I had four job offers. That was in a good economy. You just have to keep trying. Work at it every day. meanwhile get out there and do things, join and volunteer wherever you can. See if your alma mater has an alumnae placement assistance program. Maybe thre is a lawyer from your school who would like to hire someone who went to the same school.
6. You could always go back to school and get a law degree, but you will have the same problem finding a job until you get some experience. If you go to a top 10 or top 20 law school and/or are at the top of your class, you will have lots of job opportunities.
Forget McDonalds. They are filled with laid off factory workers or with kids under 18 who they can pay less than minimum wage. Look for something where your degree will give you an advantage. There are loads of jobs that require a degree. Insurance adjuster or assitant underwriter. Substitute teacher (not a degree, but some sollege required), assistant librarian, are a few that i cna think of where you need college education but can get an entry level position. These are not high paying jobs. You cannot afford to be terribly picky.
You may have a chance getting a job as a legal secretary. A paralegals job often overlaps that of a legal secretary and vice versa. All of the better parapegals that I have worked with, except for one, were legal secretaries for a nuumber of years before becoming a paralegal. Legal secretary is really not that bad of a job. If you get really good at it, you become highly marketable and have a back up job to paralegal.
Get some work experience. I see resumes from wannabe paralegals and even lawyers who have never had any job at all. Not even a summer job. Do these people even know how to work? We hired one lawyer who thought that she was entiteld to go home at 5 p.m evey day. She stayed home one day becase the finale of her favorite soap opera was on (get a TIVo for crying out loud) She lasted less than a month. In general, I am disincliined to vote for hring someone wiht no work experience at all. Too many examples of the type of situation that I just described.
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]]Once you get some experience to back up your college degree, you will be far more marketable. Meeting the right person, is your best bet for getting a job. Networking is critical in this business. (Just rememebered, get involved int he bar association and.or paralegal accosiation.
Thank you everyone for all of your advice and insights. I truly appreciate them. After months of speaking with attorneys, judges, paralegals, and just about every type of person you could think of in a legal position I am putting it all together. What I plan to do is scrape together every last dollar I can and sell my car. Then I'm going to room with someone in NYC (Queens) for $500 a month. No need to bring furniture or a big clunky U-Haul. Just a comforter and as many clothes as I can fit into a dresser. Simple livin'. Then I'll be waiting tables at night (I should score something I should think after having survived on waiting tables since I was 14)... and pounding the pavement by day to land that mysterious and elusive entry-level job. The job market here just sucks, plain and simple. And is only getting worse by the day. It breaks my heart to have to leave my family and friends. And it scares me a little to think I'll be in a huge city where I know hardly anyone. But that's life isn't it? Lol
In all honesty, I'm not sure you need to subject yourself to NYC to get what you want. Maybe it makes sense, but it's a pretty cut-throat city and might not have exactly what you seek as readily as other places.
Washington, DC, while also cut-throat, is a place where people in the legal and non-profit professions thrive.
Might have a better shot packaging your psychology degree with your paralegal certificate and knocking on non-profit doors that deal with abuse, family issues, health care, mental health, etc... For that, Washington, DC would probably be something to consider.
Remember that getting an education isn't just about a job - it's about teaching you how to think for yourself. So there's intrinsic value in that.
New york law firms are laying off hundreds of lawyers. That is not theplace to look for a paralegal position. I am not sure of anywhere that is doing well in the legal profession. California is very slow. Maybe Texas.
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