by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)
Carol, an employment law attorney, stopped working for about 7 years after her third child was born, instead leading a life filled with childrearing and community involvement. When her youngest child started going to school, Carol decided to explore ways to use her law degree but realized that it might not be that easy to return to the practice of law. “[During my time at home], I really broke from the law…I did not feel like a lawyer.”
Virginia had a similar story. “I had worked at a big Wall Street firm and in-house at a large company. I had my first child and kept working. And then I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I retired and stayed at home for 14 or 15 years. Then came a time when I felt I should get myself back to doing something. [I] had been great at raising funds for my children’s school [among other things]…but there is a certain confidence that you don’t always have. You may have lost touch with all those professional contacts you had before. I found myself feeling a little isolated and out of touch.”
Jeanette also started with a Wall Street practice but realized that that practice didn’t really “match” with [her] family so she became a stay-at-home mom. “I did always think I’d go back to the law eventually. I did a variety of pro bono matters while raising the kids. I even set up my own small practice doing small commercial matters but I wanted to be back in a more organized office setting.”
Jim had been working in labor relations since the 1970s, when he decided to go to law school. Upon graduation and the passing of the New York Bar, Jim continued to work in labor relations and human resources, using some of the legal skills he acquired in law school but never actually practicing law. When the management team at the company he worked for was changed, he decided to seize the opportunity and become a full-fledged practicing attorney 24 years after earning his law degree.
Carol, Virginia, Jeanette and Jim were among the panelists who spoke at a recent open house for the New Directions program offered by Pace University Law School. The program, on which we’ve reported before, assists admitted attorneys who’ve stepped away from the practice of law to develop the skills and connections they need to return to the profession.
The program begins with a “boot camp” at which the attorney participants learn (or re-learn) the necessary practical skills to enable them to jumpstart their legal careers, including how to navigate the computer based legal programs like Westlaw and Lexis, hone their legal writing skills and effective management their time and stress.
Said Virginia of the process, “One of the very first things we did in boot camp was create our elevator speech. We had to stand up and say ‘I am X and I am an attorney.’ It was very hard for a lot of us because we spent so many years saying, ‘I’m so-and-so’s mom.’”
The week-long “boot camp” is followed by 2 to 3 sessions per week for three months, at which participants are introduced to various practice areas and career paths. Attorneys are also given hands-on assistance with their résumés, cover letters, and interview skills.
Carol said, “It also taught me things that I never really needed to know before, like how to find a mentor, how to take all the things I’d been doing as a stay-at-home mom and figure out what the transferrable skills of those things were (and there were many) and put them on a résumé to make myself marketable. I also learned how to network – something I never had to do before because I went right from law school into a firm. So it taught me all these valuable things.”
Arguably the most valuable component, however, is the externship through which participant attorneys can gain recent work experience in the practice area of his/her choice. Amy Gerwitz, the director of the program, and her team work with each attorney participant to find a suitable externship, whether it is a government, law firm or in-house position the participant attorney desires. “When we first started this,” explained Amy, “we only contemplated one externship per person. As the program went on, however, there have actually been people doing externships concurrently. They’re trying different practice areas; some are doing complementary ones.”
“The externship is valuable for several reasons,” said Carol, “It is for an extended period of time (i.e., 10 weeks) during which you are developing knowledge, gaining a mentor perhaps and then you have current work experience and recent referrals. Without that externship piece, it is hard to move on.”
And while Amy and her team make no guarantees of employment upon the completion of the program, they will do what they can to help the participants get back to work in the legal world. “We view our mission as preparing [returning attorneys] to have the skills to get back into the legal workforce. Given uncertain economic times and the resultant effect on the legal profession, there is an understandable concern [about the lack of opportunities]. But while it is not our ‘mission’, we are happy that over half of the former participants in the New Directions program are now in permanent paid fulltime positions and many others are staying with their externships while they are looking for permanent positions.”
Virginia added, “Nobody gets to where they are on a straight shot. Maybe we’ve all taken a detour but there is a way to get back into the workplace and [Amy and the team at Pace] are there to help.”
Pace Law School will be offering its New Directions program in NYC this summer. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis through June 15, 2009. Please visit the New Directions website for more details.
In Case You Missed It: News Round-up
NewsIn case you were too busy to have kept up with all the news, contributor Martin Mitchell has gathered some important market events from last week to help you start this week well informed:
Mergers and Acquisitions
The Financial Times reflected on how the mergers and acquisitions market has reacted to the absence of bank debt by moving to asset swaps to get deals done. Effectively the deals use the oldest form of commerce – exchanging one asset for another, or bartering. Examples include: 1) March 2008, Santander and General Electric, deal value $3.2bn; 2) May 2008, Suez and ENI, deal value $2.7bn; 3) July 2008, Mitchells & Butlers and Whitbread, deal value $121m; 4) May 8th 2009, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, deal value $2.35bn; 5) May 11th 2009, Centrica and EDF, deal value $3.5bn; 6) May 12th 2009, Aspen Pharmacare and GlaxoSmithKline, deal value $320m
Metro, Germany’s largest retail group, has called on Berlin to reject an application for state support from rival Arcandor. Instead, it wants to merge the two group’s department stores. Arcandor is asking the German government for a mixture of credit guarantees and loans as it seeks to refinance €700m of debt by mid June.
Japan’s Daiwa SMBC is to buy the London-based financial advisory business of Close Brothers for net cash of £67m. The division, Close Brothers Corporate Finance, employs around 200 people. After the disposal, Close Brothers will concentrate on its more profitable banking, securities and asset management divisions.
At least three bidders will make formal offers for a stake in General Motors’ European operations. Brussels listed RHJ International, Fiat and Canada’s Magna are all serious contenders in the deal that could cost €650m. The German government is set to provide a €1.5bn bridge loan to General Motors’ Opel subsidiary to fund it through the takeover process, although competitor Ford is concerned that the loan could breach EU state aid or competition policy.
The deal for Lufthansa to buy the majority (51%) stake in UK airline BMI from its chairman Sir Michael Bishop may not go ahead unless Mr Bishop agrees to inject more capital into the airline. The German airline owns 30% minus one share and is being forced to buy Mr Bishop’s stake under the terms of the original contract, but it is arguing that the contract requires BMI to have ‘the funds it needs to operate’, or else it will walk away. Mr Bishop has issued proceedings in the High Court in London to try to enforce the original contract.
One of the two remaining bidders for London Gatwick airport, Global Infrastructure Partners has dropped out of the bidding process. Gatwick’s owner Ferrovial is now left with just one consortium – Manchester Airports Group and Borealis, the Canadian infrastructure fund. The price is in the region of £1.4bn and the consortium has not yet finalised agreements with banks regarding funding.
The ongoing saga at Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto regarding the deal it has entered into with China’s Chinalco may be nearing a conclusion. Chinalco has agreed to offer concessions in its proposed $19.5bn investment in Rio Tinto, including reducing the resultant stake from 18% to 15%. The reduction would make it much less likely that the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board would block the deal.
Merck’s planned $41bn takeover of Schering-Plough is threatened by a legal action from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to seize control of two drugs. Rights to sell the two drugs concerned outside the US are currently held by Schering-Plough and one of the drugs generated $2bn in sales last year and other is forecast to deliver $1bn in sales this year. There is a clause in the deal that a change in control allows J&J to reclaim the sales rights. Read more
Happy Memorial Day!
NewsWe at The Glass Hammer are taking a publishing holiday today to enjoy the first days of summer, BBQs, surf and sun. For those of you in the U.S., enjoy the holiday!
Passions: Drag Racing
Passionsby Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)
There are those of us who like routine, enjoy the calm pace of our lives, and go to great lengths to stay out of harm’s way. Kim Murphy is not one of those people. Murphy loves her job as Vice President of Employee Benefits at InfoCision, a leading provider of call center solutions based in Ohio, where some of her responsibilities include creating call center programs and scouting out new center locations. That being said, it quickly became apparent after speaking with her that she lives for the weekends.
Every weekend Murphy, her daughter, fiancé, and parents make an hour and a half trek away from their hometown of Akron, Ohio to spend the weekend camping out in a trailer, sharing stories, hanging out … and drag racing. “I’m the oldest of three girls and I’m like the son my dad never had. Growing up I didn’t see much of my dad because he worked two jobs, but when I was in college he and my mom bought me a 1971 Chevy Nova. We were really able to bond over that car because we spent so much time together fixing it up. Before too long I started racing it for fun on the weekends,” Murphy said.
Going from fixing up a car with your dad to drag racing may seem like an illogical progression to some, but in Murphy’s case it made perfect sense. Her mother, now in her sixties, also used to drag race as a young woman and still races whenever she can during her weekend trips with Murphy. “I’m a total risk taker, I can’t emphasize that enough. This sport just seemed perfect for me because I like going fast and I’m extremely competitive. It just seems to be in my blood,” Murphy said.
Read more
Street Project: The Bridge to Volunteering in the Big Apple
Women and PhilanthropyConnecting busy Manhattanites with volunteer opportunities appropriate to their skills and demanding schedules can be a difficult task. “Street Project Inc.” is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization takes on that challenge, serving as a bridge for NYC professionals who are looking to give back. “It’s a good way for volunteers to give back to the community and also connect with other people,” said Stephanie Strauss, co-project leader for the Dress for Success project and Director of Communication for the organization. Founded in 1987, volunteer-run Street Project offers volunteer opportunities for all schedules; a majority of the projects take place on the weekends and don’t require a weekly commitment. “The great aspect of Street Project is you can get involved as much as you want to your comfort level and feel connected,” said Susan Raffel, Co-Executive Director.
Volunteers come from an array of backgrounds including law, finance, education, fashion and publishing. “There are a lot of young professionals who volunteer, but we’re open to anyone,” said Raffel.
Read more
Are Working Women Mean?
Office Politicsby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)
Do women treat other women poorly at the office? If you read the newspaper you probably think so. In January, The New York Times ran a story called “A Sisterhood of Workplace Infighting.” The article talked about “the pink elephant lurking in the room” that women are their own worst enemies at work. Then in May the Times ran another article, this one titled “Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work.” The article did point out that 60 percent of workplace bullies are men, according to The Workplace Bullying Institute. However, it went on to discuss that the 40 percent of female bullies tend to bully women more than they bully men.
The Glass Hammer also reported on the bullying study. Both our story and the New York Times piece shared stories of women treating women poorly, because sometimes they do. But then again, people in general can be mean sometimes. Our article, unlike the Times’ story, also pointed out that women are the most targeted overall (57%) by bullies.
It makes sense. By definition, bullies pick on those who have a hard time defending themselves. Bosses are usually better positioned to defend themselves. Subordinates are not. And since men still dominate the top managerial positions, there are more women subordinates in the workplace. So the fact that more victims are women makes statistical sense.
The Glass Hammer is also full of stories about women helping women because women do that too. But those stories aren’t as readily available in the big newspapers. If there is an elephant, of any color, in the boardroom, it is that hierarchal organizations are breeding grounds for bad behavior.
Says Gloria Feldt, women’s activist and author, “A hierarchical culture inherently facilitates behaving badly.” In that type of setting, Feldt says, women have two choices. They can refuse to adopt the workplace behavior and risk losing whatever career advancements they’ve gained, or they can adopt the dominant behavior of the culture.
A former sales manager for a financial company talks about the company she recently left. “The owners, a husband and wife bullied each other. That behavior goes downhill. People were so concerned they’d be the next on the list, they mirrored the behavior.” She left the company in March. “It was killing my marriage.” She says the office was so full of fighting and yelling, she started to bring the workplace behavior home. This woman does not think bullying is a gender story. She says it’s a “culture story. Women get blamed for being the bitch. But this is about people who don’t have social skills.” Today, she is happily married and running her own business.
Many academics and corporate coaches think that as women gain critical mass in Corporate America, that we will see a shift in dominating, hierarchal behaviors in favor of more cooperative, compassionate offices. But until that critical mass is gained, how can women thrive without adopting negative cultural norms? Can they break the cycle?
Feldt, who is the former president of Planned Parenthood, and has experience leading a large organization, says women should, “Be a sister to one another. Offer to help one another.” When women support each other, they can protect themselves from negative environments and model different types of behavior. Consider this email exchange between two women who used to work together at a large computer manufacturer.
“I was at a Woman’s Leadership Conference today. The morning speaker talked about what makes a great person and I was thinking of you. I remembered how your sense of humor, friendship and hospitality got me through my experience. Thank you.” And in response, “Thanks for your note … I am flattered. I always loved hanging out with you too. That’s what girlfriends do for each other!”
When women support one another that type of exchange is the norm. When they fight, we hear what another woman told me about the technology firm where she works. “I see it as women feel threatened more easily than men. They constantly feel the need to prove themselves and that at times bring out the nasty in them. Women are very territorial in the work place. Men are more willing to help out then women. That’s my experience.”
So to answer the original question, do women treat other women poorly at the office? No more than people treat people poorly at the office.
Returning to the Practice of Law via New Directions
Featured, Pipeline, What's OnCarol, an employment law attorney, stopped working for about 7 years after her third child was born, instead leading a life filled with childrearing and community involvement. When her youngest child started going to school, Carol decided to explore ways to use her law degree but realized that it might not be that easy to return to the practice of law. “[During my time at home], I really broke from the law…I did not feel like a lawyer.”
Virginia had a similar story. “I had worked at a big Wall Street firm and in-house at a large company. I had my first child and kept working. And then I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I retired and stayed at home for 14 or 15 years. Then came a time when I felt I should get myself back to doing something. [I] had been great at raising funds for my children’s school [among other things]…but there is a certain confidence that you don’t always have. You may have lost touch with all those professional contacts you had before. I found myself feeling a little isolated and out of touch.”
Jeanette also started with a Wall Street practice but realized that that practice didn’t really “match” with [her] family so she became a stay-at-home mom. “I did always think I’d go back to the law eventually. I did a variety of pro bono matters while raising the kids. I even set up my own small practice doing small commercial matters but I wanted to be back in a more organized office setting.”
Jim had been working in labor relations since the 1970s, when he decided to go to law school. Upon graduation and the passing of the New York Bar, Jim continued to work in labor relations and human resources, using some of the legal skills he acquired in law school but never actually practicing law. When the management team at the company he worked for was changed, he decided to seize the opportunity and become a full-fledged practicing attorney 24 years after earning his law degree.
Carol, Virginia, Jeanette and Jim were among the panelists who spoke at a recent open house for the New Directions program offered by Pace University Law School. The program, on which we’ve reported before, assists admitted attorneys who’ve stepped away from the practice of law to develop the skills and connections they need to return to the profession.
The program begins with a “boot camp” at which the attorney participants learn (or re-learn) the necessary practical skills to enable them to jumpstart their legal careers, including how to navigate the computer based legal programs like Westlaw and Lexis, hone their legal writing skills and effective management their time and stress.
Said Virginia of the process, “One of the very first things we did in boot camp was create our elevator speech. We had to stand up and say ‘I am X and I am an attorney.’ It was very hard for a lot of us because we spent so many years saying, ‘I’m so-and-so’s mom.’”
The week-long “boot camp” is followed by 2 to 3 sessions per week for three months, at which participants are introduced to various practice areas and career paths. Attorneys are also given hands-on assistance with their résumés, cover letters, and interview skills.
Carol said, “It also taught me things that I never really needed to know before, like how to find a mentor, how to take all the things I’d been doing as a stay-at-home mom and figure out what the transferrable skills of those things were (and there were many) and put them on a résumé to make myself marketable. I also learned how to network – something I never had to do before because I went right from law school into a firm. So it taught me all these valuable things.”
Arguably the most valuable component, however, is the externship through which participant attorneys can gain recent work experience in the practice area of his/her choice. Amy Gerwitz, the director of the program, and her team work with each attorney participant to find a suitable externship, whether it is a government, law firm or in-house position the participant attorney desires. “When we first started this,” explained Amy, “we only contemplated one externship per person. As the program went on, however, there have actually been people doing externships concurrently. They’re trying different practice areas; some are doing complementary ones.”
“The externship is valuable for several reasons,” said Carol, “It is for an extended period of time (i.e., 10 weeks) during which you are developing knowledge, gaining a mentor perhaps and then you have current work experience and recent referrals. Without that externship piece, it is hard to move on.”
And while Amy and her team make no guarantees of employment upon the completion of the program, they will do what they can to help the participants get back to work in the legal world. “We view our mission as preparing [returning attorneys] to have the skills to get back into the legal workforce. Given uncertain economic times and the resultant effect on the legal profession, there is an understandable concern [about the lack of opportunities]. But while it is not our ‘mission’, we are happy that over half of the former participants in the New Directions program are now in permanent paid fulltime positions and many others are staying with their externships while they are looking for permanent positions.”
Virginia added, “Nobody gets to where they are on a straight shot. Maybe we’ve all taken a detour but there is a way to get back into the workplace and [Amy and the team at Pace] are there to help.”
Pace Law School will be offering its New Directions program in NYC this summer. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis through June 15, 2009. Please visit the New Directions website for more details.
Building Leadership Capacity
Expert Answersby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)
Annie McKee believes we are witnessing one of the greatest changes in human history. The rapid growth of new forms of communication — Facebook, Twitter, texting — all offer an incredible opportunity for women to make a powerful impact on the world.
“We have to admit that things have gone fundamentally wrong,” says McKee. “We can pretend this is a blip or we can craft a new change.”
McKee knows something about creating change. She has taught leadership at Wharton and helped the University of Pennsylvania’s senior team bring about a large scale organizational change at the school. She is also the founder of the Teleos Leadership Institute, an international consulting firm. Clients include Merrill Lynch, Reuters, UniCredit Group, United Nations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Unilever, and Schering-Plough.
Read more
Ask-A-Recruiter: How to Show Employers That You Fit the Job
Ask A RecruiterIf flexibility, versatility and cross-training are all the rage these days, why do recruiters seem to hold so firmly to the belief that a candidate must “fit the profile” exactly?
The above question is valid, and it demonstrates why boilerplate qualities with no substance or tangible metrics attached are meaningless.In the above example, flexibility, versatility and cross-training are the boilerplate qualities. Many job descriptions ask for these. Therefore, these are not going to be the deciding factors; they’re a given. Instead you need to find what makes that job unique, how that will be measured and appeal specifically to that. When you do that, you fit the profile, and that’s what employers and recruiters want.
How does the position contribute to the bottom line?
Focus on that responsibility and give specific examples of when you did just that. If these examples are in a different industry or functional context, explain explicitly how you would handle this in the industry/ function for which you are interviewing.
What are the management and reporting requirements of the position?
If you need to manage direct reports, give examples of when you managed direct reports. If you need to report into different areas, give examples of when you worked cross-functionally.
What is the success culture of this company?
Do your homework to identify what personality traits are specifically valued for this company. Then showcase how you have these traits, not the traits that every company says they want (work ethic, team spirit, flexibility, versatility, blah, blah, blah).
Many jobseekers position themselves so generically that they seem to be saying, “I fit any job.” You want to demonstrate that you fit a specific job. Specificity is the key to a successful job search.
Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Email her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com and ask how you can attend a free SixFigureStart group coaching teleclass.
Tone It Down
Office PoliticsIt has been ten years since Fortune Magazine ran its harsh feature story on Silicon Valley CEO Kim Polese. The article, titled “The Beauty of Hype: A Cautionary Tale of Silicon Valley,” criticized Polese for creating and capitalizing on a “glamour queen” image. When the story came out, women in Silicon Valley cried double standard. After all, nobody was scrutinizing Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs’ looks. Fast forward to 2009. A lot can happen in ten years. But has anything changed?
Just last month the Wall Street Journal ran a story titled “Cracking the Hedge-Fund Dress Code for Women.” In the article Wall Street women discuss how tricky it can be to dress for work. Try too hard and you’re inappropriately sexy; not hard enough and you’ll never get ahead. It should come as no surprise that women are judged not only by what they do but also by how they look. After all our female leaders in Washington are examined as much, if not more, for how they look than how they lead. We’ve all heard about Condi’s boots, Hillary’s cleavage and Michelle’s arms.
Read more
Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Conference Addresses Work Life Balance
Pipeline, What's OnBy Jessica Titlebaum (Chicago)
The Exelon Corporation ’s chief executive officer, John Rowe, ruffled some feathers at the Corporate Diversity & Inclusion Conference in Chicago last week when he said in his keynote speech, “If you want work-life balance, you don’t belong on an executive board.” Just before saying that, he had explained that Exelon values diversity and that he has employees of a large variety of cultures and creeds. “It is hard to teach diversity when everyone looks like you,” he said. Which is why his prior statement came as such a surprise. When asked to clarify, he said that senior level jobs take a totality of time and that balance becomes impossible in certain professions.
Baraz Samiian, a diversity consultant in the Diversity Strategy and Development department at BlueCross BlueShield of Florida said that Rowe may not have been aware of the implications of what he said. She took from his speech that if you have younger children, parents who need to be taken care of or other personal and ethnic commitments, you need not apply.
“He is preaching about being open to change but he said that unless you assimilate to the old style corporate culture, there is no room for you on the executive board,” said Samiian.
Read more