How to Make a Follow-Up Email That Will Land a Lawyer Job

Hi y'all! So today's post is part 4 to my job-searching series and I am SO sorry that it has been over a year since I blogged about this! To catch you up real quick if you've forgotten in the past year, part 1 was over the resumé, part 2 was over the cover letter, and part 3 was a guest post all about OCI's.

I really think the follow-up email is underrated but can be very powerful. In fact, I actually know that the only reason why I even got called for an interview was because of my follow-up email. I'm pretty confident in this email because a recruiter for the company I interned in-house with in Dallas my 3L is who gave me a template for exactly what he wants to see. 

I've included my email at the end but I'll color-coordinate the parts I'm about to break down so you can scroll back and forth between what I said and why I said it. 

Timing the follow-up email

This can be tricky to time. You want to give it enough time after sending in your resumé and cover letter that you don't look desperate. But you also don't want to wait too much time and miss your opportunity because they already found someone for the position by the time you send it in. For me, it was easy because I didn't get around to applying for jobs until about a week before I got bar results, so I used that as an excuse to send a follow-up email. But if you're more together than me, I'd suggest either 3 or 7 days.

Ideally the purpose of the email is that whoever is doing the hiring will have posted a job or put out word that they're hiring and are being flooded with so many resumés that they all blur together, so you are sending them a reminder of what makes your resumé stand out. Think of it as a polite "hi, remember me? still interested. k, thx" but more professional.

Hit the high points

Your follow up email should have one goal: be a highlight reel of your resumé in a way that reflects the job listing. That's the focus! So if you start to feel like you're just regurgitating your resumé, step back and start over. You have to assume that this hirer is getting 50-100 emails a day and while standing out is nice, they'll only notice you stand out if you actually make the email in a way that they'll actually finish it. 

Yep, the recruiter that helped me admitted that usually he doesn't finish the follow-up emails he gets because after 5 seconds he can tell if they're not going to be worth his time. And the ones he actually finishes? If you impress him enough that he actually finishes your email, and then have a solid resumé and cover letter that he actually gets through (or at least thoroughly skims), you're pretty much guaranteed an interview. 

Use mirroring psychology 

So what is a hirer looking for? I already told you, they want exactly what they're asking for! AKA, they want someone who fits the description they put in their job posting. So if the job uses words like "organized" or "team player," then your email should use "organized" or "team player." Don't get fancy and try to use synonyms. This isn't HS English; there's something psychological that connects you to their firm if you use the same words. 

Don't think too much into this. You don't have to force their job posting into your email by putting every single adjective you see. Just pick the few that are relevant to your experience and tie them together. For example, you could say "assist junior associate with memos by researching and organizing relevant case law." 

You'll see in the email I sent that I tried to use the description of the job as a model to explain my experience. Here was the actual job posting I responded to:

One last thing, if you're like me and never know what is supposed to go in a subject line, mirroring saves you again! Just put the title of the job posting as your subject line. This way, they know exactly the purpose of your email before they even open it. 

Make it readable

I'm talking beyond no typos. Remember, this is like a first impression, you only get a few seconds and then your reader is probably moving on. So don't be afraid to use resumé-style bullet points. These make it quick and easy for the hirer to find the high points and decide if you catch their eye or not. 

And put a little effort into it! If the job listing just says to send it to the Hiring Partner at jobs@firmname.com, don't just address it to Hiring Partner if you can help it. Get on LinkedIn and look up that firm and figure out who is the hiring partner. If that doesn't work, figure out who's is over the department you're applying to or who is the most senior person at the firm. Anything to show you went the extra step to make you stand out from the other generic greetings.

Lastly, remember to keep it short and sweet. Your cover letter and resumé are already enough words they'll have to read, so don't add on to that. A few purposeful sentences do a much better job than half-though paragraphs. 

Remember to actually use this to follow up

Don't just send them an email and expect them to remember you and your resumé. And definitely don't assume they're going to take the time to go back through the stack of resumés and cover letters on their desk to give you a re-read. Just like the bullet points, a main purpose of this is to make it easier on them to want to invite you for an interview.

Absolutely include both your resumé and cover letter as attachments to the email. And reference them! It's a big pet peeve for most people when an email includes an attachment with no context to the attachment whatsoever. How do I know opening this random attachment that's just thrown in there won't give my computer a virus? Also, it's sloppy to just throw that in there and assume they'll figure out why it's included. 

Finally, the email I actually sent that got me an interview and later hired:

Subject: Associate Attorney position

Mr. Abbott,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to send you an update to let you know that since applying for the Associate Attorney position on October 19th, I have passed the Bar and soon will be licensed to practice in Texas. I know your time is valuable, so here are three quick reasons why I'd be a great addition to your workers' compensation practice.

1. I have the research and drafting skills to draft filings and the experience to negotiate with opposing counsel.
2. As a certified and experienced mediator, I am ready to handle our client's mediation appointments.
3. I have experience in client intake, answering legal questions, and providing counseling regarding potential legal outcomes.

If you think I'd be a good fit, I encourage you to review my attached resume and cover letter. Thank you for your time and consideration and have a great day.

Best,

Nikki Boyd

(email and phone number)

How to Make a Cover Letter That Will Land a Law Job

Hi hi hi everyone! Today's post is part 2 of my "get you a legal job" series. Whether you're in college trying to find some experience before law school, or already in law school but looking for a summer associate position, or a 3L/law school grad looking for a lawyer job, I'm here to share what advice I was given that I think really helped. In case you missed it, part 1 of this series was resumé advice and stay tuned for the last part, the follow-up contact. I know it's been almost a month since my last post and I'm sorry about that, but now I think I'm getting down my new daily schedule better so I'm going to try to be better about blogging every week now. Okay so here's what you came for...

Intro & dropping names

I'm sure you've had the importance of networking in the legal field shoved down your throat enough already, so I'm just going to skip over that part. So you've came across a job opportunity and you have the chance to drop a name. It doesn't matter how you found that job opportunity, you need to drop the name. If someone recommended the job for you, that's easy. But what if someone hasn't? First go to LinkedIn and see if you can find anyone you know who works there. If you can, send them a message saying something like this: 

Hey [name]! I was looking into applying to [position] with [firm] and saw you work there so I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more about it before I apply. Basically just do you like it and what's it like working there. Thanks!

or

Hey [name]! So I came across an opening for [position] for [firm] and thought I'd apply since [reason why you want this job]. Since you work there I was wondering if I could name drop you as a connection and also see if you had any insight for me about the company culture or anything else that might be helpful. I saw that [HR person] is who I'll send my resume too and I know it's a big office but I didn't know if maybe you've met her. I'd appreciate any help you could give me!

or 

Hey [name]! I'm not sure if you remember me, but [how you met]. I'm about to send over a resumé and cover letter to [HR person] over at [firm] here in [location] and I saw on LinkedIn that you have a connection with someone who works here. Would you mind if I name dropped you in my cover letter to help make it a little personal?

It's definitely a good idea to send them a message first because you don't want an HR person or hiring attorney to come up to them asking about you and your connection is completely caught off guard and like oh Nikki Boyd? I haven't talked to her in years!! Don't worry they'll most likely be cool with it, this is just a heads up. Then say something like this in your cover letter:

Dear [hiring person], 

[name drop], [their position] at [firm] in [town], suggested I contact you regarding the [position] with your firm. [name drop] thought this position would be a great fit for me as [reason why they should hire you].  

You want to start by name dropping because it instantly makes your cover letter more personal. Remember that people remember the first and last thing they read, so you have to start out on a strong foot to get them to remember you. After this, you can go into the body of your cover letter, which I'll get to in a moment. 

Intro to a random job you found

Most likely you'll be applying to a lot of jobs, so realistically you won't always know someone at a firm (or whatever) that you're applying to. That's okay!! Don't let this discourage you from applying. For what it's worth, I ended up accepting a job at a firm where I knew no one and no one knew me before my interview. So definitely still apply!

Still start strong and basically say the same thing as above, just get straight to the point faster:

Dear [hiring person]: 

I am reaching out to you regarding the [position] with your firm. I thought this would be a great fit for me as [reason why they should hire you].

Okay so now we have the basics down. But what should you put as a reason why they should hire you?? Answer- take the job duties that they are looking to be fulfilled by this new employee and relate it back to your experiences! Here's what I actually put in my cover letter that got me hired (I do workers' comp law):

I am reaching out to you regarding the Associate Attorney position with your firm. I thought this would be a great fit for me as I recently interned with the General Counsel at Interstate and my experiences included reviewing and editing employment agreements and providing counseling regarding workers compensation, wrongful termination, and employment disability issues.

If we're being honest, I dabbled in workers comp and wrongful termination issues during my externship. But I did have some experience! So I took whatever I could think of from my old job that would be relevant to this job and highlighted it. The trick here is to really read the job listing carefully or think hard about the position that's to be filled and figure out what they're looking for. Then you explain how you are exactly what they're looking for! This brings me too...

The body

A mistake that a lot of people accidentally make is that they use the body of their cover letter to just reiterate their resumé. Wrong! The advice I received is use this as an opportunity to tell a story that bridges the gap between what you've done in the past and what you'll do for them. So for example, my resumé and intro statement explained that I have experience with employment law, which is relevant because workers' comp is kind of like an intersection between employment and insurance law. So then my next two paragraphs were me giving anecdotes of my experience. Just pick apart each bullet that you listed on your resumé and try to explain how you gained that experience. What problems were you faced with? What did you do? What did you learn from the outcome? How can you use this experience to help their firm? 

I know what your'e thinking, because I thought it too... how do I explain all this? Easy! Cheat! Look up [x type of law] lawyer resumé or cover letter. As you read these, get some wording ideas. Maybe the same cover letter includes something similar to yours that you can copy a little, or maybe it will remind you of something else that you did and can talk about. This is why I think it's super helpful to keep a conflicts log all throughout law school. Not only is this something that your future employer will need to have, but it will serve as a little diary of all of the different tasks you've had. Remember, you're telling stories here. 

As a warning, though, the sample cover letters that you see on your school's career services website and Google will be all full of how graduating in the top 10% of their class taught them the discipline they'll need for being a lawyer or how winning a national moot court competition prepared them for litigation. That's great, but maybe you're like me and you were just an average law student who graduated more like Warner [without honors, without a girlfriend, and without a job offer] than Elle [with an invitation to join a prestigious law firm and class-elected speaker]. That's great, too. Just take whatever experience you have and tell a story connecting that with how it makes you a perfect lawyer/law clerk at this firm.

Other tips

I don't have much tips for a conclusion of the cover letter because basically they're all the same... thanks for your consideration and blah blah blah. So, other tips that I think are a better use of your reading time today.

Save your cover letter as [name] [position] [firm]. The first two are to help whoever is hiring be able to quickly know whose cover letter they're looking at and what position you're applying for. The last one is just to help make sure you send the right cover letter to the right place.

One time saver is to keep track of your cover letters so that you can plagiarize yourself. On my computer I color-coordinated my cover letters by what types of law I was applying to (here's how). I had a color for Contracts, Employment, In House, Insurance, IT, Litigation, Oil & Gas, and Real Estate. And I would tag a cover letter with everything that applies (so for my workers' comp cover it was tagged with litigation, insurance, and employment). This way, I could steal bits and pieces of my experience with each relevant category to make myself sound the most well-rounded and qualified that I could. 

To save time, after doing my initial research on what I wanted to say for each type of law, I would make a basic template cover letter. I would put in red anything that would need to be updated with each cover letter and would have a shell that I could use to plug in these certain paragraphs into the relevant cover letter. But that brings me to another point, be very very careful with copying and pasting parts of your letter. 

Little things like sending a company a letter talking about how you want to join their firm or accidentally using the wrong name are easy to overlook when you're proofreading because all letters start to look the same. But these things are huge to someone because it shows you're lazy and disinterested, and they'll probably just chunk your application right then and there. Tips for this to make sure you're extra careful is to write all your cover letters one day, and then in a day or two come back and re-read them with a fresh mind to make sure you don't overlook anything. Another great help is to find your mom or friend to go over your cover letter and resumé together with the job listing as if they were the hiring partner and make sure that your resumé reflects the job listing and your cover letter reflects your resumé and the job listing too. 

It sounds like a lot of work, but it'll be worth it once you have a job. I was lucky (I guess depending on your own experience) and only wrote 25 cover letters before I was hired. It sucks, I know. It's so tedious and as you're writing it you're sure that no one will ever even read these, but don't give up! I would take a glass of wine and go sit on our balcony in the evenings and work on these a little at a time. Even if it's just one hour a day, make yourself get these done until you are hired. 

let's be friends!

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How to Make a Resumé That Will Land a Law Job

This is the story of a girl, who had finals coming up but also was stressing about her summer clerking applications. Haha sorry I had to, but really I fell y'all that this time of the year is stressful AF. But that's why I'm here :) So before my externship my 3L year ended, I met with our company's corporate recruiter and learned a lot, which I'm here to share with you! Today I'm passing on what I learned about resumé tips that you can use whether you're applying for a pre-law legal job, a 1L/2L summer clerking position, or a post-grad real-girl job. So let's talk about resumés!

Related: Law school application/transfer resumé advice 

On the left is my resumé before I worked with our recruiter. It's not bad because I'd worked with career services to get it to this point, but if you look at the one of the right which the recruiter helped me do, you'll notice it's a lot better. (side note, if you're wondering why my ODR job isn't on my old resumé, it accidentally got deleted a long time ago and this is an old resumé so I didn't bother to fix it lol)

Bullet points

Both resumés have bullet points, but my "after" resumé utilizes them much more! The first bullet point describes the area in which I have experience, and the lower bullet point describes more in detail what experience I have in that area. This helps whoever is reviewing your resumé because they get a lot of relevant information quickly. The recruiter was very honest with me and explained that he does not read every detail in a resumé. In fact, he doesn't even finish the bullet points often. So a practically full sentence won't give them as much info as a quick take-away. For example, if you had 30 seconds to look over my resumé, you'd know I have experience in contract, real estate, employment, insurance, litigation, research, and drafting. Whereas before, in 30 seconds all you'd know is that I have experience in the verbs I used. 

Verbs are still good so your career services isn't wrong! It's just that everyone has similar experience so that shouldn't be what you lead with. Save the verbs for the second half of the bullet point and use the first to grab their attention and show them how you are a perfect fit for the job because your first set of bullet points describe exactly the type of law they want to hire you for. 

As personal proof, I am now a workers' comp lawyer. It's easy to see that my boss scanned over the contract/real estate/employment bullets and that the insurance bullet caught his eye and made him pause because workers' comp is a niche of insurance. And boom what do you know just so happened to be listed under that bullet. I realize most of y'all won't have such a variety of experience because in-house really is unique, but you can see in my previous jobs I was still able to break down the type of work I did. 

Experience

Wording can be a hardest thing to come up with because you can remember that you had a job, but can't remember what all you did for that job. Here's a pro tip: steal working for job postings that you're applying (or applied) for! That's literally where I got all of the wording for my Interstate internship is that I just stole what they had listed as the duties of the job in the posting for their summer internship position. Just get on LinkedIn or LawCrossing and search for [X law] associate position and steal their wording. This is extra helpful for you because again, you want your resumé to mirror their job posting so that you look like their ideal candidate. 

In the future, it helps to keep a running list of the work you're doing. I did this for my last two jobs in two ways— 1) about every week or so I would just add a bullet point to my resumé, and 2) I kept a conflicts log. For the bullet points, I would just write down stuff like worked on X project, did Y to help Z and eventually had like 50 bullet points for my job that I could group together and condense. If want to keep your resumé pretty, you can either do this in a separate word document or even do it on your LinkedIn section and just not include names. As for a conflicts log, you really should have one. Here is the template that I use, and I keep mine on Google Drive so that I can update it on my work computer but still access it from my personal computer after I leave my job or just if I'm working on my resumé on a weekend. After my internship, I was able to go back and be like oh yeah I forgot I worked on X project involving Y person/company. Just trust me, you will forget most of what you do right after you do it since you're doing so much, so just keep track of it, k?

Education

You'll notice that my education section went from top of the page to almost last of the page. Why? Because if you're applying to a summer internship position, people are going to assume you're in school and if you're applying to a post-Bar job, they'll assume you've graduated. So in the balancing test between experience and education, your job is going to prefer experience first (because remember they don't read the whole thing on the first take). I also didn't list the years I graduated because I found out that most people who have been out of law school for a while drop the year and I didn't want this to age me and scream that I just graduated and am totally inexperienced in life.

If this is your first legal job and you don't have any relevant experience, then yeah definitely put your education first. How you can fill this up is by putting your GPA, rank (only if it's top 50% or better), scholarships you've earned, relevant classes you've taken, your involvement, etc. I'd go to career services to help you fill this up the best way possible. But really you do a lot in law school so it's easy to find things to add to this. For example, at my school all 1L's had to participate in a moot court. It was mandatory and I didn't make it past the first round but you bet I threw it in there when I was looking for jobs because at least it's something relevant. 

Related: How to find summer law jobs

Achievements

For this section, I combined my "activities and interests" section with my "involvement" section because I was running out of room. If you don't have a ton of experience or education bragging points to talk about, this is a trick to take up more space so you don't have a half-empty page (although 3/4 full is still okay so don't feel like you need to add too much fluff). Here's the trick here— put something relatable and interesting! 

At first I was nervous to sound like a millennial by saying that I have a blog, but at each interview I've had since putting it there it has been brought up! It's great because they just ask in general what I blog about and I get to talk about how I started the blog (shows personal growth), how I help y'all (shows I'm caring), and how I managed it while in law school (shows time-management skills). But the best part is that it breaks up the interview from the standard what law school did you go to and what did you do and makes you stick out in your mind so that later they can be like yeah I liked that girl who had the blog thing. Remember that you're going up against a group of people whose resumés look identical to yours, so you have to find a way for them to remember you. 

Here's the thing... if you say you love to cook but actually don't and they ask you about it, you'll won't have that much to say. If you don't currently have any hobbies, it's fine to say "teaching myself to cook" and then make a commitment to try out a new recipe each week or say "training for a 5K" and then sign up for a 5K and start running. If you don't have a hobby by now, I really can't encourage you enough to try to find one because it is so helpful to have a distraction from law school sometimes. But a word of caution: don't lie here! I put watching football not because I thought oh a guy will probably be interviewing me and guys like football so I'll throw this in here. I actually do love watching my college play football and when one of my interviewers told me she went to OU (which is in the Big 12), we were able to talk about times when our schools have played each other. If I had lied, that would've been super obvious when she brought it up!

Lastly, this is a selfish reason of why you should be doing pro bono! I actually got my job at the ODR office because the work I had been doing for my pro bono was exactly in line with the work I ended up doing! During the interview, I was able to chat with my boss about stories of things I've done and then he started to be like oh well I've actually been thinking about doing X project for a few years now and since you've done this before maybe now is the perfect time to start on it. That is the exactly what you want in an interview— for the employer to be thinking of how they can use you and how you already fit the position they're looking to fill!

Related: How to find pro bono opportunities (and time for them) in law school

Last tips

Use tables to make everything even and symmetrical on your resumé. Just remove the gridlines when you're done and everything is all nice and neat. This is actually a lot easier than trying to always tab something out when instead you can just put it in a little table box and adjust it to be either left-aligned or right-aligned.

Long lines break up information better. You'll notice that my after resumé looks a lot easier on the eyes because the lines under each of my headings goes all the way across. Remember, you want to make it ridiculously easy for your employer to find information. So if they're just concerned about my grades, they can quickly find it because I've made the headings pop out even more for their convenience. Again, you can easily do this by using the tables to your advantage and leaving a gridline on top of your next section. 

If you're running out of room, try to make your contact information all fit on one line; if you need to fill up space, break up contact information. And again, remember you can add your involvement in a separate section to add information. Oh and after you graduate, change your email to your personal email because you never know how long you'll have access to your school email after graduation and also a school email address screams that you just graduated.

Save your resumé as a PDF. This helps you so that when your interviewer opens up your resumé they don't see the little boxes denoting the edge of your resumé. In my case it helped because my information just kept always being two lines over a page-long, I didn't want a 2-page resumé with just two lines on the second page, I didn't have two lines that I was willing to cut, and I couldn't make the font size smaller while keeping it readable. So I had to use the narrow margins setting. In a PDF, the margins were saved so whoever opened it always saw it how I wanted it to, but in a word document, my resumé would open to their last-used margins which would be normal and make the spacing totally off. Plus, it just looks more professional as a PDF. I always have two copies saved, a word document that I can keep editing as I go and a PDF that is the actual resumé I send off.

Okay that's about all the typing my fingers can handle, and probably all the reading that your eyes can handle! So the end :) If you've received a helpful resumé tip from career services, a co-worker, mentor, or anyone else, I'd love to hear about it! 

let's be friends!

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Professional Outerwear for Work

Hi hi hi! Since basically all I do anymore is work or watch Friends, I figured I'd start a new series called Work Wear Wednesdays where I share little tidbits I've learned out here in the real world. I'm still building my professional wardrobe and I know a lot of you are so this will just be a running list of things to look out for. 

Related: How to build a lawyer wardrobe 

These past two weeks in Dallas have been crazy with last week being so cold and this week being rain nonstop, so I thought I'd kick off the series talking about outerwear. And when I say outwear, I don't mean suit jackets or blazers. This is to protect your outfit and keep you warm/dry on your way to and from work.

Long coat

I'm listing this first because it's #1 on my buy list right now! I'm dying for this petite wool coat because it's not only warm but also very professional and aren't the buttons and oversized pockets the cutest?? (if you're not short like me, they also make a tall version as well). I think the camel color is just perfect and would go well with any outfit, and would look great over both black and navy. Now's actually a great time to buy a coat because they're all starting to go on sale (like those 2) so you can get them for really cheap and then have something for next fall and winter. One thing to keep in mind though is that if you do plan to wear this over suit jacket/blazer, then you'll want to size up at least one if not two sizes to make sure that you have room to move in it.

Quilted jacket

Let's just all stop and admit that a Burberry quilted jacket is just like the most timeless and good looking jacket you get. One of the lawyers I work with has one and 10/10 times it always raises her outfit to another dimension. I've asked for this for the past two Christmas so come December you can bet that I'll be hoping that third time's the charm and my parents won't again give me the "get a job and buy it yourself" line lol. But luckily there's still plenty of great quality dupes out there in case I don't get it. I guarantee you that any day you hear the wind chill has dropped that you'll get a little excited that you have an excuse to bust this bad boy out and show off how polished you can look while strolling in to read legal documents.

Puffer coat

I like to think of this as the other two's big brother. Those are for when the temps drop, but the puffer coat is for when the snow comes out and you're spending all morning just hoping for a text or call saying that the roads are too icy so just stay home. Believe it or not, Texas actually does snow in the panhandle where I'm from and went to college so I've had a trusty Land's End coat that has saved my life over the years. And if you live in a place that gets below freezing then just trust me that you'll want to get one long enough that covers your butt. As the name describes they aren't exactly Spanx, but one key trick I've learned is to get one that cinches on the inside! Pulling it in even just an inch on your waist can actually send the message of "there's a figure underneath all this" and can help you not feel like a whale with a ton of blubber.

Trench coat

This has been my saving grace this past week!! Last fall I found my Banana Republic trench coat and was so excited because at that point my only water-proof jacket was a pullover rain jacket that had DG on it real big so basically my options on rainy days were to either look like a sorostitue or be soaked (although let's be real if I could I would've gotten the classic and iconic Burberry trench). Two quick tips about managing the rain when you're trying to be an adult— 1) get a dome-shaped umbrella because they protect you more than a normal umbrella and 2) wear travel rainboots to work and pack shoes in your bag to change in to or you're going to ruin your work shoes. 

Duster cardigan

A duster cardigan is perfect for the days when the wind makes it just a little cool, but it's not necessarily cold and you'd burn up in a regular old coat. If your office has a more casual vibe, then you might be able to pull off wearing this all day long (which is a major W because offices are always freezing). To my fellow shorties out there, live by the golden rule of always wearing heels when you wear these or seriously your legs will look six inches tall (I've learned this lesson the hard way). 

And there you have it my friends! That's everything that either I currently own and am so grateful for or are currently dying to buy! Of course, this is a very small list with only 5 types of outwear, so I'd love to hear if any of y'all have any must-haves that need to be on my radar. Anyways, happy humpday and I'll see y'all soon :) 

let's be friends!

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Work Makeup Do's and Don't's

Hello friends! I know in my last post I briefly touched on the importance of having proper work makeup on during the day, but in the past week I saw a young girl (thankfully not from my office) with just the wrong makeup on. It was so distracting and I was just staring at her shocked. In my opinion, wearing the wrong makeup is just as unprofessional as showing up in a too-tight, too-short pencil skirt. Especially because it's a lot to take in at like a 9am meeting and it's a lot to take in under the already harsh fluorescent lighting. 

Related: 5 products for all-day makeup

What to do

Like I said when I was talking about establishing your brand at work, if you're not a makeup person that's totally okay but do at least something so it doesn't look like you just rolled out of bed. At the very least you should be putting on some moisturizer just so your skin can stay hydrated, so you can just step this up a notch and go for tinted moisturizer. You can also get tinted lip balm to give your lips a little bit of color without actually having to wear lipstick. A simple extra step to this that would go a long way is to also use a color corrector just to even our your skin tone.

Stick to neutrals because they're you're best friend at the office. Really colorful eyeshadows or really bold lips usually don't look professional. I've always been told to save the colors and the darks for the evenings or the weekends. Basically anything in a Naked palette will be perfectly work appropriate. The main key to professional makeup is try to make it look as natural as possible.  

Related: 5 products for all-day makeup that lasts

What not to do

Fist off let me just say this— don't wear false eyelashes to work. You're an aspiring lawyer not a sales lady at Sephora; it's just too much, and you can bet that any female partners out there in the world have better things to do than waste 10 minutes at 6 am trying to glue on eyelashes. I have pretty small eyelashes and I'm so jealous of my friends whose lashes go up to their eyebrows so I understand the pain, but regular mascara is going to have to do because I can almost promise you that everyone will know those aren't your real lashes. To add another dimension to your lashes, try using the white side of this mascara as a base before you put on your mascara and you'll notice a huge difference.

I naturally have thick eyebrows so I've been all about the full eyebrow trend and totally support filling in your brows just as long as they aren't overfilled too dramatically. Remember, the key is to make them look natural and not like straight-edged stickers. A tip to keep your eyebrows in place but without going overboard is just to try clear brow gel because a most people have plenty thick eyebrows, they just need a little something to keep them in line.

Personally I also think contouring just shouldn't be a thing for the workday. It's totally fine to sculpt your face for any other occasion, but for work it's just not the right time. Most people either contour too much or don't blend it out too much and then you end up with some harsh facial features. If you want to give yourself a little color for some depth, try adding some bronzer around the edges of your face. Just make sure to get a bronzer not much darker than your foundation because you want this to look natural and not like a bad spray tan.

One thing that I've learned is that it is very easy to accidentally overdo it on the highlighter. I like how it makes my face look a little brighter, but again remember that you're under harsh lights already so the highlighter will probably do more harm than good. And no one is going to take you seriously if you look like a disco ball. If you are wanting to use highlighter just to brighten up your face, try using a dewy setting spray instead which will give you a fresh look without being in-your-face bright.

Finally, just be careful with eyeliner. Both liquid eyeliner on your eyelid or even tight lining is totally okay as long as you don't go overboard. If your eyeliner ever gets so thick that it's starting to look like eyeshadow then you're probably getting closer to a "night" look than an office appropriate look. If you like the look of eyeliner, then try using a nude eyeliner or a white one instead and it will really help your eyes look brighter and more awake.

Makeup organizing tips

While we're on the subject of makeup, I just wanted to talk real quick about some makeup organizers that I've recently found and am loving! 

Most recently I got this palette organizer and it has been amazing. Every year my mom gives me a new makeup palette in my stocking stuffer and now they're all neatly organized and honestly this takes up so much less space on my bathroom counter. 

Speaking of my mom, a few years ago she got me this makeup brush holder and I love it so much I just had to share it. I love that the rubber holds them in place and this has so many spots that you can fit a LOT of makeup brushes in it (I currently have these EcoTools brushes and these Beakey brushes in it). This also is reasonably small so it takes up hardly no room on your counter.

 

I love to use liquid lipsticks and since they're taller I actually prefer using a coffee mug for them. The mug I use now just happens to be what I got in my last FabFitFun box, but something like this coffee mug just seems so fitting with the gold lip print. Or if you're more in to traditional lipsticks, a small lipstick organizer would work perfect for you.

Another small item that is great just to organize your bathroom counter is this beauty blender holder. Not only does it keep the darn thing from rolling off the counter all the time, but it is a great way to store your blender in a way that lets it fully air dry. Plus it looks like one of those cute little egg cups so that's cool. Oh and did I mention that this one is $1?!

Okay technically this last item isn't for organizing but it is beauty related and I ordered it recently and think it's pretty cool. I follow a few fashion/beauty bloggers who always post about the $200 version of this mirror so it was totally a score to find the same one for less than $25. Having a lighted, magnified mirror is such a help for literally all parts of applying makeup! And if you really like it, they have a travel mirror version for you to stash in your purse on-the-go as well.

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