Ep.28 | Getting a job in the privacy field (Guest: Jess Barre)

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to episode 28 of Privacy Lawls where I Donata Stroink-Skillrud Speak with amazing privacy professionals, and we have some laughs along the way as well. Today I’ll be speaking with Jess Barr about getting a job in the privacy field. Jess is a partner at True Legal bringing nearly 14 years of recruiting experience after graduating from undergrad and then law school.

She worked with an oil and gas firm in Houston and then worked in attorney recruiting. Before spending the la uh, the past seven and a half years at True Legal, she has successfully placed hundreds of attorneys in AM law, 100 firms and Fortune 500 companies throughout the country and world. So Jess, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Thank you for having me, Donata. I’m excited to be here. Absolutely. So how did you get into recruiting for privacy professionals? Oh my goodness. Okay. So this is a, we make plans and god laughs kind of [00:01:00] story. So I, I went to law school because what was I going to do with an undergrad degree in political science?

Right. And I never wanted to practice law. I thought I was going to be the Big 10 conference commissioner. So I was very into sports and wanted to somehow make a career out of that, um, or maybe be a sports agent, LOL. Um, and, and so I went to law school, ended up working in an oil and gas firm in Houston.

And that was during the period of time where I, I took the Pennsylvania bar, and that is during the period of time where Texas firms were hiring like pa. New York, West Virginia, Ohio licensed attorneys for like the newly found like shale plays in, in that part of the country. Um, because no one, you know, no one who’s like from PA for example, knew anything at [00:02:00] the time about oil and gas title work and things like that.

So, so anyway, I, I got into that and I really didn’t enjoy. Practicing law. But in the oil and gas industry, I just, by virtue of being like a younger woman, well at the time, younger woman I was diverse in that industry, which is a shame. And, and so I ended up doing a lot of like business development you know, activities for my firm and I was enjoying that so much more.

Than practicing law. And, and it just came very naturally to me, and a friend of mine was like, oh, you should become, you should go into either like recruiting or like law firm, business development. And so then I went into, legal recruiting, um, just like generalist legal recruiting. And then I wanted an opportunity to specialize, um, and as GDPR was, you know, kind of coming live in [00:03:00] 2018, I joined True to help open and run their, and like develop their privacy offering.

Mm-hmm. That’s really cool. Yeah. It’s um. I wonder how many jobs GDPR has created, first of all I’m gonna guess a lot Thousand, like literally thousands. Yeah. Yeah. I, I definitely have, uh, GDPR to think for my career as well. Yeah. Um, I feel like recruiting is a fun job ’cause you get to meet a lot of different people.

I do. I do. And. Recruiting and privacy I think is especially interesting because, you know, privacy, the way we talk about it today as an industry, we’re kind of moving from like infancy to adolescence as an industry. So there’s so much still that’s not yet. Streamlined, um, across the industry, for example, like where privacy sits, right?

In an organization and, and so different things like that. And because I am an [00:04:00] outside recruiter, I get to see how all kinds of different companies you know, structure their privacy program and that. Is a lot of fun and it makes me feel like such a stronger SME because I can give guidance, you know, to, uh, based on things that I’ve seen other companies do, that if if someone’s internal just at one org they might not have that level of visibility.

Yeah. I’m, I’m really excited to talk to you about this. Um. Uh, this expertise that you have because it is very unique. But before we get into that, um, I know you see a lot of resumes. Yes. What’s the coolest thing that you have ever seen on a resume? Oh, goodness. Okay. Coolest thing. You know, I like, and I, sometimes I encourage people to end up deleting it because a lot of the, a lot of it can be misinterpreted or be seen as controversial, even if it’s objectively not, but.

I love when people have cool [00:05:00] interests listed on their resume. Um, you know, I’ve had people who are, who have. You know, run marathons on four continents, you know, things like that. Or, I’m always really impressed with people who have like business level fluency in like many languages. Mm-hmm. I think the, the highest I’ve seen is probably like, like business level fluency in like eight different languages.

Wow. And I am both jealous and impressed. So I don’t always recommend keeping like special interests and things like that on a resume when it goes to an employer, but. I love seeing it and I think like learning about people in that way is, is really exciting and it adds an additional layer. Yeah. That, that’s really cool.

I can’t imagine knowing that many languages. Like I know two and my brain still gets confused, so. Yes. Yes, exactly. So I don’t know how they do it. Um, it’s so impressive. On the other [00:06:00] hand, what about like the funniest or weirdest thing you’ve ever seen? Oh my goodness. Okay. How much time do you have in a, um, I guess using broad strokes?

Well, weirdest, I guess it’s not funny. It’s more like, don’t do this. I’ve had people put social, their social security number and like their full birth date and, and stuff like that on a resume, and I’m like, this is you, you, you think you’re in privacy, like, yeah, no, hard pass, hard pass. That’s wild. Yeah, we, um, we were hiring somebody for a development position once, so we posted on, on Indeed and I was reviewing like 500 resumes, which is just terrible experience.

And there were two resumes that come in, one right after the other. Different name, same exact resume, and in the resume, in each resume at least [00:07:00] five times, there was a mention of this person being, and I quote, this is an exact quote, A professional male. I don’t know what that is. I don’t think I wanna know what that is.

No, no. I’m not touching that one with a 10 foot pole. Yeah. And this person’s like clearly trying to commit fraud because how do you submit two different resumes with two, two different names and you’re clearly the same person? Like the likelihood of two different people having the same exact work experience, same exact education, and then saying multiple times that they’re a professional male is about zero.

S definitely in person, you know, trying to be sneaky. Yeah, right. People do that. I would say with alarming regularity. Um, they’ll, they’ll try and sneak in using like a second email address or mm-hmm. Right. Like something like that. You know, that’s just disingenuous and. You know, uh, you [00:08:00] don’t have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to be a recruiter.

However, like we’re not dumb. I, I see what is happening here. Right? Yeah. We had an interview once with somebody whose resume and cover letter was great, and we invite them to the interview. They’re wearing headphones and we, you know, this person lives in Texas as they say, and it’s uh, July 3rd. So we’re like, oh, are you excited for July 4th?

Do you have any plans? You know, just doing like a little bit of chat. Yeah, of course. And there’s like a really long pause where they’re listening to somebody say something on the other end of their headphones and they say, I don’t know what the 4th of July is. And I’m like, what? You know, you live in Texas.

July 4th is tomorrow. Like, everybody knows that. And you know, we, we, over time we figured out that this person doesn’t actually live where they say they do because they don’t know there’s the six flags like in their town, which you would [00:09:00] know Right. And, and all this other stuff. So there’s a lot of weird stuff going on out there for sure.

Yeah, I, I think one of the keys to being a strong recruiter is just. Having those spidey senses. Mm-hmm. Right. And trusting them. Yeah. And, and so, so good on you. And I am so sorry you had to sift through so many resumes. It sounds like you needed an external recruiter. Right? I could have saved myself. So much time and effort.

I mean, it took weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of, of going through resumes and we were very lucky to find a really great person after all of this. But I mean, we wasted a lot of time doing it ourselves. And, and people don’t understand, like companies here like recruiter fee and they automatically are like, Nope.

Which I, I get like, I, I, I hear that. But I mean, based on your experience, like the opportunity cost that’s lost by time spent, [00:10:00] I mean it’s, it’s worth it to just like. You know, make the process easier and, and not lose the, the, the time for the business, so For sure. And not losing your mind on the, my gosh.

And or some, yeah. Yeah. And you know, there are people who are really like really, really excellent at their jobs. Like you are an excellent privacy professional. That doesn’t make everyone an excellent. You know, recruiter. Right, right. And, and so like, let, let, let people like, you know, come in and, and be a support.

I could wax poetic about that all day, but that is not why we’re here. So yeah, definitely big, big lesson learned with the light tires for sure. Um, so bringing it into privacy professionals. What is the current demand like for privacy pros in the market right now? Yeah, so we’re, we’re in a, I guess to be diplomatic, we’ll call it [00:11:00] a wonky market right now.

There are a lot of really significant macroeconomic factors at play, right? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, just today. We, we got the September jobs report and we’re almost at Thanksgiving, right? Yeah. And so a lot of those, and the government shutdown impacted a lot of things about what the market looks like, right?

Mm-hmm. And and where the demand is. So in the larger sense, when you look at the macroeconomic perspective you know, the, I would say the demand is high. For privacy professionals who are willing to work in a contract capacity. ’cause that is where the jobs are right now. With all of these macro economic factors that.

Play, like kind of this will we, won’t we go into a recession, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, you know, are is like what kind of rate cut, if any, are we gonna get from the Fed [00:12:00] and, and all of that type of thing. It’s causing. And, and also, you know, like I mentioned, not having all of the jobs report data you, you know, to really make accurate projections about what the, you know, what the near future state is going to look like.

One of the. Impacts of that is that companies are much more reticent to have had open headcount right now. So a lot of my clients, like my corporate clients, are calling me saying, Hey Jess, uh, you know, my headcount got put on hold, but the work still needs to get done. Mm-hmm. So could you give me a contract like consultant type of resource in the interim?

And so that is where that like, that’s where the demand is for privacy professionals right now. Because as, as I know you are aware, and I’m sure your listeners are aware. FTEs, full-time employees, like permanent [00:13:00] employees, hit the bottom line of a company much differently than headcount does. Or, or, or, than, than than just spend, right?

Mm-hmm. Than, than contractors do. Um, and so, so the, the market in the past, especially I would say in the past six months, has been moving very heavily in the direction of, of contract for right now. So that’s, that’s where I would say the demand is. Okay. Now, for some like law students that may be listening, obviously as practicing attorneys know what it means to work at a contracting capacity, but for any law students that might not be sure what that means, what does it mean to work in a contracting capacity versus as a full-time employee?

Like what does that actually look like? Yeah, so it can manifest in myriad different ways. Um, so for example, at my organization, true Legal, that would manifest as you would be. A W2 [00:14:00] employee of true eligible for benefits eligible, right? Like so a lot of like the creature comforts, but just paid hourly instead of annually and like paid for every hour that you work.

And sometimes that can, you know, we have clients who are like, Hey, I only need someone 20 hours a week. Um, sometimes they’re very much treated like an FTE by my client. Sometimes it’s you know, hey, we just need someone to come in and you know, get us through this DPA backlog and then, and then we’re done.

Or. You know, we need someone to cover a parental leave. So contract can manifest in many different ways. And then other orgs, um, you would be like a 10 99 contractor. And then some contractors are paid on a project basis and some contractors are paid hourly or, you know, so that’s, that’s kind of the difference.

Right. Uh, so if someone, you know, if [00:15:00] lost students in particular, ’cause that, that, and I know we’ll get to this a little later in the conversation, but that tends to be a lower barrier to entry, to like breaking into privacy. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and so being open to that and just having that understanding of kind of the differences, right?

Yeah. I, I, I think is crucial, but, you know, gone are the days where. Contract or consulting work was like second rate, you know when I first got into recruiting about 14 ish years ago, 13 years ago they are, there was a perception in the market that if you were doing contract work, it’s because you couldn’t get a permanent job.

Right. And that is no longer the perception in the market because as the practice of law and the discipline of privacy both become increasingly commoditized, the concept of like being an SME and being a specialist [00:16:00] means that you have the ability to swoop in, solve problems, and swoop out. Yeah. And so that’s, you know, there’s, there’s tremendous value there.

Um, so, so that le that openness and, and also, you know, another, another piece on the contracting side is really the, for those of us, like this wouldn’t necessarily apply to the law students, but for those of us who have been in the, you know, in the workforce for a little while, the. Pandemic forced us all, especially in the US, to have a much needed reckoning with our relationship with work, right?

Mm-hmm. And, and honestly, I think in the larger sense, that’s a really good thing, um, because Americans don’t necessarily have the healthiest relationship with our work. Um, and so. Um, so a lot of folks post pandemic came to me saying, I don’t want [00:17:00] to be in the rat race. You know, I don’t like, I want, but I’m not ready to retire.

You know, I don’t need to do the politicking and I don’t need to climb. I just want to be paid to Interesting work and. Be done, right? Mm-hmm. And so that really opened up the door for a, a whole generation of folks who we, we call them lifestyle contractors who like prefer to go from, you know, contract role to contract role.

Yeah. Yeah, I, I can definitely understand the appeal of that. For my own interest, I know that this really depends on the company and their situation, but you know, if you start a contract job somewhere and you do want to eventually move into like full employment, are there situations in which the contractor absolutely allows the, the employer does an amazing job and then they’re offered a, a full-time job there?

Does that ever happen? Happens all the time. It happens all the time. And, and that happens for, for [00:18:00] different reasons. So the, I would say probably about 25% of the time-ish. Wow. Okay. Plus, minus a, a client will ask to convert. One of our contractors to becoming an FTE. And a lot of times that happens.

’cause, you know, a few minutes ago I said, my clients call and say, Hey Jess, I, my, I don’t have headcount, right? Mm-hmm. Like, I don’t have open headcount, so I need to bring in a, a contractor and the. It’s so much easier internally in like a corporate environment or even in a law firm environment to advocate for a human who’s doing well than just this like amorphous.

Open headcount, right? Mm-hmm. So y you know, if I had, if you were, if I was working for you as a contractor, Donata, um, and you weren’t able to get headcount, so you had to go the contractor route and you ended up with me and I ended up doing a good job, it’s much easier for you to go to your [00:19:00] CFO and say, Hey.

I want, like we can’t lose Jess, like, you know, like this, this human that you know that you have worked with and that you have seen the quality of their work product, right? Mm-hmm. That is a much easier barrier, right? To jump over than, Hey, I just need open headcount. Yeah, absolutely. We had that internally here as well with a developer who worked for us as a contractor for a couple months and we’re like, oh my God, he’s really good.

Yeah, we solve all these problems for us. We wanna keep him around. Uh, and it just so happened that he wanted to leave his current job and everything just worked out so perfectly because it’s kind of like, try before you buy. Yeah. There, there, yes. The try before you buy the, a lot of my clients are leveraging contractors to overcome in-office requirements, right?

’cause the return to office is a source of [00:20:00] consternation. They now in the job market and they’re, they’re are myriad different reasons, like I said, you know, covering a. Parental leave or you know, having like a very discreet, like specific project, you know? Mm-hmm. Maybe it’s implementing, uh, and you know, a OneTrust module, you know, or something like that.

Or, hey, we’re moving from this privacy management tool to this privacy management tool, you know, or working through a backlog or, you know, so there, there are so many different. Reasons to, to leverage contractors and, and so that’s, that’s definitely where the market’s been. Mm-hmm. Um, what kinds of organizations are hiring for privacy professionals?

Well, e everyone in different capacities. I would say the, the least. Where I, I, I guess it’s easiest to say where I see the fewest volume of jobs, and that [00:21:00] would be pure healthcare, where it’s only hipaa, right? Mm-hmm. Where you’re not Also, you know, there are many health tech. You know, or, or healthcare adjacent organizations that have like one foot in the healthcare privacy side of things and one foot in like the commercial privacy regs, G-D-P-R-C-C-P-A, et cetera.

Those are popping. But I would say where we see the lowest volume is pure hipaa. Like, HIPAA doesn’t change. Right? Right. Like it’s been around 30 years. Like, you know, it’s not, it’s not. As significant of an evolution as like the commercial regs that we’re dealing with. Mm-hmm. And so I would say that’s where we see the lowest volume.

Okay. Um, the, the highest volume is from my corporate clients who are, who are needing, you know, specialized support for a fixed period of time. Um, and then a, [00:22:00] another big sector is. Law firms who are, who are thinking creatively about the future of their client needs, and bringing more of the operational side of the privacy work into the law firm environment to make them more of a one-stop shop because your consultancies like your big fours, right?

They cannot, they’re prohibited because of the structure of the org. They’re prohibited from dispensing legal advice. Right? Mm-hmm. So they can only help you with like the strategy and the operational piece. Law firms, there’s nothing stopping law firms from also dispensing operational and strategic advice in addition to that paralegal component.

And a lot of law firms are moving in that direction and bringing in-house under the law firm umbrella. You know, the more of the operational components. So that’s, I would say that’s definitely another [00:23:00] area that we’re seeing more. And ’cause that creates, that allows the law firm to be more of a one-stop shop.

Yeah. Um. And instead of like, you know, going to a big four or a consultancy for your operational and then going to your law firm for the legal, the law firms are, you know, rightfully kind of wising up, you know, and bring more of that in-house. That makes sense. I’m sure clients don’t want to explain their entire structure and their privacy and what they have done, what they haven’t done to two different companies.

You know, if you just have to explain it. One. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Like make it easier, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, so, so I would say those are the places that we’re seeing high volume. That makes sense. Now for employers, are they preferring candidates with legal backgrounds or are there any good opportunities for non-lawyers as well?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, I slot privacy into, you know, [00:24:00] loosely, right? Because you can’t fully bifurcate or trifurcate, you know, any function in privacy. Yeah. But like legal, operational, technical, right? And most legal folks, if you’re in, especially if you’re in a corporate environment, you are.

Defacto going to get that operational experience right? Yeah. And there’s so much of privacy that. You could make an argument that falls into any, like either camp, right? Like PIAs are a great example. You could make a, a healthy argument that that is a legal function. You could make a healthy argument that that is an operational function.

Mm-hmm. But the truth is like it’s not fully one or the other. Right. And so, you know, a lot of times you’ll have people who have a legal background with one foot in each camp, and then you’ll, but there are so many opportunities for non-attorneys in privacy. I mean, as attorneys we tend to not be necessarily the most tech savvy group as [00:25:00] a whole.

I think a lot of privacy professionals buck that stereotype, but I think it’s a fairly well earned stereotype in the larger sense. Right. Yeah. And I, you know, there are not a ton of lawyers who can code and do things like that. So, you know, there, there are certainly ample opportunities for people with a tech background in privacy, especially on like, like privacy engineering side.

And there are really sophisticated like privacy analysts and privacy managers as well mm-hmm. Who have a lot of strategic insight without necessarily having to have that legal background. But that said, on the other side of the coin, I see a lot of folks who are, you know, privacy program managers or things like that who also have a jd.

Sometimes those roles sit in legal, sometimes they don’t. So, so to answer your question, yeah, there’s absolutely opportunities for any type of academic background in privacy. That’s awesome. Yeah. As somebody who works at a [00:26:00] software company, I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of technology.

Sure. But there’s still sometimes things that like, oh, instead of a tracking pixel, they track you through a gif. And I’m like, what? You know, there’s, there’s still sometimes things that I need our, our tech team to explain to me where I’m like, I have never heard of this. Before. What do you mean, how is that even possible?

So, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of technical conversations that you get to have as a privacy pro, and those can be really interesting sometimes and really novel. And to me, they, they make the job fun. Yes, exactly, exactly. As I, I, it matters less what your academic background is and more your openness to learning.

Right, because you might be a non-attorney who’s asked to like, you know, take a first pass glance at DPAs. Which, you know, tend to historically to be more of a legal function, right? Yeah. And so that, that willingness to learn and understand [00:27:00] not only future proofs your job right, and, and opens more doors, but it makes you more of a Swiss Army knife.

Mm-hmm. So let’s talk about some of your experience and knowledge with candidates, which you have a lot. For people who are applying for jobs you know, let’s say they already have some privacy experience, what’s the best way to highlight that in a resume? In a resume? Using the terms of art. Use the language of privacy, right?

Say GDPR, say CCPA. If you’re working with a specific tool, call it out. You know, like transcend big ID one, right? Whatever it is. Using the language of privacy is, is very valuable in demonstrating subject matter expertise. And then I always tell people, go ahead and use the acronyms in your resume.

I don’t, you know, like, don’t spell out GDPR, right? General do right, like and or [00:28:00] CCPA or anything like that. I still have people who sometimes will spell out HIPAA in their resumes. And also very important, while we’re talking about using the language of, you know, of privacy in a resume. HIPAA has two a’s not two P’s and your, your resume gets a real quick delete from my recruiting team.

Um, if you misspell a seminal reg, right? So, so yeah. When demonstrating that, that. Privacy experience. I would say that’s the baseline, but much more importantly and much more nuanced is showcasing what you have accomplished. Right. It’s not purely showcasing what you know and if, and you know, I know I, I’m, I’m gonna guess that your next question is how to showcase your interest if you don’t have the privacy.

Right experience. Um, however, and, and that in that case it’s showing what you know and [00:29:00] showing your investment, right? But if you have done it, talk to me about what you’ve done and what you have accomplished, right? If you implemented a privacy Champions program, you know, in your organization, if you helped lead or develop, or, you know, and using those strong.

Action verbs to show what you had ownership of as opposed to, you know, weaker verbs like assisted with block, right? Mm-hmm. You know, X, Y, z, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, so I, I would say that’s, those are, those would be my tips for demonstrating knowledge. Yeah. To me thinking about it. You know, on the other hand, for people who don’t have, you know, direct experience in privacy, I’m gonna guess that you’ll probably want to.

Highlight certifications like the CIPP maybe you wrote some articles for law journals, or JD Supra or something like that on privacy, or you are on a podcast, [00:30:00] things like that, right? Exactly. That is where your investment into your own knowledge base is going to become your flex. Right? Mm-hmm. If you’ve done it, tell me what you’ve done.

If you haven’t done it, show me what you know. Yeah. And um. And that, that would be my guidance for folks who are trying to get into privacy. Invest in yourself and in your career. The, you know, the certifications, they’re not, you know, they can be a little spendy, but like, if, if you know that privacy is the career you want, it’s gonna end up being a drop in the bucket.

You know, sort of investing in yourself. Try to get speaking engagements. You know, writing the articles, even starting with like a blog post. And I will tell you, Don, as you know, the privacy community is very very engaged with one another. And I know that engagement becomes more difficult as the community grows.

However, [00:31:00] if you are trying to break into privacy and demonstrating some, like subject matter expertise and things like that. If you’re applying for an, uh, you know, for a role link with the hiring manager on LinkedIn after you’ve made some thoughtful posts about privacy. Yeah. Right. And, and showcase that you are embedded into the community like LinkedIn is a great example.

90% of LinkedIn content comes from 10% of users. Wow. So be in that 10%, you know, and, and if it’s too overwhelming to, you know, throw a pot, like throw a post out there on your own. That’s okay, right? Like, comment on someone else’s, or share a really thoughtful article and say like, Hey, here’s, here are my thoughts on this.

What is, you know, what do my connections think? Mm-hmm. And once you have you know, a built up LinkedIn profile that kind of shows some engagement, start linking with [00:32:00] the stakeholders at the orgs that you’re targeting. Yeah. I would also say that a lot of bar associations have privacy committees, that have newsletters that accept articles from law students or young professionals.

You know, you can ask them about that. Or maybe there’s a bar section magazine that you could get into. Um, you know, there’s lots of opportunities for writing. You know, if you’re too nervous to go to the national conferences, you can find your. Local IEPP knowledge net chapter where there’s just people from Chicago, for example, so it’s less overwhelming.

Yeah. Um, absolutely. There’s a lot of different places and a lot of different communities and a lot of the state bars have, you know, a, like a privacy and technology section and so for example, I live in Atlanta. And the Georgia Bar has a, you know, a privacy section and they have their own conference.

Shout out to Heather Coons for, that’s awesome. [00:33:00] You know, putting that on her back. But that’s a really, again, I think that’s a great call out, Don. If someone is a little nervous or it’s too cost prohibitive, you know, to go to like the. Big national conferences, um, you know, that’s a lower barrier to entry and that can also be a lower barrier to entry with starting out for you know, getting involved in the thought leadership side to like add those lines to your resume.

Mm-hmm. So back in ancient times when I was looking for a job, cover letters was the most like daunting part of it because I had my resume down and I just would send the resume. But then the next part of it was the cover letter. Yeah. Like if they’re not talking about the job in about it in the job post, do I submit it?

Does it need to be personalized? How do I submit 100 applications while writing personalized cover letters for each one? How do cover letters work and what [00:34:00] should people do about the cover letters hot take. Cover letters suck, and Yes. Yeah. Like no one reads them. Um, like employers don’t even read them.

So if, here’s what I will say. If, if one isn’t asked for, don’t worry about it because no one’s gonna read it. You’re not going to. You know, all of a sudden like, be this shining star because you voluntarily submitted a cover letter. Cover letters are going the way of the dodo. If an organization specifically asks for a cover letter, I would have something that is sort of like a f.

Loosely, like a form cover letter that covers your big ticket items, and then take that and tailor it for, for the specific org that you’re applying for. Um, and that’s also how I recommend candidates to do resumes have one big resume with all of the bullets about every [00:35:00] job. Right? And, and then when you find the role to apply for.

Because obviously we need to tailor our resume to a certain degree, you know, find things to pluck out that are less relevant and add in that are more relevant. Mm-hmm. And I would, I would give the same guidance with cover letters. But you’re not, you know, you’re not winning any brownie points by submitting one if, if one isn’t asked for.

I agree with that. And I also agree with tailoring the resume. There’s nothing worse when you’re hiring and then somebody submits their resume and it’s like 10 pages. And they had a job at Walmart as like a cashier, which no shade. I used to work at Kmart as a cashier, but you know, your Walmart experience is like an entire page of how you counted money and did all of this stuff.

Right? And it’s like nobody wants to read that. Like, I’m sorry. Like we want your resume. We just don’t care to read 10 pages of it. Absolutely. Primacy and recency. You know, what is relevant, what is going to resonate? [00:36:00] Like put yourself in the shoes of the reader. What do they need? What are they asking for?

And like, think critically about the type of work. ’cause some, some job descriptions are so generic, right? Yeah. Think critically about the type of organization to which you’re applying and what do they need? What are some of their areas of exposure or vulnerability? Highlight that. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, and read the job description specifically and thoroughly.

If there is a, for example, if the job description shares what the reporting structure of the role is. Right. You know, highlight that you have reported into in your resume. Highlight that you have reported into, you know, the general counsel, right? Highlight that you have done board reporting, if those are the types of things that are in a job spec, you know, for the more junior folks, you know.

I, I am currently an analyst who reports into a privacy program manager. Um, and that is what this role is [00:37:00] asking for. Great. Highlight on your resume, how you’ve worked with supported and created value. For the person to whom you’re reporting and to the org in general. I like that a lot. So if you’re a candidate looking for a job, what is the process of working with a recruiter like yourself look like?

Yeah, so I mean, of course that’s an, it depends, right, right. Many, many of my candidates are, you know, it depends on what they’re looking for. Like a lot of my candidates are very passively in the market. They’re like, Hey, I have a job. I’m opportunistically looking, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and that is going to be more, my, my work with them is going to be, of course, keep, you know, looking for the right opportunity, but also, and, and perhaps more importantly, defining and refining what it is that the candidate is looking for that will make a next opportunity exciting.

And then if, if [00:38:00] someone was, you know, part of a riff or a layoff and there’s a higher sense of urgency, then we take a different approach. And so working with, with my team looks different in that regard, you know, ’cause it might be about triage and like. Okay, because most of us, let’s be real, most of us are working ’cause we have mortgages and families and lives and bills, right?

So, you know, the, the calculus changes if, if the urgency level, you know, changes related to like financial commitments, right? Mm-hmm. So then it becomes about how do we get you money in your pocket, you know, as quickly as possible. And usually the shortest distance, uh, between two lines, you know, between two points is a straight line.

And, and there. That is going to be contract opportunities. Yeah. So, so it just depends. That makes sense for sure. What about an employer? You know, if you’re trying to employ somebody for a privacy position and you went through the process that I went through with development and you’re tired of looking at 500 [00:39:00] resumes Sure.

Professional males. Um, what does that look like? Yeah, yeah. So from the employer side, working with a recruiter is a, a good recruiter is going to want to understand what are your pain points. What are the problems for which you need to solve? And that is going to be where the focus is. You know, I ask my, my clients, you know, what’s keeping you up at night related to your privacy program?

What are the problems that we need to solve for? And every organization is different. Some is like, Hey, I have regulators breathing down my neck. Right. Some, it’s, I’m worried about retention of my current employees because they’re overworked, right? And the burnout is becoming real, and I’m worried they’re gonna bounce.

Uh, and then sometimes it’s, Hey, we’re, you know, like, like I mentioned earlier, we’re doing a big switch of our privacy management tool and no one on [00:40:00] my team knows how to do that. So I think a good recruiter is going to be a partner and. Show you what you need and also tell you what you don’t need. Um, a lot of times I end up coaching my clients to say like, Hey, keep this.

Part of the job in-house and give it to one of your internal people as a growth opportunity and take off something else from their plate if, if you’re worried about retaining them and giving them growth. And so that’s, that’s what it looks like from the client perspective is understanding the need.

And understanding what’s not the need, and then finding the candidate that is going to laser focus in on meeting the needs and making life easier while still being a business enabler. Do you prefer clients come to you with like a full understanding of, this is what I’m looking for, this is kind of experience that they should have, you know, this is the type of jobs that they should have held in the past.[00:41:00]

Like, this is what my job posting would look like. Or do you prefer clients that kind of have a general idea of what they’re looking for, but then you guys can flush it out together? I kind of prefer the latter to be honest. Okay. Right. It like, ’cause that that’s more fun for me. I get to be like a meaningful partner and say, you know, and, and really like.

Get into the meat and potatoes of what their program is doing, what their needs are, where does the data live, you know, and, and different things like that. And when clients. I find that my clients who are more the former, who are like, these are the like very specific boxes we need to check are often folks when I am, that’s, that often happens when I’m working with folks in hr who might not have the like subject matter expertise in privacy.

Which is fine. An HR person shouldn’t have, you know, like an internal recruiter, you know, or an HR person. [00:42:00] Shouldn’t be expected to have privacy subject matter expertise. But a lot of times you know, that approach of like, they need to be coming from this type of org or, you know, whatever might exclude some really thoughtful and interesting candidate.

You know, because it’s too focused on checking the box. So while it is nice to work with, with clients who understand what they need it’s a lot of fun for, for me and for my team to have the opportunity to really help shape what a need is, what a role looks like, and, and kind of help suss out and define what it, what it is.

It, we have a great time doing that. Really cool. I, I just realized that I had a really big misconception about recruiters. ’cause I had no idea that recruiters did that with you. Uh, which is awesome. ’cause that’s one of the hardest parts of you know, putting up a job posting is figuring all that out, you know, so I kind of thought that.

I would have to come with like reams of documentation and then you guys, no, I resumes, but [00:43:00] apparently that’s not what you do. Okay, cool. That’s good to know. Yeah, no, like I’ll help my clients write a job description. That’s awesome. Um, sometimes my clients will call me and say, SOSI just need help. Right.

Yeah. And, and I don’t have a whole lot more to go on than that. And the, the, that tends to be like such a fun time. That’s really cool. Good to know. Um, so just final question for you. Where can job seekers and employers learn more about you and True legal? Oh, well link with me on LinkedIn. I am Jess Barr on LinkedIn and our website, true legal.ai, has a treasure trove of information.

We also have some. Content for folks breaking into privacy that you can find on our website. We have, various webinars and things that we’ve done like that, that dive deeper into, you know, privacy resumes and, and things like that, that, that might be valid, valuable to the privacy community. Connect with any of the [00:44:00] recruiters on my team as well, the recruiters in, at true art spectacular subject matter experts and, and just have like a, a magnificent wealth of knowledge.

Um, so LinkedIn and our website. Awesome. Good. So Jess, thanks so much for sharing your expertise with me today. Oh, Don, I love every time I have a chance to chat with you, it’s always a good time and I am excited to, to have had this opportunity and I hope, I hope to get invited back someday. Yeah, absolutely.

Same. Um, so to everybody listening please make sure to subscribe to Privacy Lawls so that you don’t miss our next episode.