If you’re thinking about applying for a number of fellowships, it can be overwhelming to sort through the mass of deadlines and application requirements. Use our application deadline calendar to sort through the dates! Many project – based fellowships have deadlines approaching in July and August, so it’s useful to start researching now. This calendar will be continually updated throughout the summer.

The day has come: if you’re a rising third-year law student, a recent grad, or an experienced attorney with a commitment to public interest law, you can visit the Equal Justice Works website now to download the application guide and start working on your proposal for an EJW Fellowship!

The competitive EJW fellowships are all 2-year sponsored fellowships at host organizations; ideally, an EJW fellow would propose a project that would be sustainable past the term of the fellowship. Search PSLawNet’s opportunities to find organizations that are looking to sponsor fellowships; these organizations are not the only places that might be open to a fellowship proposal, though, especially if you have an existing relationship with a specific public interest organization.

To find more information about all kinds of fellowships, visit PSLawNet’s Fellowship Info & Resources page!

Equal Justice Works’s live webinars provide a comprehensive overview of the debt relief options available for students and graduates – including Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Based Repayment – and provide viewers with the opportunity to ask questions. Click here to view a schedule of our webinars and to register for an upcoming session.

Current sessions include:

• How to Pay Your Bills AND Your Student Loans: Utilizing Income-Based Repayment – Thursday, July 12, 3-4 p.m. EDT: Saddled with high student debt? This webinar reviews Income-Based Repayment, a powerful provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that allows anyone with high debt relative to their income to reduce their federal student loan payments. This interactive webinar will teach you:
  • How to understand your federal loans
  • How Income-Based Repayment works and if it is right for you
  • How to sign up for Income-Based Repayment
•  Get Your Educational Loans Forgiven: Public Service Loan Forgiveness – Thursday, July 26, 3-4 p.m. EDT  For recent graduates with jobs in government or at a nonprofit, this webinar explains how to make sure you immediately begin fulfilling requirements to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness so that your educational debt will be forgiven as soon as possible.  You will learn about:
  • The importance of having the right kind of Federal Loans
  • What you need to do to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness
  • How long it will take to have your educational debt forgiven

You may be already making monthly payments on student loans – or you may still be taking them out. Regardless of your current financial situation, it pays to become financially literate and aware of the various options for loan repayment and forms of assistance that are available if you’re interested in a public service career.

Check out PSLawNet’s Financing a Public Interest Career page to get started!

Believe it or not, “public interest” and “law firm” can be used in the same phrase – a small niche practice of firms devote all or a significant portion of their time to “plaintiff side” work, partnering with public interest organizations and/or representing labor unions, associations, and government bodies.

Even if you thought you would  never work at a law firm, researching these organizations is still valuable – especially after considering the fact that public interest positions are more competitive than ever.

Check out our Public Interest Law Firm Careers page on PSLawNet!

So, it’s getting to be that time again – recruitment is getting ready to get going for rising 2Ls, and the “what-comes-after-graduation” question is looming in the background for rising 3Ls. Whether you’re a law student or recent graduate, check out PSLawNet’s job search fundamentals page for great resources about redoing your resume, networking, and crafting the perfect cover letter.  It’s never too late to review the basics again!

If you’re thinking about a career as either a prosecutor or a defender, make sure to check out our recently updated Prosecutor/Public Defender Careers page!

There, you’ll find links and in-depth reports from law schools around the country about how to launch a career on either side of the courtroom.

If you’re thinking about working on an application for a project-based fellowship this summer, don’t miss our tips about the application process from former fellows, employers, and PSLawNet staff.

Also, visit our PSLawNet Post Graduate Fellowship page for even more resources!

If you can talk about and demonstrate bilingual skills, they can be a valuable asset in the job market. MSN’s Career Builder site offers helpful tips:

Don’t put your language skills under “other”
As you would with any other skill on your résumé, you should quantify your ability to speak fluently. Don’t treat it like a hobby and bury it at the bottom of your résumé. “I would treat it like any other skill by listing it on your résumé and including examples of how it was used to your advantage,” says John Millikin, clinical professor of management at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. Quantify how your language skills helped business, whether it was by growing sales or reaching new audiences.

Understand what they need and what you can do
When researching the position, find out why the company might need a bilingual employee. Is the company expanding into a new region or diverse markets? Is it looking to better support an existing market?

Some positions will require someone who is a native speaker due to the level of written and oral interaction. Other positions may just require someone with the ability to correspond with internal teams from the around the world. By understanding how your language skills will be  used, you’ll be better able to fine tune your résumé and cover letter.

Don’t oversell your abilities
“Do not exaggerate your skills,” says Jonathan Riedel, CEO of Forword Translations. “If your conversational skills are intermediate and you claim they are advanced, you will embarrass yourself and your company when they ask you to interpret for a conference or to call a potential client on the phone. There is no need to cram for an interview if the job requires knowledge of Spanish and you feel unprepared. Only say you can do what you can do.”

Riedel adds that even if a candidate lists himself as a “beginner” in several languages on his résumé, it shows an employer that he’s open-minded, eager to learn and try new things, culturally sensitive and well-rounded.

How to quantify your bilingualism
If you were proving your sales skills on your résumé, you would include revenue earned, market share or client needs that were met. Treat bilingualism the same way. Provide evidence of your abilities and potential, either during the interview, on the résumé or in the cover letter. Here are some ways to do so:

• Show translated documents or content written in another language: Examples could include marketing materials, press releases, emails or social media interactions.

• Identify specific scenarios: Be ready to share a scenario that best represents how your understanding of a second language helped you in your career or improved a process or experience for your previous employer.

• Attach a dollar amount: Money talks. Any quantitative figures you can use to back your multilingualism well help you get ahead of other candidates.

• Show how it can grow business: Identify markets that the prospective company isn’t taking advantage of and explain how your bilingualism can help them expand into those markets. If you can walk into an interview and address a hole in the marketplace that can be solved by your skills, you become an asset to the company that it can’t afford to pass up.

We’ve recently updated our Career Fair page through the end of 2012: check it out! As you’re planning your budget for next year, it might be worth it to plan on attending a couple of these events throughout your next job search–career fairs and mini conferences offer valuable opportunities to network, interview with, and potentially find jobs with many employers in an efficient way. Many law school career services offices offer reimbursements or limited grants for conference registration fees and/or travel–check with your individual school to see if you can benefit from these programs!