Go ahead, fly like the (legal) eagle you are…

The mainstream media has spun a compelling yarn about the folly of the graduate student condition. It goes a little something like this: our blind faith in career ladders has laid waste to job structure. Students en masse should compete, instead of cooperate. The sinister reach of COVID-19 looms overhead like a Sword of Damocles, yet the prospect of being unemployed seems much too far-off to shake us out of our collective complacency. No matter: nuclear winter may come a touch sooner.

Admittedly, it would be dangerous to sugarcoat these formidable problems. The upsetting economic outlook for us humble grads carries with it a sense of urgency and immediacy that compels us to act sooner rather than later. Yet ‘crisis mode’ often precludes the kind of reflection and sober analysis necessary to avert disaster. Sound bites and sensationalism simply do not translate into sensible professional moves.

To eschew both panic and apathy, you must temper your concern with cool-headedness and focus on the one thing you can control — your reputation. In today’s class, our speakers, the inordinately charismatic, Jeff Lee and Jacob Rosenberg-Wohl, have done precisely that. Without trivializing our plight, they challenge our assumptions about leveraging reputation and encourage us to think about our legacy in a constructive and forward-looking manner such that you do what you actually want to be doing.

Jeff’s framework comprised of three pillars:

1. Acknowledge

You often ask yourself who is getting to the destination faster. This is trite. You must take comparison out of the equation.

2. Distinguish

One must manage risk. Especially in light of this pandemic, you can’t control what organizations hire us or what makes you more marketable. To this end, you must concede and take a particular job despite it not being a 100% fit.

3. Build

Nobody ever believes that you are smart or trustworthy just because you say it. The ONLY way to prove these skills is by demonstrating. The age old adage of “walk the walk” has never been more relevant.

Jacob’s sets out five:

1. Goal Reputation

Jacob suggests that you have a tagline about what ultimately is your goal reputation. For example, “be a trustworthy problem solver”.

2. Rationale

What’s your career trajectory and path?

3. Relevant Networks

Are they alumni networks? Groups or associations at your school?

4. Ask

How does one become prominent in said networks?

5. Contacts

Who actively falls under your relevant network? Seek in order to take advantage of their leverage.

In the crucial last few weeks of quarter, I did not relish the prospect of discussing my reputation because it scared the hell out of me to do an introspective on myself, and I was afraid I wouldn’t like the results when confronted. I wanted instead to hammer home the point that I could just say that I was “reliable and trustworthy” and get the job I wanted. And as an attorney intending to strategically pivot into business in a few years, I wanted to tug at people’s heartstrings and let that get me to where I need to be.

Not in the manner of a silver-tongued advocate, I hasten to add. Weeks of immersion in Reputation Management, and the helpful aid of Jeff and Jacob’s lucid frameworks, had taught me that as our professional outlook reaches ever-greater levels of abstraction and generality, it increasingly aligns with our intuitive sense of self. Few concepts are more abstract or general in their prescriptions than our reputation. This, I came to realize, is not evidence of its irrelevance or utopianism; it is what makes it so conspicuously important.

Prior to this class, Jeff might have admonished me for thinking every one of my classmates was my competitor. Prior to this class, Jacob might have lamented that I lacked an appreciation of having a clearly articulated goal reputation. But exposure to the dimensions of their frameworks has shaken my faith, and I am not so cynical as to believe that professional advancement is only based on “who you know”.

The transition from theory to practice is not without diffuclties.

Jeff suggests that you should have innate self-awareness, “to survey the room”, as it were. Have people around you that will tell you that you are not performing up to par — or, that you just suck. You need to change the narrative that you tell yourself. You must continue to be hardworking and have the requisite tools to move through different jobs, despite your experience base.

It’s time to double down on the things you are good at and own it — these are live matters, and the human dramas that give rise to them continue to unfold. Your answers can and do have a tangible effect on your professional outlook and quality of life, to say nothing of your consciences. Ultimately, I walk away with a clear and convincing goal reputation, I want to be “the details man”, merci Jacob.

These frameworks have exposed me to the questions that matter. I see my reputation and career — beyond graduation — as the opportunity to come up with the answers, however tentative or inchoate they may prove to be. Following this class, I hope to become more adept at thinking critically about distinguishing and building my reputation and establishing clear reputational goals and networks. And by this means, I hope to contribute to my own progressive development by not turning my nose up at a good old fashioned introspective, and learn from it.