Why Your Resume Needs to Work as Hard as You Do
Your resume is more than a career history. It is often the first real opportunity to show a potential employer why you are the right lawyer for the role, and in a competitive market like Queensland's, particularly for General Counsel, Legal Counsel and senior in-house positions, it needs to capture attention quickly.
Quick answer: A strong legal resume is easy to scan, opens with a clear professional summary, uses consistent tense and formatting, quantifies achievements where possible, and is submitted in a clean Word or PDF format that applicant tracking systems can actually read. Design flourishes that look impressive rarely help, and can genuinely cost you the shortlist.
We review hundreds of resumes every month, from junior solicitors through to General Counsel, and even highly capable lawyers often struggle to present their experience clearly on paper. Here are the ten things we consistently see make the biggest difference.
1. Make It Easy to Scan
Most resumes get somewhere between six and ten seconds of attention on a first pass. If it is hard to navigate in that time, the opportunity can be lost before your experience is even properly read.
- Use dot points, bold headings and clear sub-sections
- Stick with professional fonts such as Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman
- Keep formatting consistent from the first page to the last
- Only include a photo if it has been specifically requested
2. Open With a Professional Summary
Start with a short, focused statement covering your area of legal expertise, the kind of problems you solve, and the value you bring, ideally echoing relevant keywords from the job description itself.
If you are moving between practice areas, include a brief aspiration statement explaining why, and what transferable skills you are bringing with you.
3. Keep It Succinct
Aim for around three to four pages, focused on the matters most relevant to the role you are targeting. When listing cases or projects:
- Include the date, your position, and a short description
- Note the matter's size, complexity, and your specific contribution
- Protect client confidentiality by describing the type of client rather than naming them
For example: 2023, Senior Associate, Litigation Team, a commercial law firm. Acted for co-owners of a multi-million-dollar commercial property in relation to structural defects and delays.
4. Keep Your Tense Consistent
Pick one tense and stay with it throughout. Either past tense (acted, advised, negotiated) or past continuing tense (advising, representing, preparing), but not a mix of both.
5. Quantify Your Achievements Wherever You Can
Hiring managers respond well to concrete evidence of impact. Where relevant, include:
- • Dollar values, such as a settlement secured
- • Percentages, such as a reduction in contract turnaround time
- • Notable clients or publications, where you are able to disclose them
- • Courts or tribunals you have appeared before
6. Show a Clear Career Progression
Employers want to see a logical path, not just a list of jobs. Include employment dates, the size of the firm or organisation, your area of specialisation, and any leadership responsibilities, such as leading a team of solicitors.
7. Don't Undersell Your People Skills
Technical ability matters, but so do the interpersonal skills that shape how you actually work with clients and colleagues. Include at least four relevant soft skills, such as stakeholder management, complex problem solving, team leadership or business development, and match them where possible to the language used in the job advertisement.
8. List Qualifications and Memberships Clearly
Show ongoing commitment to the profession by including any post-admission study, your practising certificate details (with date and jurisdiction), and memberships such as Law Society involvement or professional committees.
9. Don't Leave Out Volunteer and Community Work
Pro bono work and community involvement can genuinely strengthen a resume, particularly for government and in-house roles where corporate social responsibility is a real consideration in hiring decisions.
10. Make Yourself Easy to Contact
Include a mobile number, a personal email address, and an up to date LinkedIn profile link. Check all three regularly, so a genuine opportunity never slips through simply because a detail was out of date.
The Bottom Line on Format
A well structured, genuinely tailored resume meaningfully improves your chances of making a shortlist. This matters even more for government and larger corporate legal roles in Queensland, many of which rely on applicant tracking systems that cannot properly read heavily designed formats.
Think carefully before using tools like Canva or PowerPoint for a legal resume. Most ATS platforms cannot parse them properly, which means strong candidates can be filtered out before a human ever sees their application. A clean, professional Word or PDF document remains the safest and most effective format.
Frequently Asked Questions About Legal Resumes in Queensland
Why do legal resumes need to be ATS-friendly in Queensland?
Many government departments and larger legal employers in Queensland use applicant tracking systems to filter applications before a person reviews them. Heavily designed formats, such as those built in Canva or PowerPoint, often cannot be read properly by these systems, which can mean a strong candidate is filtered out before their experience is even seen.
How can I make my legal resume stand out from other applicants?
Focus on clarity and relevance rather than design. A scannable layout, a sharp professional summary, quantified achievements, and language that mirrors the job advertisement tend to stand out far more than visual flair, particularly given how little time a resume typically gets on first review.
Is there a preferred order for sections in a lawyer's resume?
Yes. For most legal roles, we recommend this order: professional summary, key skills or areas of expertise, career history, education and admissions, professional memberships, and community or pro bono work.
How often should I update my resume if I'm not actively job hunting?
At least annually. Updating your resume as achievements and responsibilities change, rather than trying to reconstruct a year of progress right before you need it, keeps it accurate and genuinely reflective of your experience.
What common mistakes do lawyers make on their resumes?
The most frequent issues we see are inconsistent tense, resumes that run too long without focusing on what's relevant to the target role, achievements described without any quantifiable detail, and heavily designed formats that ATS platforms cannot read properly.
Do Queensland employers value pro bono work in private practice resumes?
Yes, particularly where a firm has a genuine focus on community involvement or corporate social responsibility. It can also help demonstrate values alignment beyond technical skill alone.
Can I include career breaks on my legal resume?
Yes. Career breaks, including parental leave, study, or time away from practice, are increasingly common and do not need to be hidden. Being straightforward about the timeline, and what you bring back to the role, tends to land better than an unexplained gap.
How does a legal resume differ for in-house roles compared to law firm roles?
In-house resumes generally benefit from a stronger emphasis on commercial context, stakeholder management, and how your legal advice supported broader business outcomes, alongside the technical detail expected in a private practice resume.
Should I have separate versions of my resume for in-house and private practice applications?
It is often worth it. Tailoring the professional summary, key skills and selected matters to reflect what each type of employer values most tends to produce a stronger application than a single generic version used everywhere.
Can Alex Correa Executive help me position my resume for an in-house role?
Yes. We regularly work with lawyers making the move from private practice to in-house, and can help you reframe your experience to reflect what in-house employers are genuinely looking for.
Want Help Getting Your Resume Right?
If you would like a confidential conversation about your resume or your next career move, get in touch with Alex Correa Executive. We have helped lawyers across Queensland, from junior solicitors to General Counsel, secure roles across top-tier law firms, government legal teams and leading in-house departments.
