Keeping Your Career on Track in a Slow Economy

When the economy goes off the rails, it is up to you to keep your career on track. While a number of practices have been surprisingly busy during the pandemic, other groups have slowed down considerably. This is a frequent topic I discuss with associates – how do you navigate your professional development in these uncertain times?

Associates need to remain focused on continuing their skills development in an environment where there may be significantly less opportunities, and associate performance will be closely scrutinized. Consider using this time to build your relationships, skills, and brand.

Deepen Your Relationships

Internal Relationships: There is no better time than now to identify those partners with whom you should have been building relationships. It’s not just the partners who are the most outgoing or have the most alluring clients. It’s those partners who can keep you busy in good times and bad, as well as those who have the political capital to protect you if the market continues to deteriorate. If there are adjacent practices that are still strong, figure out ways to get exposed to them. Attend their virtual team meetings and get added to their internal emails. But don’t just stop there. In times like this, savvy associates will be vying to create opportunities with the same sought-after partners and clients. Think about how you can be uniquely helpful to them. Don’t just offer to write an article or client alert, find out what is of critical interest to their clients right now and take the lead on putting together a presentation or client alert that they can leverage.

External Relationships: Now is as good a time as ever to look for ways to build your relationships outside the firm. This will obviously be difficult in a social distancing environment, but at a minimum you can map out those relationships that you’d like to nurture. And oddly enough, this may be a great time to connect with contacts who now have the time to talk and will appreciate the personal outreach as they struggle with the same adjustments to this economy that you are experiencing. Don’t stop there – put in place a long-term strategy for further deepening those relationships once normal client interactions resume.

Enhance Your Skills

This is a great time to focus on the skill sets that you’d like to build over the next 12-24 months and come up with a plan for hitting those milestones. When you are busy you often don’t have time to learn the finer points your partners and senior associates were negotiating, or to even ask for feedback on your performance. Now is a great time to revisit these deals so you can learn from the moments that flew by in the rush – this way you can be better prepared to take full advantage of the opportunities that do come your way. Another way to maintain your growth trajectory is to become an expert in a niche area relevant to your clients or practice. Don’t just scratch the surface on a particular issue, but really take a deep dive and become the resident authority. Your goal is to make yourself a crucial asset and not just another associate who can be replaced by someone a year or two behind you (which often happens after a slow period). Presenting CLE trainings on your new-found knowledge will help you learn, but also raise your profile – and build your brand.

Refine Your Brand

Whether you realize it or not, you already have a brand. The first step to refining it is becoming self-aware of how you are actually perceived. This takes thoughtful reflection and also candid conversations with mentors, sponsors and senior attorneys. Are you the associate that is known to be reliable, proactive and driven? Or are you the associate that needs to be closely supervised? Your goal is to be the go-to associate in your class year for the sought-after work in your group. Think about how you communicate, how you react to stressful situations, and whether you are taking ownership over the responsibilities with which you are entrusted. Without everyday office interactions, it will be especially challenging to maintain your brand and profile in your practice group as work slows down, so don’t leave it to chance.

Be thoughtful, be safe, and keep your career on track.