Featured
View Count: 5720
I cannot tell you how many people have ruined their careers by having the wrong attitude when it comes to working weekends and holidays. Although you may consider your work just a job, if you send this message to your superiors, you will be in trouble quickly. In order to really thrive in most jobs, your work must be far, far more important to you than just a job. There is no better way to let your superiors know how important your work is to you than by working weekends and holidays. To get ahead, you must do this. You do not need to work every weekend and holiday. However, you should not make a major effort to avoid working during these times.
It is generally the youngest and most promising on paper whose careers take a hit due to their work ethic. Presumably because of past achievements, these individuals think they are exempt from having to work hard; they can simply coast along on the merits of their past accomplishments. However, unless a person works weekends and holidays, his or her career with most serious organizations will be fairly short.
What I am about to write may not appeal to you. However, if you are interested in holding a job through all economic climates and receiving repeated promotions and advancement in your current role, then you should consider what I have to say. Most jobs are very competitive. Do you want to win against your peers, or lose?
While this list is by no means exhaustive, you should be working weekends and holidays because (a) it is a privilege to be able to work; (b) there is only one way your organization makes money, and it involves work; (c) clients and customers do not care about your weekend; (d) there are only a certain number of opportunities for promotion in your company; and (e) you will not always be expected to work weekends and holidays.
If you are in a job with a lot of work, you should consider yourself very fortunate. The fact that an employer has a lot of work means the employer is doing something right. The presence of work means the company is generating money to pay your salary. An abundance of work means the company is probably getting repeat business from having done a good job with its current clients or customers. This also means the firm likely has opportunities for you to advance.
As someone who has been a legal recruiter for a long time, in good and bad economic cycles, I have personally seen and spoken with hundreds of associates who were laid off because there was not enough work and the firms had to downsize. I am talking about numerous talented young attorneys. Believe me, when the work goes away, these associates are not happy. Everyone in a firm gets nervous when there is not enough work because this means everyone’s job is in jeopardy. There is no difference between the practice of law and any other industry. Work is always good!
There is also the potential situation in which your company may not have a lot of work, but you do. This is even better. If your employer is seeking you out and giving you a lot of work, this means he or she likes your work product and/or you personally. If your boss likes your work and gives you more, you are being recognized and are in a position where you have added job security. Employers rarely give you excessive amounts of work to punish you. They do this to reward you.
If you are asked to work on a weekend or holiday, keep in mind there could be problems much worse than this. The company might not have any work to give, or your boss might think someone else’s work product is better than yours. Having work is a privilege.
|
The worst thing that can happen to you is to have your employer stop giving you work. This is a bad thing and it is very scary. You need work to survive. Work is your lifeblood.
Work is also important to your company. If your company is like most others, there is only one way it makes money: by you working.
Depending on your position, chances are you have no idea of the economics of your company. You may not know what your company’s office space or furniture costs, or what the company’s obligations are for salaries and the products or services it provides. Nevertheless, your company needs money–and lots of it–to survive. If you help your company make a lot of money, you will be contributing to its survival.
However, you should be concerned with your company making money for your own sake. When your bosses and other decision makers evaluate you, they will be concerned with how hard you are working because this is how they make money. If you were running a law firm, for example, would you rather have an associate taking up a desk who bills 1,500 hours a year, or an associate who bills 3,000 hours a year? Clearly, the harder working associate is going to be favored.
You need to work hard in order for your employer to make money. This is essential. When it comes right down to it, your relationship with your employer hinges on your ability to make the company’s money. The employer does not care if you do this on a weekday, holiday, or weekend.
Similarly, clients and customers do not care about your weekend. I am sometimes astonished when I speak with associates in law firms who are upset about working weekends. The reason I feel this way is that I am putting myself in the shoes of one of their clients. In a large law firm, clients typically have major problems and transactions the attorneys are working on–whether it is “bet the company” litigation, a major bankruptcy filing, or defending an important patent. When you are working on matters like this you must remember they are important to the client. Clients need attorneys who take their legal matters as seriously as they do.
Most businesses are like the practice of law. They have clients and those clients’ needs are ongoing, regardless of whether it is a holiday or not.
If you have issues with working weekends and holidays on important or time-sensitive matters for clients, I have a question for you: Why are you in a job in which others are dependent upon you? The people depending on you need someone who is not afraid to work weekends and holidays.
While it’s important, you work weekends and holidays on pressing and time-sensitive matters for your employer; the opposite is also somewhat true. Your employers want to know you have their backs covered at all times. Your employers pay your salary. If your employers think your assignments are important enough to you you are working on the weekends, they will be grateful. Employers also want to know the work you are doing for them is the most important thing on your agenda.
Also, keep in mind there are only a certain number of promotions your employer can give. Because of this, your employer will look for reasons not to advance you when comparing your contribution to others. Notice I used the word’ not. When choosing between two people for advancement, employers generally seek reasons to exclude one candidate from consideration because the number of available spots is so limited. In a major New York firm with forty associates in an entering class, for example, it would be exceedingly rare for over one or two of those first-year associates to ever make partner.
You will not always have to work weekends and holidays. Those who expect you to work weekends and holidays almost certainly did the same thing before they became your supervisors. In fact, they probably were among the hardest-working people in the company. Because they did this, they see absolutely nothing wrong with your doing the same. In order to rise, you must bond with your superiors. You can bond with your superiors by showing them you are sharing the same experiences they had.
While much can be said against working weekends and holidays, you need to understand that doing so is important to your company, your clients, and your own advancement. If doing so is offensive to you, then you should learn to be happy with your current position and no advancement. Certainly, working weekends and holidays is not expected at all companies. Nevertheless, doing so will only help you if your objective is to get ahead.
Read More About Getting Promoted and Moving Up Often Depends on Doing Unassigned Work:
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.
Filed Under : Featured, Keeping a Job
Tagged: apply for a job, attorney jobs, career advice, job blog | a harrison barnes, job search, legal career, legal profession, legal recruiter, number of opportunities, practice of law, work on weekends
Job Market
recent posts
Do not be distracted by your insecurities and doubts, or you will never achieve success because you will not allow it to happen. Focus only on the message about your skills and capabilities. Identify your goals and create a gameplan, and fill your mind with positive and hopeful messages that will drive you towards said goal.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
In this article Harrison discusses how people who stand for something always do better than those who do not. Companies who stand for something always do better than companies who do not. The most successful companies not only stand for something, but they are completely consistent with their core principles. This is what keeps them going and this is what makes them successful. One of the largest problems that people have in their careers is when they diverge from what they are good at. When you do not stand for something, you divert from your true strength. Everything begins to crumble and slowly fall apart when you are not doing something that you are really good at. The biggest success comes when you stand for something and are good at it.
Companies necessarily seek to employ positive, forward-minded people. A firm’s success depends on their employees, and they seek people who will enhance them rather than merely contribute to the bottom line. People with positive natures, who contribute to a healthy social environment, prove essential to the growth and success of their employers.
In this article Harrison discusses that the meaning you give to things will control the quality of your life. How we feel about ourselves is all due to what we tell ourselves certain things will mean. The meaning you give things is crucial for your career success. You need to choose meanings that make you stronger. You need to ensure you interpret things in a way that serves you and does not hurt you. You need to reach your full potential. Don’t classify yourself as someone who is not fit to succeed at the level at which you’re capable. You need to take charge of your mind to have the career and the life that you deserve.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of ‘energy’ over technical skills. When people are hiring you they are purchasing your “energy” more than they are purchasing your technical skills. They are interested in your ability to influence the world around you through your energy. When you are marketing yourself and seeking a job, or working in a job, there are essentially two things you are marketing. You are marketing your technical skills, but more importantly you are marketing an intangible sort of energy. The most successful people have mastered the art of projecting positive energy. The better your energy, the more employable you will be and the farther you will go.
You can never become too comfortable if you wish to be successful. Your success will largely depend on your ability to become dissatisfied with your current position. Successful people are never satisfied with the status quo, and constantly push beyond their comfort zone. When do you this and succeed, you set a new standard for normality in your life. Be continually dissatisfied, and always pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
Resourcefulness can make you better at everything you do, and separates the truly extraordinary people from the general herd. Do everything within your power to be resourceful in your job search, life, and career to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your goals, and learn how to employ the resources currently at your disposal for maximum impact.
The most successful people in the world share the common characteristic of sharing, or concentrating on the value that they give back to others rather than on their own growth and profit. Focusing on yourself never leads to long-term success, but leads instead to unhappiness as well as emotional and financial challenges. Your greatest consideration, therefore, should be how you can contribute to others, and how your actions can impact their lives.
The best way to attain your goal is through small, incremental steps on which you can build. Establish a routine, and make sure you are consistently working towards some kind of goal. Start small, and always build upon what you have done before. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they believe everything should happen quickly and at the same time, instead of progressively building upon their past achievements.
Make sure that you are involved in groups that focus on positive things. Your success in life depends on your ability to focus on the outcomes you want, and the focus of the groups with which you associate will in turn shape your own focus. You must endeavor to always choose groups with a positive focus.
Everything you do is a form of preparation for your job interviews, as you are always under some form of scrutiny. The best employees can always spot other good employees, and you cannot “fake it”; merely doing a good job in your work is a form of interview preparation. Always put your all into your work, therefore, even if you do not have long-term plans to remain at your current employment. Switch jobs as infrequently as possible. The time to prepare for a job search is before you even realize that you need to do so.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
When myriad candidates are applying to limited positions, practicing unusual tactics in your job hunt will prove far more helpful than following the established routine and waiting for positions to come to you. Much like in military strategy, well-planned and unconventional moves can help you conquer your goals without suffering significant losses. You can land an excellent position by focusing on companies’ needs, rather than depending on job and recruiting advertisements.
You can change your life forever by harnessing the power of persistence. Think about the people in your life, and whether they empower you or hinder you in achieving your goals. You must win at all costs, and persist until you succeed.
You need to provide people what they want, otherwise you will not have a job. Although they might not always be the most desirable kinds of jobs, certain jobs always exist because they provide services that people will always require. The only secret to continual employment is to provide a service that people always need; if you do this, and nothing else, you will always find yourself employed. Give people what they want.
Your ability to help people will determine the extent of your success; the more powerful and effective your help, the greater rewards you will receive. One of the rarest and most profound achievements is to follow through on your goals and create a paradigm-shifting idea. The more revolutionary your work, the more people you will affect and the more memorable of a career you will have.
You will greatly benefit your career by helping and promoting your company’s expansion. A common belief is that expansion is fundamentally positive, and a lack of expansion is fundamentally negative. You must be on the side of expansion rather than contraction in every area of your life. All employers seek people who will help them expand, and the more your ability to contribute to this expansion will provide you increased job security and a greater likelihood of being hired.
The ability to fit into your work environment is among the most important parts of obtaining and retaining a job, even more so than your skill level. Fitting in means nothing more than being comfortable in one’s work environment, and making others similarly comfortable. Employers want to hire people who will embrace their approach to business and the world on physical and moral levels, so you must strive to fit in with their worldview.
Focus on what you are doing, not what others around you are doing. There are people to take action towards their goals, and then there people who sit on the sidelines and comment on the first group of people. People who are mostly interested in gossip and watching others usually lack the confidence and determination to take action themselves. The most successful people go account and accomplish things rather than sit back and watch others make things happen.
In this article, Harrison advises you to live the lives you wish to have, do the jobs you want to do, and basically live your dreams to your best possible ability. Life is fleeting and no one knows what tomorrow holds. So Harrison puts forward certain questions – when are you going to start living the life you want and when are you going to take charge of your life. The time to have the career you want is right now, not tomorrow, and not later. You need to take charge of your career and life and no one else is going to do it for you. Your entire life and the quality of it is a product of your decisions. You can have, do, or be anything you want. Do not create alibis for making comprises in life. What separates the best and the happiest people is the ability to stop to making excuses and Harrison wants you to be this person.
Anyone can be up when things are going well, but the real challenge comes when things are not. Do not look at problems, which are inevitable for any person or business, in a negative light; think of them instead as challenges, lessons, or opportunities. There is a silver lining to be found in every problem, and finding that silver lining will enable you to grow.
Understanding what you do for a living is very important for your career. You should understand the generality of your specific profession. You and your career are a product. You need to know where and how to market yourself in the best way possible. You need to be relevant and understand the skills you are offering. Being a relevant product is essential for your success. It’s easy to be relevant when you understand what you are doing and what purpose you serve. Being relevant is more than just getting a job. Being relevant also relates to serving the employers with the skills they need. You need to understand your market and what your customers want. This is the way to stay employed, and it is also the means to continual improvement.
Things will not always go the way that you want them to go, so you must not be discouraged by adversity in your job hunt. When you persist and consistently put forth your best effort, things are much more likely to go in your favor. Also, you must resist others’ efforts to undermine your efforts and potential; focus instead on doing everything in your power to fight on and complete the task at hand.
Having a goal or vision will propel you towards greater career success and happiness. Without a purpose, you will find yourself depressed and ultimately fail to achieve your goals. Do not subscribe to the unrealistic problem that you should never have problems, but instead regard problems as part of your overall growth strategy.
Don’t ever give up, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Take chances and invest in your best skills, and persist in the face of unfortunate events. Have faith in your considerable work and capabilities, and use them to create value for others.
In this article Harrison discusses what a good hiring manager should look for. Many people who make hiring decisions really do not know what they are doing. In fact, they often make mistakes when hiring. They put too much emphasis on skills and experience. But the single most important aspect of hiring is evaluating the person’s unique outlook on the world. If the person does not have a positive outlook on the world, he/she will bring down the morale of the other workers. The person will harm the company through the negative outlook. The key to success is having the power to stick it out in jobs and finding happiness wherever you are. Hiring people who do good work and are always able to find happiness should be the number one objective of hiring managers.
To reach the goals to which you aspire, you must compare yourself with people superior to you for motivation. Most people prefer to look at life the way they wish it to be, rather than as it truly is. Move out of your comfort zones and face reality. Don’t seek out or compare yourself with the average people around you, as doing so will only mire you in mediocrity rather than push you forward.
You can better market yourself by taking a stand against something. Peoples’ personal beliefs, including the things with which they do not agree, define who they are as people. Standing against something differentiates you from the crowd; when done in the correct manner, without disrespecting others’ opinions, such a stance can help you land your dream job.
Maintaining a routine in both life and work is important to success. Not only do you need to establish a routine, you must make that routine demanding and push yourself to the limit. Budget a certain amount of time each week for networking, applying to jobs, brushing up your interview skills, and following up with employers. Such consistent effort on a daily basis will make a huge difference to your career success.
A recommendation from a powerful person can make a huge difference in your job search; a reference from an influential person makes a tremendous difference to a prospective employer, and thus can be a major advantage for you. When an important person whom the company trusts recommends you, you instantly qualify for positions that may previously have been unattainable. Make the absolute most of your connections with the powerful people in your life, because doing so can instantaneously change your career and life.
You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.
Recent immigrants exemplify the benefits of willpower, passion, and excitement in the way that they work so much harder for their goals than the people who have been here for most or all of their lives. Like most Americans, you need to rekindle the spirit of your immigrant ancestors and become hungry for what you want. The entrepreneurial spirit that brought people to America has often faded over time; adopt the fire and work ethic of new immigrants in order to achieve your goals.
Related Posts:
Harrison Barnes:
Getting Ahead:
The Role of Jobs in Today's World:
Career Advice:
© 2025 Harrisonbarnes All Rights Reserved
Interesting article. It sounds pretty outdated.
I’m wondering where a woman with a small child would fit into your proposed model? (Or a man who wanted to be equally involved in parenting for that matter?) Should a woman quit her firm job until her child is 18? Or maybe just disappear from the legal job market altogether, to make room for the folks who are willing to follow your approach? Or, most likely, just not have children at all?
I concede that in this down economy, when there is an overabundance of jobs, the only way a woman with a child might be able to succeed in the legal market is to follow your approach. But as soon as the economy (and legal market) picks up, watch out. Considering that over 50% of law school graduates are women, and considering the level of involvement that men take in raising their children these days, my prediction is that firms that expect their attorneys to buy in to your approach will find themselves dangerously short-staffed.
The article is actually a perfect balance of realistic expectations of employers that hire salaried staff to fulfill the companies workload and clients expectations, combined with a clear message that its not every single weekend or holiday.
The truth is that staff members (good ones) know when the workload warrants those expectations of salary that include managing your own workload and investing the time of weekends and holidays and when is acceptable to not to.
Lets be somewhat realistic, in that if the article doesn’t hit the nail right on the head, why wouldn’t every employee be an hourly one? Salary is a relationship between employer and employee, that provides the added benefit of to the employee of paid time off, and I don’t know of an employer that scrutinizes a salaried employees paid time off in the same way that some employees do when it comes to be expected to invest more of themselves into a job that’s future monitory opportunities likely rests in that same productivity by the employee.
In short, if its a relief to get paid when your sick, on vacation, have a personal issue or the like, why should it be a burden to have to invest time outside of ones “normal working hours”. Cant both scenarios be accepted as reality.
Why should the employer be alone in the commitment to do what needs to be done in order for the team to succeed, and not the entire team assume the responsibility to fulfill workload requirements. It is the essence of salary and hiring staff.
Consider the alternative in an employer hiring an additional member of the staff that increases productivity, but has now increased payroll. Any employer knows that the bottom line has now been affected and the costs of doing business has increased and that this new addition has possibly determined the companies ability to satisfy merit raises during that teams next merit evaluation. To the point, your raise went to hire a new person, and maybe this one will invest what is necessary on the weekends and holidays so that employee number one is no longer needed. Now everyone gets their raise again!
Of course, employers cant have and I don’t think do have unrealistic expectations, and tine with your family is the highest of priorities, it sure is mine. I often think about how the time that I do spend with them, would be affected by me losing my job and having to get two jobs to make ends meet. My best path for success is the one that makes the company that I work for the most profitable, if you don’t believe that, just ask everyone that is currently being laid off and is having a hard time find a job.
One of the best articles that I have read in a long time!
What a sad testament that no one is of value in our society unless they work themselves to death.
That maybe your ideal – IT’S NOT MINE!
interesting but very depressing read. So you think we should work like slaves and abandon our home/family lives?
You make it sound like people don’t deserve to recharge their batteries, spend time with family and enjoying life!
Is your objective simply to work till you die in life? Some people may think what you say is valid but you sound like you should be operating in a communist era!
Look you jerk I don’t work weekends because I’m not in retail so their is nothing you can do about it.
Sorry, that’s an idiotic attitude.
Rest, recreation and restoration are key to working effectively.
Your attitude suggests that quantity somehow equals quality. As an employer, I would much rather get 40 hours of quality work out an employee, than 70 hours of frantic, freaked-out and ultimately f-ed-up slavery. That does nothing to bring satisfaction to the lives of the people working and it does even less to serve clients.
We work to live. We do not live to work. Employees are whole human beings, with friends, wives, husbands, children, parents, all of whom require attention. If you can’t respect that, then what kind of employer are you?
If there is extra work to be done, treat it as an exception and rally the troops when needed. If you ALWAYS need people to put in extra time, then maybe it’s appropriate to bring extra people on board.
I run a law firm, Harrison Barnes, not a sweatshop.
Sorry, that’s an idiotic attitude. Rest, recreation and restoration are key to working effectively.
Your attitude suggests that quantity somehow equals quality. As an employer, I would much rather get 40 hours of quality work out an employee, than 70 hours of frantic, freaked-out and ultimately f-ed-up slavery.
We work to live. We do not live to work. Employees are whole human beings, with friends, wives, husbands, children, parents, all of whom require attention. If you can’t respect that, then what kind of employer are you?
If there is extra work to be done, treat it as an exception and rally the troops when needed. If you ALWAYS need people to put in extra time, then maybe it’s appropriate to bring extra people on board.
I run a law firm, Harrison Barnes, not a sweatshop.