A telephone interview, that is, and my husband is the interviewee.
The position is for a space planner at a big law firm. His former employers have always been high tech, biotech or health care entities.
Now, I’m a legal secretary and have always worked in big law firms. The duties of this job opening even slightly overlap with what I do as a real estate secretary.
Would it be to his advantage to mention during the interview that his wife is a secretary in a large local law firm? This is so that the HR person sees that he has at least a passing familiarity with their different organizational structure. Branching off from this, he may also mention that he can apply his skills to help out their real estate law department.
Or would it be a no-no? Law firms are competitive and secretive, and maybe they wouldn’t like to have a spousal gossip conduit to a competing law firm.
What’s your take?
I don’t think it would help to mention it. Not sure it would hurt, either, but the issues you raise might come into play. Some big law firms are more friendly to each other than other ones. So, it might depend on the firms involved. In short, I would not suggest that me mention it.
I agree, mentioning family at all during interviews is almost always verboten. Also, your experience is not your husband’s.
I’m going to move this to IMHO since it’s asking for advice.
No. He needs to demonstrate his own knowledge base, not that he may have acquired knowledge by association.
First, I agree with everyone else that he should not mention you. They are hiring him, not you.
Second, he should not volunteer that he could help with their real estate department. For all you know the person interviewing him hates the people there. If they need someone for their area, they need him full time.
Now, if you can give him enough background so that he can make up some intelligent questions about their needs, that would be helpful. If he asks about their biggest needs and can respond quickly with some preliminary suggestions on how he can meet them that would be useful also. But he should be aware that their firm might not run like your firm did.
Thanks for the advice, all. I thought it possible that it would be a good opportunity to show networking value within the local law community, but with your help, I see that that advantage would be minimal at best compared to the downside.
I appreciate your input. I last looked for a job fourteen years ago, and the ins and outs of modern networking rather flummox me. I’d hate to look for a job nowadays.
I think this blog gives great career advice! Best of luck to Mr. brown!