In Part I of this series, I mentioned the first time I trusted my gut. I ended my legal career before even starting and entered the world of higher education administration. The decision to head to China was the second one, and the focus of Part III of the series. The main lesson for junior staffers: do not just think about your job in isolation. Instead, understand what is happening in your department, your college or school, larger university, and even higher education in general.

On June 20, 2018, I returned to the U.S. after ~900 days based in China. There’s so much I’d really love to write about on the law school side, but I’m keeping the focus limited to advice for junior university staffers for this series. A few of the themes I’ve covered earlier deserve reinforcement:

• Great bosses matter: Although I had studied, interned, and traveled abroad, I had never lived abroad professionally. I knew nothing about cost of living adjustments (COLA), tax reporting in multiple countries, or expenses for yearly leave. My boss realized the value I’d be providing and gave me an expat package that it felt like he would write up for his own children. My housing was paid for, I was able to visit family and friends each year with a flight paid for, and I didn’t have to worry about things like where to live. This allowed me to focus on global engagement, international recruitment, and partnership development. The school was happy enough with the ROI that I was extended twice.
• The sweet spot: I had experience studying in Israel and Australia, interning in the Netherlands, and had recently spent a little time in Europe for my university. I had no background in China or East Asia, and minimal work in “recruitment.” I took the framework from Part II of this series to make my move.

Partners, Not Poachers: My China “Strategy”

You will get conflicting advice about how open to be about your work, especially the activities you do that lead to revenue, recruitment, or reach. Some people in higher education administration treat their work as carefully guarded trade secrets so others can’t replicate it. You’ll know more about your specific situation, and I’d say defer to people you trust about how much to share.

As for me, I’ve never worried about that. Any law school that wants to replicate my China “strategy” just has to read my 2016 post on LinkedIn. I developed a “Partners, Not Poachers” framework for my approach to engagement. Knowing that U.S. law schools were primarily interested in recruiting in China for lucrative residential LL.M. programs, I was able to see the revolving door of admissions officers coming to present, marketing in hallways about scholarships and 3+1 programs and waived TOEFL requirements with an interview, and more.

My idea was pretty simple: provide value to the law schools I worked with by helping them with their internationalization work, assisting their students even if they didn’t want to attend my school, and teaching a course that would help students who wanted to study in common law jurisdictions in the future. Late last year, I was invited back virtually to a school to co-present with 5 of my former students who ended up in J.D. and LL.M. programs at 5 of the top 19 law schools in the United States. Even after all these years, the school and their students realized that I really wanted to assist all students, not just those who happened to want to study at my school.

In hindsight, it was a bit of a risk. Telling a dean that you’re going to help students go to other schools isn’t usually a winning formula, but I had support from my boss and a dean willing to believe in me. I’m not going to share the exact numbers, but the decision went better than I think anyone could have ever imagined (including me).

Knowing how your department and college/school operate is crucial to being able to develop ideas like this one. When speaking with junior staffers who ask me about my China work, I flip the question to them and ask them “what is your China moment going to be?” What was successful for me (e.g., because of my extensive teaching record in the U.S.) may not work for you. A weakness for me (e.g., I didn’t speak the language) may not be one for you. It’s important to think that through.

We Don’t Work in Isolation

At the junior level, we are so focused on the task at hand that it can sometimes be hard to look more broadly at what is happening around us. Finish that Excel sheet, complete that story for the website, finalize the activity for orientation, and finish speaking with students about registration for next semester. In that regard, law school was helpful in teaching me to look at the forest instead of the trees. If you stay buried in your own work, you miss things that are happening within your department, within your school, within the university, or within higher education more generally.

As someone who started my career on the LL.M. student services and LL.M. teaching side, I didn’t really think much about the recruitment or admissions side. I received my rosters of students in my classes and who I’d be assisting. In Summer 2015 I had a bit of a wake-up call that made me realize that the plan that I had been working on for two years was not as solid as I had thought. It made me realize that student services and teaching rely on having students and that the world of residential LL.M. programs for foreign-educated law graduates was continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. I realized that I needed to better position myself in the engagement and recruitment side. Attending a conference a few months earlier had exposed me to the world of LL.M. recruitment and I was able to get a head start on better positioning myself.

Your Prior Experience Informs Your New Roles

The big upside to moving from student services into engagement? It made me better at recruitment. When admissions is detached from student services, getting students to choose your school can cause tension with what happens once they get there (kind of like sales and UX/UI). Having worked with LL.M. students for about 3.5 years at that point, I knew what challenges they faced, what support they needed, and what they wouldn’t even think to ask about until they arrived. I like to think that those strengths have informed my philosophy on Non-J.D. work over the years, especially given the disconnect between J.D. and Non-J.D. programs in U.S. law schools. My Pre-LL.M. work is to build a community, highlight resources, and assist students with the adjustment to studying in the U.S. before they ever arrive, because my work doesn’t stop once a student submits a seat deposit.

All of this to say: the life of a career university staffer is long if you take a job at the entry-level like I did. You’ll likely move across departments, across colleges, and across universities. Rather than “trading up” or “moving on,” think about how you can bring the strengths you’ve developed in each role with you into the next one. Whatever that is in your situation, be sure to share suggestions with higher-ups receptive to such suggestions. They may not have thought about something from the unique perspective that your background in different areas might bring.