Situation #1-If you are a recent college graduate who graduated with a Bachelors Degree from a top school AND your GPA is 3.5 or higher, you are probably in one of the best positions to get a junior paralegal position. Having your Bachelors Degree and an ABA approved paralegal certificate is probably the best position to be in.  

A lot of the larger law firms look for recent college graduates from top schools to train as paralegals. This does not apply for those people who only have an ABA paralegal certificate. If you are one of these people with a recent Bachelors Degree and ABA certificate, I highly encourage you to apply directly to some of the top firms such as Latham & Watkins, O'Melveny & Meyers etc... These types of paralegal candidates are the type that recruiters can probably be the best resource for.

Situation #2-If you are a recent graduate of an ABA approved paralegal program, but DO NOT have prior legal experience, a recruiter is probably not the best resource for you until you get a minimum of one to two years of experience. What you can do to find a job after graduating from paralegal school is to get to as many networking events as possible and try to get any law firm experience even if it is working for a small firm or doing pro-bono work. You may even want to go through and find attorneys and small law firms through Linkedin.com or Martindale Hubbell. You can then call these attorneys directly and offer your services to these attorneys or firms at a reduced rate in order to get on the job experience.

Situation #3-If you are a recent graduate of an ABA approved paralegal program AND you do have recent law firm experience, you can often leverage that experience to find a "hybrid" paralegal position where you can do paralegal AND secretarial work or paralegal AND records etc... Sometimes you might even be able to land a paralegal position directly out of paralegal school depending on how substantive your prior legal experience was. Having recent law firm experience can make it a lot easier for you to find a paralegal position once you graduate.

Situation #4-If you are a recent graduate of an ABA approved paralegal program and you are changing careers, you can sometimes parlay your prior experience into a new position. For example, if you are coming from a real estate company and looking to become a paralegal, that can often be one of the easiest transitions for a career change. A lot of law firms will look at recent paralegal program graduates if they have prior commercial real estate experience and/or title and survey review experience. This can also be true of other areas of law such as corporate law and intellectual property law. If you do have experience in another field, outside of legal, you may want to add a "Summary of Qualifications" to the top of your resume and bullet point your relevant paralegal related experience at the top such as research, writing etc... Also, you want to make sure and leverage your other corporate connections and use the people in your network to help you get a position.

I hope this information is helpful for you and wish you the best of luck in your job hunt!