Articles From the Team

A successful recruitment process is determined by you the client

If you follow my blogs… you might have read the one recently that started: “Having met a client to discuss a new vacancy I called a female lawyer to discuss the opportunity. The role had 5 requirements, she could tick 4. When it came to making a decision on making an application she focused on what she couldn’t do as opposed to what she could! I told her if she was a man she would most probably ‘think’ the other way around!!”

Well would you believe it… she got the job! She was absolutely delighted. Her only concern came when I told her what the salary was…the 25% uplift in basic salary concerned her - was she worth this increase!!

This blog isn’t really about the above. It is more about the other aspects that came in to play with this piece of recruitment. The client was looking to fill a role with a skill base that is not readily available in their location. They could have tried trying to entice a lawyer to relocate from London but a) that is a needle in a hay stack and b) the budget they had wouldn’t have been enough to make this a plausible option.

The client asked me what to do. I suggested a lawyer who had transferable skills as well as the personality attributes that I knew would fit well within the business. My view was, recruit for the long term. It was my belief that whilst they could spend 6 months hoping for the perfect lawyer to turn up, the same time could be spent teaching and developing this person. Thankfully they agreed and two interviews later she was offered the role.

In my experience clients can make the recruitment process easy or hard for themselves. In this case they listened to my knowledge of the lawyer marketplace and managed their own expectations appropriately – which has led to a great lawyer and personality joining their business.

My colleague recently commented to me that more and more of the roles that we are working to fill need working twice… Why twice? Because clients are holding out for the ‘perfect’ recruit and by the time they have worked out that person is unlikely to exist in this candidate short market, the lawyers interviewed last month have all gone on to find another opportunity. We then need to start the search again.

Of course I would never suggest recruiting the wrong person, but in the current market the recruitment process needs to be fast paced and realistic!

For more information, please contact Mark Levine at BCL Legal.