Articles From the Team
Recruiting clients: the importance of a thorough client brief (with the right stakeholders)
To every recruiting client: please don’t ask us to find you the perfect lawyer for your business without dedicating the time to brief us properly.
Some of you who are reading this will have no idea what I’m talking about; to you, it’s common sense that if you’re looking to outsource the hiring and sourcing of a specific individual to join and work in your team, it’s imperative to spend time discussing the requirements in full, and answering questions from industry experts that are involved in the market every day.
What often happens though, especially in some larger companies, is that the stakeholder will instruct their internal HR/recruitment team who then instruct the recruiter. No problem so far… but in the majority of cases, the recruitment team aren’t in a position to answer all of our questions as ultimately, in most cases, they’re not the end-user or core hirer for the legal role.
The lawyers we’re asked to source for the businesses we work with are nearly always already in employment. Therefore, they don’t need a job. What they’re looking for is the next career opportunity.
In addition, the in-house lawyers we work with already work with some of the best and most well-known companies in the UK. Therefore, the size or pedigree of your company isn’t always a primary selling point as a potential lawyer candidate will probably have this already.
What is of interest is: why are you recruiting a lawyer (if it’s a first-time appointment), and how will this opportunity help to develop their career?
The greatest aspect of working with businesses in their hiring of in-house lawyers is that every single piece of recruitment is different. Depending on the sector, size of the company, board, management team, legal team, areas of work and culture (the list goes on), the role of the lawyer will vary.
HR/recruitment are good at providing an overview of the requirement, and the culture of the business, but often don’t have enough detailed information on the day-to-day activity and the ‘how’ a lawyer is used within the business. I’m not looking to be disparaging to the professionals that I deal with every day – often the best HR/recruitment teams recognise where they add value to a process, but at the same time, know when other stakeholders are required to invest their time and effort.
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Every second blog from the in-house legal recruitment team at BCL Legal is about how hard the candidate lawyer market is right now – with supply low and demand high. The better informed we are as to the role and cultural fit required, the stronger we are in selling your opportunity. Without the correct information, all we’re doing is pushing a job description around, which very rarely ends in success.
Invest the time with your recruiter of choice and I can promise you that this will pay dividends further down the line.