Legal Jobs

Finding High Quality Legal Staff in Difficult Market Conditions - Legal Jobs
Executive Summary About Legal Jobs By Mischa Weston-Green

As more and more redundancies take place, the legal job industry is really feeling the slow down. Whilst legal job agencies have their books brimming with talented legal job seekers, law firms just don't have the legal job vacancies.

However, there is one type of legal candidate that a law firm cannot ignore - a candidate that is a proven business winner and able to add substantial value to the firm. Law firms can't afford not to create a legal job opening for this type of candidate, as legal job candidates such as these are a law firm's best asset and can often be the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful legal practice, especially at a time such as this.

But how do you find a candidate of such quality amongst the hundreds of CVs that appear on the desks of your HR department each month? The simple answer is that this type of candidate is, more often than not, the type of candidate that does not look for a new legal job opportunity; their present employer will already be showering them with love and affection, and moreover, they will be turning down plenty of legal job opportunities approaching them on a regular basis.

It takes a great sales person to persuade such a candidate to overcome their natural reluctance to even consider a new employer's opportunities, and in this situation it may be wise to employ a well-reputed and experienced legal recruitment agency to take on a head-hunting project on your behalf. A search and selection team will be familiar with this scenario and will know how best to approach it whilst advising you on how to dampen the noise from other competitors. That said, the new legal job opportunity must be a competitive and enticing proposition - if the pursuing law firm are unable to better the salary, prospects and remuneration of the candidate's present employer - using a head-hunter would be a time and money wasting exercise.

Another type of quality, business winning candidate is the unacknowledged workaholic, a fee-earner deeply submersed in their work without the time to even acknowledge whether or not they are happy in their present legal job let alone what the possibilities outside it are. Whilst these candidates are easier to persuade to move into a new legal job they are much tougher to find but should not be ignored- and again, an experienced legal recruitment agency would be able to advise you on this.

In this market place law firms and indeed legal recruitment agencies need to become much smarter with their recruitment strategies, and it really is the survival of the fittest. Legal recruitment can no longer depend on avid active candidates who reside on legal job boards, but must start to look at the relatively unopened passive candidate market in addition.