3 Tips to Help You Find the Best Legal Talent This Hiring Season

 

• As hiring season within the legal world ramps up, some firms are finding that their recruiting procedures aren’t making the cut.
• Instead of bringing the best legal talent possible, mediocre candidates are showing up inside your law firm’s waiting area.
• What might be the problem you ask yourself?
• Look first to your recruiting process with the following 3 tips in mind.

 
We all know March through June is the most active window for recruiting at the professional level across mostly all disciplines.

Appearing on the website Corporate Counsel, the article It's Hiring Season! Now Is the Best Time to Find Talent reveals that legal recruiters are currently engaged to fill a broad range of open in-house positions.

The reason March through June is the most active window for recruiting at the professional level has to do with timing.

As the article states, bonuses for 2018 have been paid, budget for 2019 and headcount numbers are mostly in place, and candidates with children can reasonably target end of the school year for moves that involve relocation.

Decidedly, if you are a general counsel with a position to fill in your department, now is the best time to get your legal talent search underway. What you first need to do however is employ these 3 tactics to ensure your law firm gets the best recruits available for its open positions.
 

1. Own the openings.

If you manage an HR department within a larger law firm that utilizes internal recruiters, you need to make certain that you have full control over the open position(s) that you are trying to fill.

Strong HR departments usually insist on self-sourcing to avoid external recruiting cost. If this is the case with your HR department, you must play an active role in the entire recruiting process.

Review resumes early and make a solid effort to help your internal recruiters with recommendations. Don’t forget to actively network by using your contacts in other law firms to find potential candidates.
 

2. Pay attention to timing.

Timing matters when hiring legal recruits.

Whether your HR department partners with internal recruiters or a legal search firm, you should calendar a weekly update call or email to stay on top of the recruiting process.

It should take a competent recruiter only a couple of weeks to determine if you will have a quality selection of people to recruit from. That same competent recruiter will also know if any challenges exist that needs addressing during your recruiting procedure.

Double check to make certain your recruiter is discussing critical issues like compensation early on with the candidates;it is important to eliminate any disconnects, particularly salary-wise, once you get to the point of issuing an offer to a candidate.

Try to understand what motivates the candidate with who you are interested so you can avoid candidates who are just testing the water from those whom you are likely to turn into successful hires.
 

3. Engage in a healthy search.

In the legal recruiting world, a healthy search can get the recruiting process off to a very fast start.

Momentum and enthusiasm matter simply because interviewing can be taxing, especially on the person to whom the new hire will report.

You are as the hiring manager, ultimately become the most important recruiter, and because of that you should project the most enthusiasm and energy of any of your recruiters, especially during the first handful of interviews.

Searches that drag on, halt completely or need to re-start from scratch can result in frustrations that the recruiter projects onto the candidates. This, of course, can backfire as the best crop of candidates will be inclined to question why your department has struggled to fill its positions.
 
Conclusion

Many law firms seem to approach hiring season with trepidation. They are uncertain of the quality of recruits they bring in, and because of that, they fear their recruiting process might be hampering the overall progression of the hiring process.

Foolproof your hiring process and have regular interactions with your recruiters to make sure all of you are on the same page.

If you want the best legal candidates possible, your law firm’s hiring procedures need to utilize the best practices possible.

For more information, look into these articles:
 

• How and Why Do Law Firms Die, And What Can You as a Lawyer Do About It
• Are Your Law Firm Leaders Truly Leaders?
• The Parent/Legal Trap: The Challenges of Being Both a Parent and a Lawyer