Recruitment in Legal Technology
Recruitment!
Recruitment, from the perspective of a Recruitment Consultant is likely to seem biased. In the era of recruiter-bashing we hear a huge amount of negative press around recruiters ranging from “a consultant called me at work and I’m in an open-plan office” through to “I wish all recruiters were dead”.
The reality of the situation is that very little appears on LinkedIn about how a recruiter may have helped someone into an awesome role where they earn more money and feel a greater deal of job satisfaction than they did previously. I’m going to call this the TripAdvisor affect, as I think people are much quicker to broadcast their dissatisfaction than they are to take the time out and write a positive review. In many ways I think websites like TripAdvisor and GlassDoor are inherently flawed as they will always paint a negative picture of a situation that is, for many, a positive experience.
I have been recruiting people for jobs in eDiscovery and Forensics (and more recently Legal Project Management) over the last 4 years and feel blessed that I get to work in a role that is both flexible and rewarding. I’m a complete addict when it comes to the rush of making a placement but even on my quieter days I enjoy speaking to both my clients and candidates, and they teach me new things every day of the week.
For those who think that recruiters are lazy let me lay out just a few of:
Our Daily Tasks:
Business Development – mapping the market and driving relationships with new clients
Candidate Management – making both mental and physical notes on everything that is going on with candidates (what stage of the process we are at currently, when they are going on holiday and can’t attend an interview etc)
Maintaining and Updating our database – things move quickly in this industry and people move from job to job and mobile numbers become extinct and we try our best to stay on top of that.
Resourcing for roles – once we are instructed by a client to work on a role we then have to go out and find the best possible people for our clients. More often than not the client will want a pink unicorn with twelve legs but we have to search high and low and sometimes if we are lucky we find them a green unicorn with four legs and it’s our responsibility to convince them that green unicorns are just as good if not better than the pink ones anyway!
Candidate and Client meetings – a lot of work is done on the phone and by email but we all make an effort to go out and meet our candidates and are often called into client meetings or ‘briefings’ to discuss new roles, what they’re looking for and potential pain points.
Refreshing LinkedIn over and over and over and over – LinkedIn has become one of the key tools in a recruiters arsenal and I always find it exciting when I come across a candidate who isn’t on LinkedIn as it potentially means that they are not going to be working with three other recruiters. For all of its bad points, LinkedIn is an excellent tool for finding candidates and keeping an eye on what jobs are being posted by various companies in our industry.
Being PA to both our Clients and Candidates – I cannot begin to describe the amount of work involved in managing the schedules of both clients and candidates whose diaries often don’t match up and require constant re-booking of interviews, chasing up on feedback, requesting updates on the process, booking in technical tests, scheduling calls between Dubai and London etc.
Negotiating the best deal possible – to set the story straight, recruiters fees come out of a separate ‘recruitment budget’ and companies engage with us because we can save them money in terms of their own man hours that would be required otherwise. Recruitment fees do not, I repeat do not come out of a candidates potential salary. That being said, we do earn our commission based on what you are offered and we will always ensure you get the best deal possible and we will negotiate a package on your behalf (after consulting with you of course!)