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To begin with, an often nebulous need has to be qualified and quantified. The need may arise as a consequence of new business, either a new business line entirely or the demands of a new client, creating a need for more resource which needs to be satisfied quickly and effectively, with fee-earners who can hit the ground running.
Alternatively, the need may arise out of a desire in the firm to extend its business. This may take the form of winning more profitable business, improving the client base or achieving presence or dominance in a particular market sector or segment. Often, it will be necessary to reshape the practice in order to achieve this, perhaps removing underperforming or intransigent individuals who may be a block to development before you begin to recruit new people.
Very often, recruitment is needed to add critical mass to a practice. This is particularly true in areas such as corporate and property where larger teams are needed to undertake sizeable deals quickly. This is the one of the most common areas of recruitment and the one where law firms often have inflated expectations of what they are able to achieve. See Attracting The Best Candidate for more discussion of this point.
The end point of the exercise should remain clear at all times: the creation of a recruitment 'context' which is easy for recruiters to sell and attractive to potential candidates. It may be that this entails a thorough strategic review and reorganisation of the department. Although this is beyond the scope of this piece, see First Counsel Consulting for more information on strategic management and business re-engineering.
Whoever this sponsor is, they must be accessible and clear about what they are trying to achieve. They must have all the necessary information at their fingertips and be able to act with authority. This is particularly important where partner recruitment is concerned.
In partner recruitment, the first step is to make sure that the partnership as a whole is on board. There is nothing worse for all parties to go down the track with a partner only for the whole thing to fall apart when the recruitment is blocked at management level.
This is also the stage where partners need to involve HR professionals - if appropriate - in recruitment. Early consultation can avoid horrible and embarrassing situations further down the line. An HR director will be able to take an overview and make sure that the process is managed properly to the benefit of all concerned.
At this stage, if you do have an HR director or manager, it is useful to decide what the interview process is going to entail, who are going to be the interviewers and who is going to handle all the paperwork.
This is not just to avoid administrative mistakes and delays. Sloppy administration of recruitment looks bad from a candidate point of view and sends all the wrong signals. If you are trying to woo someone, the last thing you want to do is appear slow, disorganised or lukewarm.
It is important that everyone understands what is going on in the broadest sense, not least so that any misunderstandings are nipped in the bud and that people do not feel unduly threatened by the new recruit.
Law firms are particularly bad at doing this, perhaps confusing explaining strategy and direction with actually deciding strategy and direction (businesses are not democracies, after all, and should not be run as such) or thinking that they need to keep things secret so that their competitors do not realise they are recruiting.
This is very wrong-headed, not least because the moment a recruiter mentions to one of their candidates that a firm is recruiting, that fact is 'out in the market'. If the department head is trying to keep the recruitment secret from the team, this can lead to some very ugly scenes when, say, an assistant finds out from their best friend that the firm is, unbeknownst to her, recruiting at her level. Trust is broken and all manner of political firefights can break out.
The only exception to this is in highly-sensitive situations where an individual is underperforming or difficult (eg a senior or longstanding partner with key client relationships but who may be a bad manager and impossible to recruit a team around) and the firm takes a strategic decision to replace them.
Many firms, rather than actually trying to bite the bullet and deal with the situation via proper performance review procedures, decide to recruit alongside or above the person's head.
This is tricky to get away with and, some may say, somewhat unethical. However, in very limited circumstances - eg with equity partners who cannot be removed short of some arcane partnership procedures - firms do seem to get away with it. Be aware, though, that this kind of tactic can be a cause of action in unfair dismissal or partnership disputes, so connive at your peril...
On a separate note, it is also worth cross-checking your own team's cvs before you start sifting candidates for interview. It may be that a quiet word with one of your team could prevent a mistaken recruitment or even uncover a longstanding enmity which could cause problems if a particular individual is recruited.
Letting your competitors know that you are recruiting is not such a bad thing either. After all, they may want to come and join you! Otherwise, they will at least be impressed that you are growing or reinforcing your current offering. Strangely, lawyers seem to sometimes think that if they are recruiting, this is a weakness, perhaps indicating 'holes' in the practice. If this is your thinking, perhaps you need to think more generally about how you are going to present a confident picture in the market when you are clearly feeling insecure about the business. Displaying that insecurity is a weakness. Recruiting new people is never a weak thing to do, whatever the underlying reason.
Many firms take the attitude that the best way to do this is to invite as many recruiters as they can to a general briefing, usually after work, perhaps with drinks and canapes.
The reasoning behind this is quite simple: partners (the key people for the brief) are busy people and this kills numerous birds with one stone. Recruiters do not favour these meetings. They will come along smiling, sure, but they would prefer not to be there with their competitors. Why?
Basically, recruitment is an incredibly competitive industry in which the slightest advantage, in extra knowledge or early timing can mean the difference between making a fee and not making one. The all-recruiter briefing (recruiters call them 'circuses') inveigh against this.
You certainly will achieve the purpose of letting the recruiters see the partners, but it is unlikely that they will get to spend any time with them and will certainly not ask any question which will result in anything substantive by way of an answer. As the answer to any question will be heard by all the recruiters, its value to them is neutral.
It is important to remember what you are trying to achieve with a briefing to recruiters: you need to get your message across as distinctly as possible - sell to the recruiters so that they, in turn, can sell to candidates.
At an all-recruiter briefing, the message is neutralised and the recruiters do not feel particularly special. What will happen is that recruiters will use it as an opportunity to score points off one another or to try to impress you in front of their competitors, but they will not go away feeling they have learned very much, and, unless they have managed to get a partner on their own for a few minutes, nothing of special advantage to them.
If you are going to do this, remember to field partners who are going to put you in the best light, those who are charismatic, good at public-speaking and fielding questions. Impress recruiters with decent supporting materials to take away (also important so that they are listening to your partners speak, rather than frantically scribbling notes) and consider the details such as how they are greeted and the quality of the canapés and drinks on offer, both which can let the presentation down slightly if not up to scratch.
Individual briefings are the best idea. This will tell the recruiters that you are serious about the job at hand ie willing to commit proper time to it. It will also give the recruiters a chance to obtain some unique information and to impress you as to the individuality of their approach.
If partner-time really is that difficult to get, or perhaps you are just 'refreshing' an earlier instruction, then a cannier idea is to invite your three or four preferred recruiters, perhaps to a breakfast briefing (or afternoon tea). Lunch is generally not a good idea, as people will want to take notes, which is always tricky at lunch.
This latter briefing will not discomfit recruiters as much as the Circus and allow them to impress as individuals, as well as reminding them of the competition and the need to get their skates on: this time, however, the competition is healthy, probably only really two or three peers whom they will usually respect, if not like.
Make sure you make your briefings, however you do them, open and honest, not ducking difficult questions. Give recruiters something to go away with in the way of a briefing document they can use, or better still, email it to them so that they can cut and paste it onto their database. Brochures, while they may seem like a good idea, will most likely just be gathering dust six months later, unread, on the recruiter's shelf.
See Attracting The Best Candidates for more on the talent pool and The Recruitment Process for advice on how to go about recruiting. See also The Candidate Experience for advice on how to give yourself the best chance of getting the candidate once you have found them.
Getting ready to recruit
Strategic recruitment is one of the most vital areas of running any business. Get it right, and your business will grow beyond your wildest dreams. Get it wrong, and it can be a nightmare, stunting business growth and, at its extreme, causing an entire department to collapse.Preparation: identifying strategic priorities
Part of the problem is that most firms are not set up to think strategically. Preparing the ground is one of the trickiest things to get right.To begin with, an often nebulous need has to be qualified and quantified. The need may arise as a consequence of new business, either a new business line entirely or the demands of a new client, creating a need for more resource which needs to be satisfied quickly and effectively, with fee-earners who can hit the ground running.
Alternatively, the need may arise out of a desire in the firm to extend its business. This may take the form of winning more profitable business, improving the client base or achieving presence or dominance in a particular market sector or segment. Often, it will be necessary to reshape the practice in order to achieve this, perhaps removing underperforming or intransigent individuals who may be a block to development before you begin to recruit new people.
Very often, recruitment is needed to add critical mass to a practice. This is particularly true in areas such as corporate and property where larger teams are needed to undertake sizeable deals quickly. This is the one of the most common areas of recruitment and the one where law firms often have inflated expectations of what they are able to achieve. See Attracting The Best Candidate for more discussion of this point.
The end point of the exercise should remain clear at all times: the creation of a recruitment 'context' which is easy for recruiters to sell and attractive to potential candidates. It may be that this entails a thorough strategic review and reorganisation of the department. Although this is beyond the scope of this piece, see First Counsel Consulting for more information on strategic management and business re-engineering.
Sponsoring the recruitment
From a recruiter's perspective, it is important that there is an identifiable sponsor or leader for the recruitment. This is often, but not always, the department or group head. Very often, in areas of specific recruitment, it may be more sensible to have a specialist partner (who the recruit will most probably work most closely with) lead the recruitment. Where there is a senior HR professional present, having them fronting the recruitment can avoid many of the usual pitfalls.Whoever this sponsor is, they must be accessible and clear about what they are trying to achieve. They must have all the necessary information at their fingertips and be able to act with authority. This is particularly important where partner recruitment is concerned.
In partner recruitment, the first step is to make sure that the partnership as a whole is on board. There is nothing worse for all parties to go down the track with a partner only for the whole thing to fall apart when the recruitment is blocked at management level.
This is also the stage where partners need to involve HR professionals - if appropriate - in recruitment. Early consultation can avoid horrible and embarrassing situations further down the line. An HR director will be able to take an overview and make sure that the process is managed properly to the benefit of all concerned.
At this stage, if you do have an HR director or manager, it is useful to decide what the interview process is going to entail, who are going to be the interviewers and who is going to handle all the paperwork.
This is not just to avoid administrative mistakes and delays. Sloppy administration of recruitment looks bad from a candidate point of view and sends all the wrong signals. If you are trying to woo someone, the last thing you want to do is appear slow, disorganised or lukewarm.
Explaining the strategy internally
It is crucial to explain the strategy internally first, with one possible exception, which we will come to later.It is important that everyone understands what is going on in the broadest sense, not least so that any misunderstandings are nipped in the bud and that people do not feel unduly threatened by the new recruit.
Law firms are particularly bad at doing this, perhaps confusing explaining strategy and direction with actually deciding strategy and direction (businesses are not democracies, after all, and should not be run as such) or thinking that they need to keep things secret so that their competitors do not realise they are recruiting.
This is very wrong-headed, not least because the moment a recruiter mentions to one of their candidates that a firm is recruiting, that fact is 'out in the market'. If the department head is trying to keep the recruitment secret from the team, this can lead to some very ugly scenes when, say, an assistant finds out from their best friend that the firm is, unbeknownst to her, recruiting at her level. Trust is broken and all manner of political firefights can break out.
The only exception to this is in highly-sensitive situations where an individual is underperforming or difficult (eg a senior or longstanding partner with key client relationships but who may be a bad manager and impossible to recruit a team around) and the firm takes a strategic decision to replace them.
Many firms, rather than actually trying to bite the bullet and deal with the situation via proper performance review procedures, decide to recruit alongside or above the person's head.
This is tricky to get away with and, some may say, somewhat unethical. However, in very limited circumstances - eg with equity partners who cannot be removed short of some arcane partnership procedures - firms do seem to get away with it. Be aware, though, that this kind of tactic can be a cause of action in unfair dismissal or partnership disputes, so connive at your peril...
Recruitment as a marketing tool
The benefits of explaining your strategy internally are not just avoiding political disputes and structural problems, but actively positive, enhancing morale (most people like to be part of a thriving, growing business) and allowing your team, who after all will have friends in other firms, to act as a marketing asset for you. They may even spot potential candidates for you, or, if they know the people, can give a very positive boost to your campaign with those candidates you are interviewing.On a separate note, it is also worth cross-checking your own team's cvs before you start sifting candidates for interview. It may be that a quiet word with one of your team could prevent a mistaken recruitment or even uncover a longstanding enmity which could cause problems if a particular individual is recruited.
Letting your competitors know that you are recruiting is not such a bad thing either. After all, they may want to come and join you! Otherwise, they will at least be impressed that you are growing or reinforcing your current offering. Strangely, lawyers seem to sometimes think that if they are recruiting, this is a weakness, perhaps indicating 'holes' in the practice. If this is your thinking, perhaps you need to think more generally about how you are going to present a confident picture in the market when you are clearly feeling insecure about the business. Displaying that insecurity is a weakness. Recruiting new people is never a weak thing to do, whatever the underlying reason.
Briefing recruiters
It is important to brief recruiters properly as to your needs.Many firms take the attitude that the best way to do this is to invite as many recruiters as they can to a general briefing, usually after work, perhaps with drinks and canapes.
The reasoning behind this is quite simple: partners (the key people for the brief) are busy people and this kills numerous birds with one stone. Recruiters do not favour these meetings. They will come along smiling, sure, but they would prefer not to be there with their competitors. Why?
Basically, recruitment is an incredibly competitive industry in which the slightest advantage, in extra knowledge or early timing can mean the difference between making a fee and not making one. The all-recruiter briefing (recruiters call them 'circuses') inveigh against this.
You certainly will achieve the purpose of letting the recruiters see the partners, but it is unlikely that they will get to spend any time with them and will certainly not ask any question which will result in anything substantive by way of an answer. As the answer to any question will be heard by all the recruiters, its value to them is neutral.
It is important to remember what you are trying to achieve with a briefing to recruiters: you need to get your message across as distinctly as possible - sell to the recruiters so that they, in turn, can sell to candidates.
At an all-recruiter briefing, the message is neutralised and the recruiters do not feel particularly special. What will happen is that recruiters will use it as an opportunity to score points off one another or to try to impress you in front of their competitors, but they will not go away feeling they have learned very much, and, unless they have managed to get a partner on their own for a few minutes, nothing of special advantage to them.
If you are going to do this, remember to field partners who are going to put you in the best light, those who are charismatic, good at public-speaking and fielding questions. Impress recruiters with decent supporting materials to take away (also important so that they are listening to your partners speak, rather than frantically scribbling notes) and consider the details such as how they are greeted and the quality of the canapés and drinks on offer, both which can let the presentation down slightly if not up to scratch.
Individual briefings are the best idea. This will tell the recruiters that you are serious about the job at hand ie willing to commit proper time to it. It will also give the recruiters a chance to obtain some unique information and to impress you as to the individuality of their approach.
If partner-time really is that difficult to get, or perhaps you are just 'refreshing' an earlier instruction, then a cannier idea is to invite your three or four preferred recruiters, perhaps to a breakfast briefing (or afternoon tea). Lunch is generally not a good idea, as people will want to take notes, which is always tricky at lunch.
This latter briefing will not discomfit recruiters as much as the Circus and allow them to impress as individuals, as well as reminding them of the competition and the need to get their skates on: this time, however, the competition is healthy, probably only really two or three peers whom they will usually respect, if not like.
Make sure you make your briefings, however you do them, open and honest, not ducking difficult questions. Give recruiters something to go away with in the way of a briefing document they can use, or better still, email it to them so that they can cut and paste it onto their database. Brochures, while they may seem like a good idea, will most likely just be gathering dust six months later, unread, on the recruiter's shelf.
See Attracting The Best Candidates for more on the talent pool and The Recruitment Process for advice on how to go about recruiting. See also The Candidate Experience for advice on how to give yourself the best chance of getting the candidate once you have found them.