How easy is it for you to fill vacancies in your legal department? Maybe it’s time to review your recruiting strategy! Generally, it can take up to 4 to 6 months on average, to fill a position as there are nowhere near enough qualified lawyers to cover the demand.
What is Legal Recruiting?
Let’s start with the definition of legal recruiting. Legal recruiting describes the art and skill of finding and contracting suitable candidates for open positions in the legal field. To do this, companies can use direct recruiting channels (such as a job advertisement) or indirect recruiting channels (such as a recruitment agency). What sounds so simple actually involves many levels of action and requires differentiated processes from the company or law firm’s side.
This is what legal recruiting means in reality:
- Legal recruiting requires companies to invest a lot of time and money.
- Legal recruiting is a process that begins long before the job is advertised and does not end even after the position has been successfully filled – status “ongoing”.
- Legal recruiting involves the development of a pool of strong candidates, market analyses and the cultivation of in-depth relationships (networking). You also need an integral personnel strategy that is not only externally focused on new talent, but also internally focused on existing employees.
Legal recruiting is a big challenge for many employers today. 3 factors play a role here:
- Lack of candidates: there are fewer and fewer candidates for more and more vacant positions – a classic candidate market. This situation is exacerbated by the high, often justified, demands of employers. Law requires excellence in many areas. For this reason, applicants below a certain grade point average (or without a double VB, experience abroad or further qualifications) are dropped from the search radar from the get go.
- Applicants have high expectations: companies aren’t the only ones who know exactly what they want. Candidates themselves are also scrutinising potential employers. What is becoming increasingly decisive for applicants is a modern, digital working environment with automated processes.
- Lack of visibility even if the mutual demands are balanced, many companies find it difficult to attract young legal talent. The reason: they are simply not perceived as potential or attractive employers. Their HR marketing and recruiting channels lack reach. Or they have not done their homework in the area of employer branding.
Implementing lean recruitment:
Lean recruitment involves simplifying the hiring process to focus on what really matters. This approach involves adopting an agile methodology, allowing recruiters to continuously refine their strategies based on immediate feedback. It’s a way to stay adaptable in a constantly changing job market.
This strategy is about making every step in the hiring process count. Recruiters become more dynamic and responsive in their communication with candidates, ensuring that interactions are not just frequent but also meaningful. In this method, each action taken during the recruitment cycle is deliberate and aimed at one primary goal: securing the very best talent.
Conclusion…
Legal recruitment is a complex landscape, full of competition.
To succeed, firms must synthesize advanced recruitment strategies that are innovative, data-driven, and deeply human!
As we look into the future, the next wave in legal hiring will be characterised by attention to detail, backed by conscious efforts towards making recruitment delightful for the candidates.
