Preparing for the Thaw
By Linda Green Pierce
Lawyers actively seeking a new position, or just trying to get a peek at the market for future, ask me daily: "How is it going?" None of them really expect to see the multi-listings of positions on our web site. Nor do they get those cold calls from headhunters they used to be too busy to answer, but now confess that they'd enjoy to receive.
I can at last report that I'm starting to see and feel a bit of a thaw in the market. This stems from calls from past clients asking about availability of certain practice candidates. This stems from calls from corporate clients indicating a change or departure in their corporate department. Indeed, I will be posting a new General Counsel role for a financial services and investment company in the next 10 days. This is an exciting new challenge for me after such a static hiring time almost this entire year. And I know I'll have hundreds of interested applicants, only a small percentage of which will actually match the role requirements. I've also had a couple of inquiry calls (outside of the NW market) about finding replacement attorneys (with no need for practice portfolio) for retiring Boomer partners. And, lastly, my national counterpart recruiters have sent notices of available positions they are working on in other parts of the country.
All good you say? I'm with you; I'm excited, too. But the warning about the thaw is this. Even if recruitment and hiring get back to a busy level in 2010, it will not be as it was '
before'.
Client law firms and corporate legal departments have downsized because of lack of work, but they also used the recession to eliminate hires made hastily in prior robust times. As to those eliminated employees, the employers primarily speak about candidates who did not fit their culture, who did not "play well with others", or those employees brought only legal practice specialty expertise to the table. They cite that hires who did not work out did not bring business sense, awareness-of-politics sense or team-building sense. Finding candidates with other than pure legal skills will be a focus in interviews this go round. Employers will dig deep to find out what other skills and attributes candidates offer and if they can truly "do" what they "say" on their resume.
Consequently, you will see both law firms and corporate legal departments taking a longer look at future hires. It bodes well for recruiters because of this type of vetting we're known for. It's what we do. As a candidate, you should expect this:
1. Hiring entities taking much longer to hire and seeing more candidates or simply waiting until Ms. or Mr. Perfect comes their way. In other words, no urgency to the hire.
2. Corporations and law firms asking that you interview with them three to six or seven times. They want more buy in.
3. Corporations, and some law firms, requiring finalist candidates to take psychological profile testing. I have one client who does this with the entire finalist slate of candidates not just the final finalist.
4. Corporations, and a few law firms, rechecking all references and schools, etc. through a third-party company, in addition to the references they or a recruiter may do.
5. Clients will have their human resources people recheck resumes for falsifications or content drift. New technology methods allow employers and recruiters to look at data provided by candidates over years and determine if the information remains consistent or not. There will also be more numbers of references required.
6. Employers may Google you or check social networks. Presentation and consistency are important here, too.
The thaw is coming, but just as following an ice storm and the melting aftermath, the path may be slippery, requiring preparation and patience.
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