May 7, 2012 In Career Change, Interview Questions, On The Wire, Tips

Think recruiters can help you? Think again!

This is the toughest job market in 75 years, yet (allegedly) intelligent attorneys are being just plain stupid when it comes to their job search strategies.

If they want to remain ignorant fools, that’s their business – they can stay miserable in their jobs or watch themselves sink slowly into insolvency because they can’t find other work. Hopefully you are not like these poor schnooks — if you are smart enough to be reading this, then perhaps you really do want to make a positive change in your career.

I am a legal recruiter and job search coach who has talked with about 1,000 lawyers a year for the last 20+ years. Most of these attorneys are clueless about what recruiters can do for them. They don’t have faintest idea about what constitutes a “recruitable” candidate.

What I am about to tell you does not apply to executive recruiters, but most certainly does apply to legal recruiters. Go to Lawjobs.com or any other job site for lawyers, spend five minutes reading the postings, and you will see that what I am telling you is true.

In my practice, we started as career counselors, and eventually added recruiting to our services. As with any legal recruiters, we get 20-30% of a candidate’s first year salary as our fee. If you are in the $125,000 range and we place you, we will receive from $25,000 to $37,500. If we were to work with you on career testing and assessment to identify your career options, we would receive from $1,300 to $2,900 for the testing and evaluation, depending upon how many hours were involved in your testing program.

I am not stupid. Don’t you think I would rather make $25,000 for putting in the 20 to 30 hours so hours it would take me to find, screen and submit a candidate, than to make less than $3,000 for spending 12-14 hours on a career counseling case? Hello?

However, most of the people who call us are not recruitable candidates. We are able to help the few who are, and they make it economically possible for us to continue as counselors for those who are not. Truth be known, we actually prefer the counseling side so we are happy with this arrangement.

Here are the realities of the legal recruiting profession.

1. Legal recruiters are used by firms and companies to find candidates who exactly match the specifications of an open job, and who have the requisite practice area skills and experience. Recruiters will not submit, for example, a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney for a commercial litigation position.

2. The prime market for legal recruiters is young lawyers with from 1 to 6 years of experience. Once you have crossed the 7th or 8th year mark, you are no longer considered “recruitable.”

3. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if you are beyond your 7th or 8th year, you can be recruitable IF you have a verifiable book of portable business. Depending upon where you live, this typically means $175,000 to $1 million.

4. The term “top academics” will appear in many recruiter ads. This means 1) top 10% or 15% of your law school class and  2) Top 10, 15 or 20 law school. If you were in the very top of your class – I mean, first, second or third — at a lesser ranked law school, you may also be considered.

5. Age matters in legal recruiting. Discrimination is, in fact, legal. A recruiter friend of mine who wanted my help in finding a candidate told me they wanted someone from the class of 2006, 2007 or 2009. “What about 2008”, I asked. “Oh no, no 2008s. They don’t have any slots for an ’08,” I was told.

6. Recruiters do not handle many in-house jobs. Two recent studies have shown that only 5% of in-house positions are filled by recruiters. Companies do not want to spend money on recruiters unless they have to. Nearly all law firm lawyers would prefer to go in-house. There is an oversupply of willing candidates that a company can attract without spending tens of thousands of dollars on recruiting fees.

7. When recruiters do get in–house assignments, it is almost always for an attorney with very specific skill sets in a particular discipline: SEC ’34 and ’36 Act, ERISA, pharmaceutical patents, FCC regulations and so on. They seldom use recruiters to find generalists.

8. Most often when a legal recruiter does get an in-house assignment, the hiring company wants a candidate with prior in-house experience. I think this is stupid, quite frankly, but it is what it is. As a career counselor, I once helped a law firm attorney land a position as a corporate general counsel. He then hired me as a recruiter to help staff his legal department. Like so many others, he only wanted attorneys with in-house experience. “But Bill,” I said, “you didn’t have any in-house experience when they hired you.” “Yes,” he replied, “but that was different.”  OK, sure.

9. Recruiters are salespeople who are only interested in getting a fee. They do not care about your best interests, they care about their bank accounts. There is nothing wrong with this! They are paid to find people to fill positions. If you match one of their open positions, recruiters will try to get you to accept a job that you don’t really want so they can earn a commission. You are just a fee to them.

10. If you are at a career crossroads and are not sure what you want to do next professionally, recruiters cannot help you. Recruiters are not career counselors. They are not schooled in career assessment. They are not marketing professionals or trained resume writers. Most legal recruiters – in fact, every legal recruiter I have ever met – are former attorneys. They are deal-makers who try to find candidates who match an employer’s job specification.

Like many lawyers, you probably want to see “what else is out there” for you that is not another law firm job, that  frees you from the nastiness of litigation and billable hours requirements, and that provides a more collegial atmosphere, better quality of life, and a consistent income. If you expect to achieve this through a legal recruiter, then good luck! I wish you all possible success. Stranger things have happened and you might get lucky – but probably not.

As an attorney, you are smart enough not to take on cases outside of your area of legal expertise; you refer the case to other lawyers who are more qualified in that area than you. Don’t expect legal recruiters  to give you good counsel and assistance on issues that are not within their practice areas and which are outside their expertise.

March 19, 2012 In On The Wire

Will You be a Job Search Winner or Loser?

There are good ways and not-so- good ways for doing a job search. Is your campaign going to be successful or is it going to languish? Here are a few questions to help you decide.

 

1) Do you have a Unique Selling Proposition? Why are you a better candidate than someone with similar experience? If you lack a clear “brand strategy,” your search will drag and you’ll miss out on interviews..

 

2) Do you have a well-defined Marketing Plan with targeted employers, decision-makers, daily search tasks and ways to reach companies directly? If you have not, you are trusting to luck.

 

3) Are you being creative in your  campaign?  If you are merely posting your resume on the web, talking with recruiters and doing some networking, you are missing out on 80% of the available positions.

 

4) Do you have a strategy for tapping the Hidden Job Market? Old-fashioned networking and job search methods will not get you there. If you are not ahead of the curve, you are behind it!

 

5) Does your resume show accomplishments or just duties? Your competitors have the same duties as you. If your resume isn’t showing results you have produced, you are under-representing yourself.

 

6) Do you have a compelling telephone introduction when calling employers? If  your plan is simply to ask if they have seen your resume, your chances of arranging an interview are minimal.

 

7) Are you sending resumes to companies that are not advertising openings? Only 7% of jobs are advertised. If a company wants to dump an employee, they don’t advertise that person’s job! Hello!?

 

February 21, 2010 In On The Wire

Hundreds Attend NYS Bar Career Conference

CSI’s switchboard is jammed!

Hundreds of attorneys attended the New York State Bar Association’s annual career conference held in New York City on January 25, 2010. Many hundreds more participated in the event, which was simulcast on the web.

Career Strategies founder Bruce Blackwell was one of several panelists. His presentation contained solid information about job search methods and issues in this shaky economy. As a result, the switchboard at Career

Strategies has been overloaded with calls.

“The response has been much more than gratifying,” said Mr. Blackwell, who added that because of the volume of calls and emails that have been flooding in, “it has been hard for us to get back to everyone as quickly as we would like.” He asks callers and emailers to please be patient, and assures them that their inquiries will be followed up as quickly as possible.

Other panelists included Dr. Leslie Seppinni, Author of Excuse Free Living; Kelly Hoey, White and Case, Manager of Alumni Relations; and Elena F. Kaspi, President and Founder of LawScope Coaching. NYSBA Webmaster Barbara Beauchamp also made a highly informative presentation about how to use NYSBAs social networking tools.

This is the fourth time the New York State Bar has held a career conference, and the second to which Mr. Blackwell was invited to speak. The event was chaired by Lauren Wachtler, Chairperson of the Lawyers in Transition Committee.

The day consisted of three hours of formal presentations by the speakers, and then two more hours of Q&A from the audience.

“I was honored to be asked again to speak before the New York State Bar Association’s members,” said Blackwell. “The panelists presented truly outstanding information about how to navigate through these difficult times, and the audience asked some excellent questions covering the whole range of job search and career development issues.”

For those who could not attend, or who would like to see the presentations again, the full program is available on the internet through the NYSBA website.