Lawyer recruitment, like probably too many other professions, has been bent out of shape by the language and practices of the recruitment industry.
We have allowed the recruitment consultancies to dictate the rules of the game. Conformity replaces imagination and sameness is safe. It is as if “relevant sector experience” was a holy grail, when in reality it should be no more than a disposable plastic cup.
We have allowed the recruiters’ collective lack of imagination to dictate how we advertise for and head-hunt talent.
In effect we have outsourced our future success and only secured the equivalent of an expensive lottery ticket with mostly average prizes.
My heart sinks when I hear General Counsel utter words such as:
“I’m looking for a good commercial lawyer, five years qualified and preferably working in telecoms.”
My heart sinks, because such uninspiring words deserve no more than they get and what they get is a recruiter who will nod thoughtfully at such thin wisdom, suck on their pencil top and use words like “cultural fit”, “dynamic thinker” and “self-starter”. (By the way, what the …. is a “self-starter”? It seems to me to be a fairly low bar to recruit someone with a pulse, no jump leads required)
A few weeks later a long-list will be generated that will include candidates who range in experience from one year to ten years, who include the odd commercial lawyer and one or two with telecoms experience. In other words they have followed the brief, such as it was, in the same way a four-year-old would decorate given a brush and pots of different coloured paints.
The General Counsel will be underwhelmed by the long list, but the recruiter will allay these concerns by talking about how it is a tough market* and we are all lucky that their extensive and expert searching has resulted in a long list of such rare quality.
(*There is no definition of what a tough market is, but I suspect many recruiters consider it to be so if they have to do more than cut and paste a list and press the send button on their laptops).
However whether or not the market is tough the General Counsel is right to be underwhelmed. Such a long-list invariably includes the nailed on safe choice (the one candidate the recruiter can claim will justify their fee) and then a motley crew of candidates that happen to be on the recruiter’s database when they looked.
I don’t want to sound too disparaging, but this is an industry that is playing a form of recruitment darts wearing a blind-fold; instead of actual darts and a dart board they are throwing candidates at jobs with some sense of direction, but zero precision. The fact one or two hit the “bulls-eye” is inevitable if enough candidates are thrown, but it is not very clever.
By the time the poor saps (I mean the self-starting, dynamic-thinking, culturally-fitting candidates) get to the short list, then the full lethargic panoply of HR inspired woo will be applied to them as well.
The potential joy of a new opportunity, a new start and a new dream will have been trampled under the slow rolling, flaccid weight of a process designed to justify the roles of others, and not to recruit and inspire talent.
We all conspire in this charade. General Counsel recruit with the thoughtfulness of a desperate addict “…one more lawyer, just one more lawyer and I’ll be fine”. Recruiters push candidates to feed the addiction, paid to supply, and not paid to justify or live with the results. The rest of us watch and shrug our shoulders, doing nothing, because there isn’t an alternative.
Or is there?
I don’t think there is an easy alternative, but I know very many candidates are unhappy, General Counsel are unhappy and even some recruiters are unhappy because they feel harshly judged when compared to the inadequacies of some of their competitors.
So here are three thoughts to suggest a different approach:
The first is a statement for a new job spec that you may not have seen before, but which might do no worse than playing darts blind-folded:
“We are looking for someone who wants to work for us, but who likes spending time with their friends and family more; someone who has made a contribution before and can do even better here. We would like you to feel comfortable quickly, but are you honest enough to tell us what you need? Don’t worry if you don’t know stuff, we can teach you, but we do want you to bring what you have learnt elsewhere and share it with us. Be ambitious to develop your contribution, but pragmatic about how you can progress. When you are ready to leave we promise that your CV will look terrific and we will be grateful for all you have done for us.”
Secondly ask your recruiter this question before they are appointed:
“How do you support unsuccessful candidates to learn from the experience and be better equipped next time they go for a new role?” (Don’t be fobbed off, get details.)
Finally, the recruitment process takes too long and has too many players. This is mostly the fault of General Counsel who should front-load their preparatory efforts and always keep HR colleagues and process in the background. General Counsel must give recruiters a sharper brief and recruiters must be prepared to explore it thoroughly before accepting it, challenging every aspect and honing the scope of what they are doing so it is clear and places unambiguous accountability on them.
So, what are you looking for?
Maybe look in a different way rather than in a different place.
Paul Gilbert
Chief Executive LBC Wise Counsel
May 2015
