legal recruiters Archives

Veteran Legal Recruiters Make Good Hires

Hiring the right employee is crucial to any business’s success, but time constraints and a lack of screening and evaluation procedures can result in a risky hire. Veteran legal recruiters, such as those working at Collier Legal Search, LLC, are highly specialized in helping legal teams source the best candidates. They use their industry knowledge to evaluate potential hires and identify warning signs that may not be obvious to the untrained eye. Why Legal Teams Make Bad Hires Legal teams sometimes make bad recruitment choices due to a lack of proper screening and evaluation processes. Often this is due to a lack of time available for the full vetting process. As the result, legal hires may be based heavily on credentials without enough regard for environmental fit and long-term potential for success. Process is Rushed to Get New Hire Working Integrating a new hire into a position can take up to 12 months. If you need a role filled immediately and don’t have anyone in the pipeline, you may rush the process without adequately vetting the candidate. No Time to Interview Potential Candidates Rushed decisions occur when your firm needs to fill a role quickly and needs more resources for pre-screening interviewees to find the best fit. Partnering with a legal recruiter helps you screen and evaluate candidates before you interview them. This reduces the time you spend interviewing since you only have to meet with the best talent for the role. It is ideal to know your legal recruiter and, more importantly, ensure your legal recruiter knows you, your legal team, and your business environment well. Candidate Pool Isn’t Large Enough Another challenge a legal team’s hiring managers face is an ever-shrinking, solid candidate pool. This may occur due to a lack of job postings, inadequate online presence, not targeting the right audience, or insufficient networking opportunities. Your legal recruiter should be able to handle all of these matters for you. The Risk of Making Bad Hires Hiring a risky candidate may be costly, and the losses may add up with the sunk time invested in onboarding, orientation, and training and the lack of productivity. A bad hire can additionally demoralize your team and harm your team’s reputation, leading to a loss of clients. High Turnover Rate According to the ABA, law firms saw a turnover rate of 23.2% for associates in 2021. A 2019 Gallup poll reported that replacing an employee costs about one-half to two times their annual salary. With high turnover, your firm pays more in recruiting and hiring expenses. You may also experience decreased productivity due to unfinished projects or disjointed client representation. Wrong Fit for Your Firm’s Culture Company culture can impact your firm’s success and increase employee retention. In a 2019 survey by Glassdoor, 22% of respondents stated that company culture was the single biggest influence on job satisfaction. Looking for candidates who apply for the job to make a difference rather than just for a paycheck is crucial. A candidate whose principles and work ethic do not align with your firm’s values can adversely impact staff engagement, lower productivity, and waste resources. Time and Money Wasted Hiring candidates without top-level qualifications can be costly. Onboarding and training a new employee can cost thousands and can take months until they are fully productive. If your candidate does not work out, that is money wasted that you could have reinvested in your brand. Advantages of Hiring A Legal Recruiting Firm Working with a recruiting firm helps you simplify the hiring process and choose the right candidate the first time. Collier Legal Search’s veteran team ensures you speak with qualified candidates to fill open positions. Recruiters are in the Business of Hiring The Collier Legal Search team has entered its 20th year of service out of our Houston, TX, office. Our staff has over a century of combined experience in the legal industry. They can match your firm’s needs with the qualifications of available applicants and proactively recruit candidates based on your firm’s specifications. Produce Qualified Candidates Our recruiting firm has access to a vast pool of applicants to help you identify qualified individuals for the role. We have a thorough understanding of the legal sector and can introduce you to candidates who may not be actively seeking employment but are a suitable match for the role. Reduce the Time Required for the Hiring Process The Collier Legal Search team screens resumes and applications to save time. We pre-select and pre-interview the most qualified candidates, allowing your firm to focus on interviewing the most promising potential hires. Hire Qualified Staff With Collier Legal Search Collier Legal Search is a Texas-based legal recruiting firm with over a century of experience in the legal staffing industry. We have the candidate network and skills to find the right hires to help your firm thrive. Contact our legal recruiting team to start the hiring process and find top-quality candidates.

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Job Search Tips for New Graduates

Blogs, Candidates / collierlegal

Are you a new law school graduate looking for your next big opportunity? If so, here are some job search tips that may help you find the perfect position. If you are a recent law graduate, your career trajectory can be determined by the experience, contacts, and reputation you gain in the first few years of your profession. The first job search after law school is often the toughest. If you have passed the bar, but don’t yet have a job secured, here are some job search tips that may help you find the perfect position: Apply to Every Law Job Opening – If you have graduated from law school and do not have a job lined up, you need to act quickly and with intensity. Do not be selective – apply to every single law opening there is. The more firms you apply, the more likely you are to get a job offer, perhaps multiple offers. Be Flexible Geographically – You need to go where the jobs are and look at areas outside your comfort zone, whether they are 50 or 1500 miles away. Regardless of where you work, you will be spending the majority of your time behind a desk so that the scenery won’t matter. Network and Talk to Everyone – Every person you speak to could know of an opportunity and become your advocate. Reach out to your professors and former employers, join your local bar association, become active on a committee and take CLE courses in the practice area. Join your alumni association and attend all upcoming undergraduate and law school functions. Part of your networking strategy should also be to reach out to a recruiter who specializes in legal placements. Creating these relationships now will serve you well into your career. Utilize the Career Services Office– Your school’s Career Services Offices should be able to provide information and assistance on everything from interview techniques to starting salary ranges. You paid for it, so be sure to take advantage of everything they have to offer! Clean up your online presence The legal industry is still very conservative. Scour through all of your social media platforms and delete profiles, pictures, and posts that an employer might consider the slightest bit questionable. Make Sure Your Materials Are Perfect – Attorneys are supposed to be detail-oriented and meticulous in handling client matters. This same attention to detail must extend to your resume, emails and professional documents. A typo or grammatical error reflects poorly on your competence, and you may be eliminated due to this alone. It is a good idea to have an outside company review your application materials. Volunteer. If you have time on your hands, volunteering is a powerful way to demonstrate your passion for the law. Look for a law-related volunteering opportunity with responsibility, since that will increase your marketability. Consider document review or contract attorney positions – For a newly minted attorney, contract work or document review can be a launching board for gaining experience and getting to know a firm’s culture. A legal staffing professional can help navigate the contract opportunities available for new graduates. Do not take a non-law job – If you give up and take a non-attorney position, trying to reenter the field will be tough. Not only will you be competing with more experienced attorneys, but also a whole new crop of enthusiastic graduates. Your chance of securing a full-time position at a law firm declines precipitously with every day you spend outside the field. Let the experts at Colliers Legal Search help you put your best foot forward. From the initial contact to the final interview, we work with our candidates every step of the way. We are a full-service legal staffing company that specializes in placing well-credentialed partners, associates and legal professionals at every level in law firms and corporations. Follow our blog for additional job search tips. Apply now to be considered for our open positions.

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