Are You Sabotaging Your Lateral Move?
The most difficult question is not whether to use a recruiter, but rather, which one to use. Don't put your career in the hands of a novice.
Michael Allen
Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Michael Allen is Managing Principal at Lateral Link, focusing exclusively on partner placements with Am Law 200 clients and placements for in-house attorneys.
With all the job resources available to attorneys these days, why should you pick your phone up when a reputable recruiter calls you?
Though attorneys are free to conduct their own searches, we find that most job boards or public listings only encompass just a small percentage of the total opportunities in our market. Why is that?
Good recruiters read the pulse of the legal market daily by communicating with decision makers before firms put their jobs out to the public. In many cases, firms will assess their needs opportunistically and won’t respond until someone is put in front of them. A good recruiter will anonymously smoke out the opportunity, given bill rates, conflicts, culture, platform, etc. — before making an introduction. That means candidates who rely on public postings aren’t seeing half the opportunities available to them without using a recruiter.
For example, I am not looking to sell my house, but I have a number in mind that would force my hand. That said, I don’t plan to list it, but if a broker brought me a buyer with the right number, I’d certainly entertain it. The same applies for both employers and candidates. You oftentimes don’t realize the value until a third party presents the opportunity, but in the job market, you better make sure that presentation is anonymous.
The map above shows the disparity between listed and unlisted needs. Our job database consists of thousands of jobs for cities across the world. On average, this public, unnamed job board had fewer than 16% of the real supply in the marketplace. Los Angeles ranks as the most clandestine city, publicly posting just 10% of its true number of legal openings.
For public searches without a recruiter, without real market intelligence, your search can only answer whether you fit the criteria listed on the vague job description, not whether you truly fit the firm.
Because of our credibility and relationship with the decision makers, we have current and authentic knowledge of opportunities. You can’t get this intelligence from reading law firm guides or perusing job boards.
The more difficult question is not whether to use a recruiter, but rather, which one to use. A “client testimonial” is an easy way to measure the credibility of a professional service provider — law firm partner, broker, banker, recruiter, whoever. What have others said about the person and firm? I’d suggest checking out their LinkedIn connections and pedigree as well. With low barriers to entry, I wouldn’t recommend using a legal recruiter who isn’t a former practicing attorney (or at least worked at a law firm in the recruiting department). Otherwise, you may put your career in the hands of a novice.
Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.
