This Article ought to be subtitled “permanent recruitment” as opposed to “temporary recruitment” because as far as I can see the temporary recruitment side of the business is very unlikely to suffer many effects under the recession.
Permanent recruitment has always been the more risky end of the business in relation to effects of recession. I can remember starting my consultancy Ten Percent Legal Recruitment back in April 2000 and speaking to an educated lady who was working as a police station visitor at the time, who when I said that I had set up a recruitment agency replied “you had better hope there is not a recession if you are doing permanent recruitment”.
At the time I did not think much of this as we had just about finished the Dot.com bubble burst and things were on the up, but I have always remembered her words and wondered if they would ever come to fruition. Of course in the recent recession they clearly have.
Permanent recruitment dropped off dramatically as soon as the recession hit and redundancies started to get announced in the legal profession. I can remember going to a training course back in April 2008 and the course leader asking everybody in the room who had suffered any effects of the recession. Everybody in the room said how the recession had presented them with new possibilities and challenges and they were being very positive about it, but I think I was the only one to say that my business had been badly hit at the time and we were really struggling to cope with the effects, but as soon as I said it I could see everybody in the room immediately start to nod and that all the comments about seeing challenges and opportunities was possibly true but they were similarly struggling.
During the recession I have spoken to a number of other recruitment consultants who have pointed out some new and interesting methods of recruitment that appear to have sprung up with larger numbers than before.
Firstly there are other companies who send the job specification out to 30 agencies and inform them that they are only paying a set percentage fee and that they will not look at candidates being sent through at a higher fee.
Secondly there are companies who send the vacancy out to agencies but at the same time advertise directly on the various job boards such as Monster and Totaljobs.com. When CV’s are sent in they invariably say that they have already seen the CV on Monster and do not want to take it further forward with the agency. Having used Monster it may be that they are waiting to see who the agency gets and then contact the person themselves as they then know that person is particularly looking for a job as a number of the CV’s on Monster are from people who are passively looking as opposed to actively looking.
The third trend are the companies and Government organisations using managed vendor suppliers or mass vendor supplier such as Matrix, SGM or Commensura, both of whom have set rates, post vacancies to any agencies who are signed up with them and send the said number through to their customers. This means that every time you go for a vacancy you are up against a number of other agencies all trying to post their CV into the same vacancy as quickly as possible to get the customer to look at it.
So where does the role of the recruitment agent come into this?
Firstly there is only a role for recruitment agencies where there is a shortfall of particular types of candidates as no employer is going to bother using an agency unless it is through habit or ease of use or loyalty unless they actually need to. If a company know they can advertise a vacancy in a trade journal or online and get a hundred applications with a couple of very useful CV’s, there is no point spending lots of money on an agency candidate.
We are already starting to see the end of the recession and this is partly why this blog is being updated again(!) and I’ve had more vacancies in the last three or four weeks than we’ve had in the previous 6 months which is very healthy. Not only this but we have also seen interviews from quality firms and genuine candidates which makes a refreshing change to some of the interviews we have arranged in the last 6 months.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment and writes regularly on Legal Recruitment and on career coaching via this website, www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.com, the Legal Recruitment News websites – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk and www.jbfagan.co.uk for career coaching advice.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Uncompromising & Unrealistic Demands: Candidates - A Strange Phenomenon in the Recession
A recent phenomenon has emerged in the world of recruitment and it relates to candidates looking for work. In the last four weeks we have had a number of vacancies in and a number of interviews set up, but we have also had a number of candidates not attend interviews or decide that they do not wish to proceed. The percentage of these is extremely high at present, and very unusual compared with our normal ratio of failure in this area.
The first one of these candidates was a specialist solicitor who had expressed a keen interests in a role, sent us a detailed explanation as to why she fitted the bill and when we finally managed to arrange an interview for her decided that it was going to be too difficult to take time off in the short term, and she would only be able to attend an interview in the medium term. Unsurprisingly the firm had a number of applicants and did not bother interviewing her.
The second candidate was an experienced commercial solicitor who expressed an interest in a job in the Northeast and when the firm shortlisted her and requested an interview, she emailed us back to say she had no plans to relocate and did not want to attend an interview. She lived in the Southeast of England.
The third candidate went along to an interview in Yorkshire and informed the firm that he was not looking for work and was only attending the interview because we had approached him and asked him to. The firm decided he was unsuitable for their position.
The final candidate went for an interview with a firm in Yorkshire and his feedback was as they had targets and wanted him to meet these this was not a suitable job for him, as he did not think targets were the right way of doing business and he had never heard of them before in his line of work.
As recruiters we can almost tear our hair out at each of these because waiting behind these candidates are other candidates who are extremely keen to get interviews and jobs, and would attend an interview at a moment’s notice, relocate as required and certainly not have delusions of grandeur or be under any false illusions as to the current state of the market and the need for billable hours.
We go to extraordinary lengths to get these vacancies in and persuade the firms to interview, and then to have candidates doing this can quite frankly make us want to cry at times. Why these people even bother applying for the posts when it is clear from their emails that they have absolutely no interest in moving is beyond me and especially in the current climate when there are so many solicitors out of work and desperate to get back in. You can almost guarantee if as a recruiter you send through five CVs, of which four will be nice, fairly desperate candidates in dire need of work, the firm will always opt to interview the one candidate you think is going to be the one who either fails to attend the interview or simply isn’t that bothered.
Perhaps this will end with the end of the recession, as it is not a phenomenon I have come across before very often, and most of the time candidates attend interviews, firms interview and if firms are interested they make offers which the candidates consider, and we do not have these ridiculous actions going on that affect both our reputation as an agency but also wastes everybody's time.
These are no isolated incidents and it has been the same pattern over the last six to nine months. I have started to identify some of these candidates and now do not bother to spend any time on them, if I get the slightest inkling that it may be that they are not going to attend an interview or they are going to mess us or the firm about.
I hope anyone reading this does not think that we have turned into a bunch of crazy, desperate recruitment consultants as I suspect that this could be seen as somewhat bitter, and there may be very good reasons for each of these people to fail to attend their interviews or to not bother proceeding as indicated. Feel free to comment on this blog entry and I will be interested to hear your thoughts.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted on 0207 127 4343 o at cv@ten-percent.co.uk
The first one of these candidates was a specialist solicitor who had expressed a keen interests in a role, sent us a detailed explanation as to why she fitted the bill and when we finally managed to arrange an interview for her decided that it was going to be too difficult to take time off in the short term, and she would only be able to attend an interview in the medium term. Unsurprisingly the firm had a number of applicants and did not bother interviewing her.
The second candidate was an experienced commercial solicitor who expressed an interest in a job in the Northeast and when the firm shortlisted her and requested an interview, she emailed us back to say she had no plans to relocate and did not want to attend an interview. She lived in the Southeast of England.
The third candidate went along to an interview in Yorkshire and informed the firm that he was not looking for work and was only attending the interview because we had approached him and asked him to. The firm decided he was unsuitable for their position.
The final candidate went for an interview with a firm in Yorkshire and his feedback was as they had targets and wanted him to meet these this was not a suitable job for him, as he did not think targets were the right way of doing business and he had never heard of them before in his line of work.
As recruiters we can almost tear our hair out at each of these because waiting behind these candidates are other candidates who are extremely keen to get interviews and jobs, and would attend an interview at a moment’s notice, relocate as required and certainly not have delusions of grandeur or be under any false illusions as to the current state of the market and the need for billable hours.
We go to extraordinary lengths to get these vacancies in and persuade the firms to interview, and then to have candidates doing this can quite frankly make us want to cry at times. Why these people even bother applying for the posts when it is clear from their emails that they have absolutely no interest in moving is beyond me and especially in the current climate when there are so many solicitors out of work and desperate to get back in. You can almost guarantee if as a recruiter you send through five CVs, of which four will be nice, fairly desperate candidates in dire need of work, the firm will always opt to interview the one candidate you think is going to be the one who either fails to attend the interview or simply isn’t that bothered.
Perhaps this will end with the end of the recession, as it is not a phenomenon I have come across before very often, and most of the time candidates attend interviews, firms interview and if firms are interested they make offers which the candidates consider, and we do not have these ridiculous actions going on that affect both our reputation as an agency but also wastes everybody's time.
These are no isolated incidents and it has been the same pattern over the last six to nine months. I have started to identify some of these candidates and now do not bother to spend any time on them, if I get the slightest inkling that it may be that they are not going to attend an interview or they are going to mess us or the firm about.
I hope anyone reading this does not think that we have turned into a bunch of crazy, desperate recruitment consultants as I suspect that this could be seen as somewhat bitter, and there may be very good reasons for each of these people to fail to attend their interviews or to not bother proceeding as indicated. Feel free to comment on this blog entry and I will be interested to hear your thoughts.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted on 0207 127 4343 o at cv@ten-percent.co.uk
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Boycott Recruitment Agencies?
A Forum recently had a post on entitled "Boycott Recruitment Agencies and Greedy Bosses!!"
The post reads "Recruitment Agencies are cherry picking their clients & have no courtesy to reply back to your messages unless you call them!! They say they have hundreds of applications to review but by the time they have looked at your CV it’s too late - the dream job you desire is long gone."
As a recruitment consultant I have to say that this probably appears to be the perception at present (we cherry pick the best solicitors and ignore the rest including most NQs). The truth is that we are being hit very badly by the recession as businesses. Think about it - there have probably been over 15,000 redundancies amongst solicitors in England & Wales since April 2008. This is just less than 10% of the workforce. There are no conveyancing jobs at all anywhere. There are no wills & probate jobs anywhere. Crime jobs are disappearing at a rate of knots as firms close the boltholes ready for the best value tendering that is going to wipe a further load of firms off the map (after the Carter review destroyed a load a few years ago). Corporate firms are halting their graduate training programmes and asking trainees to defer a year and actually paying for the privilege to do this. Does anyone seriously think that recruitment agencies have some sort of bypass switch that allows us to ignore all of the above and find jobs for NQ solicitors in this climate?You will start to see a large number of agencies disappearing in the next 3-4 months I think. Already most have stopped advertising in the Gazette, and the ones that are left tend to have the same jobs in every week that usually require a following or some particular specialism. To give you an example of how hard it is to do recruitment at present, one recent job was for a commercial litigation solicitor. Looked easy to start with - we had 3-4 interested candidates with 2 years experience. The firm then wanted a French speaking commercial litigation solicitor, which made it considerably harder. We found one. They then got back to say that they wanted a French speaking commercial litigation solicitor with at least 12 months worth of high court experience. Obviously at this point we started to realise that like the Little Britain character that the goalposts were going to shift again even if a miracle occurred and we found the above - we were expecting to be told they needed a Belgian French speaking commercial litigation solicitor with high court experience. Similarly we have had firms asking for CVs - we have sent them through and heard nothing for weeks on end, despite telephoning, emailing etc.. etc.. Some firms seem to be collecting CVs for a hobby without committing to interview. We have also come across a lot of trainee solicitors being offered £16,500 to qualify by their firms and calling us either very angry or in tears. The legal profession is not in a healthy state at present, but it is affecting everyone at once - from senior partners through to suppliers of services to the profession. NQs unfortunately are right in the firing line, and are going to be badly affected.
Jonathan Fagan is MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted on 0207 127 4343 or at cv@ten-percent.co.uk
The post reads "Recruitment Agencies are cherry picking their clients & have no courtesy to reply back to your messages unless you call them!! They say they have hundreds of applications to review but by the time they have looked at your CV it’s too late - the dream job you desire is long gone."
As a recruitment consultant I have to say that this probably appears to be the perception at present (we cherry pick the best solicitors and ignore the rest including most NQs). The truth is that we are being hit very badly by the recession as businesses. Think about it - there have probably been over 15,000 redundancies amongst solicitors in England & Wales since April 2008. This is just less than 10% of the workforce. There are no conveyancing jobs at all anywhere. There are no wills & probate jobs anywhere. Crime jobs are disappearing at a rate of knots as firms close the boltholes ready for the best value tendering that is going to wipe a further load of firms off the map (after the Carter review destroyed a load a few years ago). Corporate firms are halting their graduate training programmes and asking trainees to defer a year and actually paying for the privilege to do this. Does anyone seriously think that recruitment agencies have some sort of bypass switch that allows us to ignore all of the above and find jobs for NQ solicitors in this climate?You will start to see a large number of agencies disappearing in the next 3-4 months I think. Already most have stopped advertising in the Gazette, and the ones that are left tend to have the same jobs in every week that usually require a following or some particular specialism. To give you an example of how hard it is to do recruitment at present, one recent job was for a commercial litigation solicitor. Looked easy to start with - we had 3-4 interested candidates with 2 years experience. The firm then wanted a French speaking commercial litigation solicitor, which made it considerably harder. We found one. They then got back to say that they wanted a French speaking commercial litigation solicitor with at least 12 months worth of high court experience. Obviously at this point we started to realise that like the Little Britain character that the goalposts were going to shift again even if a miracle occurred and we found the above - we were expecting to be told they needed a Belgian French speaking commercial litigation solicitor with high court experience. Similarly we have had firms asking for CVs - we have sent them through and heard nothing for weeks on end, despite telephoning, emailing etc.. etc.. Some firms seem to be collecting CVs for a hobby without committing to interview. We have also come across a lot of trainee solicitors being offered £16,500 to qualify by their firms and calling us either very angry or in tears. The legal profession is not in a healthy state at present, but it is affecting everyone at once - from senior partners through to suppliers of services to the profession. NQs unfortunately are right in the firing line, and are going to be badly affected.
Jonathan Fagan is MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted on 0207 127 4343 or at cv@ten-percent.co.uk
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Assessment Days - Recent Experience (May 2009)
A training contract applicant has very kindly given us a detailed description of an assessment day that recently took place in the North West. It gives a flavour of the typical sort of day you will get in most medium and large law firms..
Here's what happened at the (North West Firm) assessment day.
Introductions - we had to write a few facts about ourselves on a side of a4 paper, screw it in to a ball and throw it in the centre of the room, we all then had to go grab a ball and discover who it was and then use that to introduce the person to the group.
We then had a group exercise. We were a group of four hikers, lost in a snow storm - in a tent -and had to decide on how many people should look for - and then from a list of 19 items decide which ten should be taken by the people who went for help and what items should remain for the people staying in the tent.
I then had a competency based interview. First question 'what is your unique selling point' (i nearly fell off my chair) - other questions included examples of being commercially aware, greatest non academic achievement etc..
The comprehension exercise was in a vein of a spelling test. There was a sentence or two with words missing an you had to choose which went where. affect/effect advise/advice were the simple ones i can remember there were some very tricky ones which definitely threw me. There were 40 to do in 20 minutes (plenty of time however).
Hope this assists anyone looking for advice on assessment days... Let us know your experiences and we can add them to this bank of knowledge.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and can be contacted on 0207 127 4343 or cv@ten-percent.co.uk
Friday, May 01, 2009
Jobsearch Support for Newly Unemployed Professionals
The DWP have awarded Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited a 2 year contract to provide jobsearch support for newly unemployed professionals. At present, the scheme is very much in its infancy, but we have already provided the service to professionals based in the West Midlands and the North West. The scheme works by the Jobcentre Plus Adviser referring their clients through to us, and within 24 hours we arrange an appointment, usually over the telephone as the service is nationwide.This appointment is about 45 mins long, and we cover a whole range of topics, concentrating as required on particular areas. At the end of the consultation we provide an action plan to the job centre and the client, and continue to provide support as required by email.
If you want to take advantage of this service, you need to be unemployed, and also speak to your adviser rather than ourselves as the referral has to come from them.
Jonathan Fagan is MD of http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/ and senior career coach at http://www.jbfagan.co.uk/
You can call him on 0207 127 4343. Our contract number is AAA271601 if you want to refer us to your adviser.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The Budget 2009 - any effect on the legal market?
Budget is out again, and lots of things relevant to lawyers and law firms:
Most important first.....
CIGARETTES, ALCOHOL AND FUEL
• Alcohol taxes to go up 2% from midnight - putting the price of the average pint up 1p (arrghhh).
CAR SCRAPPAGE SCHEME (does this mean someone could start buying up 10 years old cars and sell them on at a profit? Anyone using this idea, please ensure you pay me a fair commission!)
• From next month until March 2010 motorists to get £2,000 discount on new cars if they trade in cars older than 10 years
• The government will provide £1,000 with the industry expected to provide the other half
TAX
• Income tax for those earning more than £150,000 to rise to 50% from April 2010
• Tax relief on pensions to be reduced for people on more than £150,000 a year from April 2011
UK ECONOMY
• Growth expected to pick up in 2010, expanding by 1.25%.
• Economy to grow by 3.5% annually from 2011
JOBS AND TRAINING
• All long-term unemployed under 25s to be offered job or training (May become relevant for conveyancers?)
HOUSING
• Scheme to guarantee mortgage backed securities to boost lending
• Stamp duty holiday for homes up to £175,000 to be extended to end of year
• Extra £80m for shared equity mortgage scheme
• £500m to kickstart stalled housing projects - including £100m for local authorities to build energy efficient homes
Not sure what difference much of this will make to the current state of the market - the mortgage market needs a big kick and cant see much of one here...
HELP FOR BUSINESS
• Help for loss-making companies extended - they will be able to reclaim more taxes paid in the last three years until November 2010
• Businesses' main capital allowance rate doubled to 40%
PENSIONERS
• Grandparents of working age who care for their grandchildren will see that work count towards their entitlement for the basic state pension.
We have looked at this before - it used to be that the grandparents had to be registered with social services, but the only way to get registered was to look after other children from different families which of course most grandparents do not do.
Hard to say what difference the budget will have to law firms - I suspect nothing much will make a difference until people get back into the habit of purchasing houses again...
Jonathan Fagan, http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/
Most important first.....
CIGARETTES, ALCOHOL AND FUEL
• Alcohol taxes to go up 2% from midnight - putting the price of the average pint up 1p (arrghhh).
CAR SCRAPPAGE SCHEME (does this mean someone could start buying up 10 years old cars and sell them on at a profit? Anyone using this idea, please ensure you pay me a fair commission!)
• From next month until March 2010 motorists to get £2,000 discount on new cars if they trade in cars older than 10 years
• The government will provide £1,000 with the industry expected to provide the other half
TAX
• Income tax for those earning more than £150,000 to rise to 50% from April 2010
• Tax relief on pensions to be reduced for people on more than £150,000 a year from April 2011
UK ECONOMY
• Growth expected to pick up in 2010, expanding by 1.25%.
• Economy to grow by 3.5% annually from 2011
JOBS AND TRAINING
• All long-term unemployed under 25s to be offered job or training (May become relevant for conveyancers?)
HOUSING
• Scheme to guarantee mortgage backed securities to boost lending
• Stamp duty holiday for homes up to £175,000 to be extended to end of year
• Extra £80m for shared equity mortgage scheme
• £500m to kickstart stalled housing projects - including £100m for local authorities to build energy efficient homes
Not sure what difference much of this will make to the current state of the market - the mortgage market needs a big kick and cant see much of one here...
HELP FOR BUSINESS
• Help for loss-making companies extended - they will be able to reclaim more taxes paid in the last three years until November 2010
• Businesses' main capital allowance rate doubled to 40%
PENSIONERS
• Grandparents of working age who care for their grandchildren will see that work count towards their entitlement for the basic state pension.
We have looked at this before - it used to be that the grandparents had to be registered with social services, but the only way to get registered was to look after other children from different families which of course most grandparents do not do.
Hard to say what difference the budget will have to law firms - I suspect nothing much will make a difference until people get back into the habit of purchasing houses again...
Jonathan Fagan, http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/
Friday, April 17, 2009
Consumer Credit - an Insiders Tale
We keep hearing reports of this area of law ('get your loan written off'', 'cancel my loan if over £7,000 and under £25,000 and before 2007', 'reduce my debt', 'clear my debt for life' etc.. etc..), being the new potentially big money spinner for a lot of law firms, and have been keeping track of recent developments. A candidate has recently sent us the following feedback from working for one of the operators in this field..."I had been working for x Solicitors who are linked to a claims management firm. As I worked there it became increasingly obvious that there was a lack of independence for us to advise our clients as to the strengths and weaknesses of their claims. Many files did not have claims at all but we were actively discouraged from telling clients upfront that there was no defect in the agreement. Management asked us to advise clients whose files had weak or very poor legal arguments that their files were being sent for further investigation. This delayed refunding clients who had already waited for long periods of time for their files to be addressed.
One day in particular a couple of weeks ago I had a client on the phone screaming at me because I felt I could not tell her she was due for a refund as there was no real prospects of success. I told her it was being further reviewed. She screamed 'you're my solicitor why can't you update me'.? She was perfectly correct.
Many of the difficulties stem from the fact that the representatives tell customers that agreements can be written off or deemed unenforceable and build up false hopes. Many files come through with very poor legal basis for claims.
One argument apparently is being appealed at Court of Appeal later this year. However we were actively encouraged to pursue claims based on a case hopefully being overturned in CA.
This was a firm with poor working practices and sullies the image or profile of those firms who operate in a correct and professional way. There are genuine issues under the Consumer Credit Act but they need to be tackled professionally in order to maintain the public's trust."
One day in particular a couple of weeks ago I had a client on the phone screaming at me because I felt I could not tell her she was due for a refund as there was no real prospects of success. I told her it was being further reviewed. She screamed 'you're my solicitor why can't you update me'.? She was perfectly correct.
Many of the difficulties stem from the fact that the representatives tell customers that agreements can be written off or deemed unenforceable and build up false hopes. Many files come through with very poor legal basis for claims.
One argument apparently is being appealed at Court of Appeal later this year. However we were actively encouraged to pursue claims based on a case hopefully being overturned in CA.
This was a firm with poor working practices and sullies the image or profile of those firms who operate in a correct and professional way. There are genuine issues under the Consumer Credit Act but they need to be tackled professionally in order to maintain the public's trust."
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