Legal Recruitment Blog

New "Recommending a Solicitor Service" from Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment We have today launched a new service available across the UK to anyone who wants the services of a solicitor. Basically, a member of the general public can email us their query, together with their location, and we will recommend a firm of solicitors in the area. Time to put our expertise into practice in a different way! We know firms with good reputations, and those who need to improve, so perhaps are in a somewhat unique position to be able to recommend some as opposed to others, or to recommend our candidates or clients if work comes our way. Visit http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/find-a-solicitor for details. Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency. 

 The Rules of Legal Job Interviews The main aim and focus during interview must be: EVERYBODY LIKES ME, I LIKE EVERYBODY, I AM WILLING TO DO ALMOST ANYTHING (WITHIN REASON), I HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH ANYTHING OR ANYBODY 12 additional tips: Do not reveal your political leanings if at all possible during interview. Sit on the fence. Likewise for religious views. If asked questions about your negative points, turn it to your advantage and give positive responses – eg: you work too hard sometimes, you take on too much work, sometimes you are over enthusiastic, this sort of positive criticism sounds much more effective than “I can be patronising at times”, “I am sometimes defensive”. This is not assisting your case. Do not ask clever questions in response to the interviewer’s questioning of you. She is there to offer you a career break, and you must be nice to her at all costs. Ask for a glass of water at the start of the interview, and when stuck on a question, take a sip...

Legal Interview Question 9 (with answer) - Do you prefer to work in a team or on your own? Difficult question again - devil and the deep blue sea! You could come down with the 'I am an innovator, and prefer to develop my ideas as an individual, as well as take responsibility for my caseload'; but you will then get a question thrown back about your inability to thrive in a team environment. On the flip side of the coin if you go for the team approach, you can then get questioned about your inability to come up with your own ideas, and need to hide behind others! Probably the best approach would be to say that you have no preference - you enjoy working on your own and taking responsibility for your actions, but that you also enjoy being part of a team and contributing to that with your ideas and skills. Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency - save time, skip the legal job boards and let us do the work - register online at ww...

Legal Interview Question 8 (with answer) - Why do you want to leave your current firm? There is no answer to this question that will result in a positive response - there has to be a negative unfortunately! The aim with all job interviews is to ensure that everything that is said is positive. If you say something negative, this always gives the interviewer something to come back on. Unfortunately this question does not leave much scope for avoiding this - a response like "I have come as far as I feel the firm can take me" is about as wishy washy an answer you can give and avoid the negative effects of a lot of other responses. Saying something like "because my senior partner is the most irritating man I have ever met" will not go down well, nor will "I want to leave to avoid the harrassment of the secretaries". Very hard to avoid anything really, but think about it from the firm you are joining - the partners interviewing will immediately look into the fut...

Legal Interview Question 7 (with answer) If you could take one celebrity to a desert island, who would it be and why? This question is the light-hearted one that is occasionally thrown into interviews by larger firms to see what you say. It used to be said that the majority of candidates wanted to take Margaret Thatcher or Nelson Mandela with them, and the explanations used to send the partners to sleep. Apart from suggesting you want to take Paul Daniels with you so that you could say "Now Thats Magic" and make him disappear without anyone knowing, I would advise giving a humorous answer to this question. Not over the top - eg "Kylie Minogue - so I could get to know her more intimately", but something fairly light-hearted. Whatever you do, don't start to waffle on about human rights lawyers - you really wouldnt want to take Michael Mansfield with you would you? Really? Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency...

London Legal Recruitment - are the streets paved with gold? Are legal jobs better paid? We get a lot of solicitors registering with us for work in London, who come from provincial market towns or smaller sized cities, and one of the things they always expect to find is that the streets are paved with gold, and their salary is going to double. This can be particularly so in the high street firms, where people expect to find NQ residential conveyancing posts paying £40,000, or crime positions without police station accreditation at £30,000 pa. It is often quite shattering when they discover that there are a lot of solicitors and legal executives working for a lot less than that! I have been in legal recruitment in London for over 15 years, and it has to be said that on the whole salaries are not far off the rest of the UK. The only difference tends to be at partnership level or senior associate. NQ's can pick up good money, but this is usually because they are working at a goo...

09.02.07 Why do Recruitment Consultants charge so much? We get asked this time and again by some firms - why should we pay you £x,000 to find a candidate, when all you do is send us a CV through on spec. and make a couple of telephone calls? I think a lot of people think this, and I have to confess being one myself initially when I set up this company. I couldn't work out why anyone would want to pay a consultant to do what appears a very easy job! However, most people do not know what goes on behind the scenes.... A few facts.. I am sat at my computer at 10.30pm at night typing this, as we are so busy at the moment, I cannot find the time to write during the day. Our advertising budget per placement is around £1,000. That is the figure we will spend on advertising to secure one candidate for whom we identify a firm, send a CV, arrange an interview, and deal with offer negotiations. At the same time, around 30 candidates will have registered, we will have arranged 6-7 interviews, a...

Can you Become a Millionaire by working as a Solicitor? I have recently been reading a load of books on investment, personal wealth management and similar titles, and have discovered that there are a lot of different strategies for creating your own financial stability. All the advice appears to point to either having a job or business on the side, or to conduct investment at quite a considerable rate. Most of the books refer as well to the need to be satisfied in your own job. I know a crime solicitor in Nottingham who loves his job so much he will actually take a police station or court case from you at no charge and enjoy doing it. Knowing the firm he works for, I suspect the salary he receives is pretty low as well! This question should be changed to whether you can become a millionaire by working as a solicitor in a high street practice.  However here are a couple of pointers from the books I have read: 1. Obtain assets - this is the only way to have a comfortable exis...

Legal Interview question 6 (with answer) What salary are you looking for? Today we heard of a new approach to this question. A candidate went for an interview, and after the meeting I received a phone call from the private client partner to say that she had refused to discuss a package with them at the interview. The firm were most bemused by this, although they recognised that some people are not comfortable talking about income during an interview for a legal job. I think it is a difficult question to answer. The usual response I give to anyone who asks for advice on this is to either give a range, or give your current salary, or ask them to tell you what they think the going rate is. In any event, it is important to remember that unless you are working for a firm that have set structures according to level of seniority in the firm, this is entirely negotiable within reason - it has to be acceptable to both sides. Too low and someone resents the offer if they join, too high, and the ...

06.02.07 Sticking or Twisting on salary for Job Offers - what do you do - negotiation with some firms is like a gunfight at OK Corral! I was reminded this week about what fun it can be with firms and candidates when it comes to job offers being made by firms. Some firms make good, competitive offers, which any sensible candidate would accept, and other firms make low, slave wage level offers, which only someone quite desperate to either work or be at that firm would accept. Sometimes, firms offer money which candidates come back on and reject, despite it being a massive increase for them (I had a newly qualified commercial property solicitor turn down an increase of £15,000 once on a £25k salary, on the basis that they thought they were worth more...!). I have also had a firm make an offer which could only be described with the word "derisory" and the candidate accepted it, despite our strong advice to avoid - that candidate is still at the firm, desperately trying to get the...

New posts into us (scroll down for legal job articles - we try to add one every day) Any interest, please drop us an email to jobs@tenpercent.co.uk, quoting the ref. no and attaching a CV.  3137 Corporate commercial solicitor sought with property litigation by a Harlow firm Harlow, Essex, South East Corporate Commercial, Property Litigation 3136 Private client solicitor sought to head a department - will be dealing with a range of work including trusts, tax and probate, and needs to have broad experience across the spectrum. Tamworth, Staffordshire, West Midlands Wills & Probate 3135 Costs draftsman sought by Coventry firm to assist with personal injury work. Vacancy due to expansion. Coventry, West Midlands Personal Injury Costs Draftsman 3134 Family solicitor sought by Paignton firm, with option of some mental health work ...