Legal Recruitment Blog

June 2013 Legal Recruitment News now available at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk - articles on working in retirement - advice on locuming for senior solicitors, recent salary levels and hourly rates observed by Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and our most recent legal job market report, also available at www.ten-percent.co.uk Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search or download our Vacancy Database or view our Candidate Database online. Our Legal Careers Shop has eBooks on CV Writing for Lawyers, Legal Job Interview Guide, Interview Answers for Lawyers, NQ Career Guide, Guide to Finding Work Experience or a Training Contract and the Entrants Guide to the Legal Profession. To visit our Sale/Clearance section please click here . www.ten-percent.co.uk/careersshop

Legal Recruitment News is out for April 2013. Please visit http://www.legal-recruitment.co.uk/legal-recruitment-news-april-2013 This month's articles include an extract from this blog on whether swearing is ever acceptable in business and asks whether postgraduate legal education is a rip off. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment includes a legal job market update and there is also an extract from the KPMG job survey for April 2013. Click the link above to visit the site and read the newsletter. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - Online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search or download our Vacancy Database or view our Candidate Database online. Our Legal Careers Shop has eBooks on CV Writing for Lawyers, Legal Job Interview Guide, Interview Answers for Lawyers, NQ Career Guide, Guide to Finding Work Experience or a Training Contract and the Entrants Guide to the Legal Profession. ...

Last week I attended the Recruitment Expo, which is a little bit like a day of CPD together with trade stands.  One of the seminars was delivered by a very well-known recruitment trainer and someone highly respected within the business, particularly for his headhunting courses.  As part of his quick 20 minute presentation, this trainer was giving 20 objections and how to overcome them.  (i.e. when clients are prevaricating before agreeing to either speak to you or take on a member of staff through you as a recruiter).  A couple of times in the first 10 minutes he used fairly mild swear words as part of his presentation.  These didn’t seem to be out of place per say although they did make me consciously aware that he had just sworn to his audience.  However,  when he got to his point about clients phoning and giving out vacancies he used the phrase "Well F**k Me", not once but twice. He then went on to use the “F” word at least twice more. I should sa...

10 Top Interview Questions for 2013 Interviews have got a lot tougher in recent times – reports of honest feedback being given (‘candidate was useless and just mumbled’ or ‘candidate was completely over the top and needs to calm down’) means that employers are being much more selective as to whom they invest in and employ. Here are our top 10 interview questions for 2013 - try them out if you are a law firm and as a candidate get ready for them! I was at a training course last week where the trainer basically stated that anyone who claims their business was affected by the recession has only themselves to blame. Not entirely sure how - after all it was a little unexpected to say the least - and if that mentality is starting to show, then it is likely it will also affect recruitment as well. Outline ‘quantitive easing’ in 20 seconds. I see you have moved about a bit. Does nobody like you? Why were you made redundant in 2007? Have you used the recession as an excuse for...

You may be able to judge from the above title that we are slightly biased on this point, but having just read through my 30th CV for the day and getting ready to throw the monitor out of the window and bang my head on the desk repeatedly, I have to ask the following question: Which idiot told careers advisers that employers like to see skills in the profile section of a CV? Anyone want to own up? I can't see any logical reason for including them. Let me give you some examples from the CVs I have been reading today.   An enthusiastic and ambitious graduate with broad work experience and focused on building a career in the legal profession. This candidate is in fact a highly experienced property fee earner, but my first reaction having read this would be to delete the email and CV.   An experienced and highly competent civil commercial litigation solicitor who works well under pressure to consistently meet strict deadlines. Fluent and effective communicator with s...

Getting Feedback from Interviews – Is it Worth It?   This week I have coached a junior lawyer who came to see me for interview practice following a series of interviews where she had been rejected. She had been given feedback on one occasion and the feedback had been that she was too timid and appeared to lack confidence.   After interviewing her for 30 minutes, albeit in a practice scenario, it was pretty clear that this was not someone who was timid or lacked confidence and in fact a very able interviewee.   She was clear, lucid, able to answer complicated questions immediately without pause, come up with examples for competency based interview scenarios (e.g. describe a situation when …) and was not fazed by any rude or negative questions.   In fact, in terms of the standard she was at I would say she was more than competent as an interviewee and certainly did not lack confidence or was timid. However, she was a very slight woman, fairly short and ...

We have been asked a question today by a 2 partner practice in Central London - what, in our opinion is the cheapest and most effective way to expand a law firm? The firm started by asking us how they get to take on a solicitor who would be prepared to join a firm and work on a profit share basis. Could they recruit a former sole practitioner who maybe had had enough, and does that type of candidate exist? They have the space, they have the capacity to recruit more staff and would like to expand the firm. We advised them that yes, these types of candidate exist. A law firm cannot expect to immediately fill this type of vacancy - in fact we do not work them unless firms join us as members (details on our website at www.ten-percent.co.uk/membership-services ). Law firms can see that solicitors are prepared to work on a commission only basis, a fee split or a profit share - you can see large full page ads in the back of the Law Society Gazette to get an idea of this. Similarl...