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Showing posts from 2017

Should Law Graduates Pay for Careers Advice?

Recently www.legalcheek.com (a legal blog) ran a series of articles discussing whether graduates should consider paying for training contract advice after the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) strongly advised against it. Although we no longer provide careers advice ourselves, we were approached for comment as we still sell training contract advice packs via one of our websites. This was the comment we added: Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provided legal career coaching services from 2001 to 2014 and worked with a very wide range of clients from paralegals and entrants into the legal profession through to senior barristers, solicitors, partners and people looking at judicial appointments. We dealt with bullying, career progression, getting out of law, finding training contracts, entering the legal profession, getting out of the city, getting into the city and lots more besides. I offered the service personally because I enjoyed helping people and recruitment can be a b...

Relocating to Ireland – What’s the Craic?

A number of PR companies have identified Ten Percent Legal Recruitment as being a news provider. With this in mind we get regular press releases from law firms, universities, companies, government departments and lots more besides. Most of this is probably about as interesting as our newsletters, but occasionally it is possible to spot a trend. The recent trend has been ‘relocating to Ireland’ to do legal work and Irish solicitors firms offering UK clients their services for future work in the EU. With reports of some larger solicitors firms recruiting large numbers of staff in Dublin, it looks likely that some movement of business over to Ireland from the UK is going to occur. I very much doubt there is a lot of Irish legal work to compete for but relocating to Ireland and then servicing UK clients seems to be the idea. Whether the whole relocation thing has any longer term effect once the whole EU departure thing is completed is another matter entirely. So re...

CV Blooper of the Month - November

CV Blooper of the Month Never depend on spellcheck when writing your CV! Taken from a finance CV. The candidate also forgot to include his name. Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.

CV Blooper of the Month - October

CV Blooper of the Month Extract from Paralegal's CV - more "incomprehensible waffle" than a "blooper" but included nevertheless! Profile: I am a highly motivated, focused, determined, enthusiastic person with a sophisticated acquaintance of grasping beyond what individuals reckon in a brief conversation. Startling communication skills that allow me as an interlocutor to predict and endeavour to persuade clients. I have a confident pro active character which enables me to use my own initiative at work, a stereotypic ideas changer with ability of generating new ones. I can work proactively in a complex and busy environment. I am a quick learner who is able to absorb new ideas. HR departments - seen any good bloopers recently? Send them over to cv@ten-percent.co.uk and if I publish them I'll send you a £10 Waterstones voucher by way of thanks. Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Sol...

Is Your Career Stuck in a Rut? Read these 7 simple steps to climbing out of it

Is your career stuck in a rut? If you are going into work feeling thoroughly miserable and hating every minute of it, here are some tips for strapping a proverbial rocket to your back and changing your life. 1. Hand in your notice. Go on - you can do it. All it takes is a few words "I resign" or "I'm off to find a job where I am actually appreciated and get paid more than an intern". You could even tell the senior partner what you really think of him/her but this is not recommended as your reference may not be very nice. 2. Write down three things you would love to do in the next two months. Close your eyes and pick one at random. Go and do it. 3. Study for a degree in something you actually like. So many solicitors do LLB Law without actually enjoying a minute of it, whereas they would probably have loved doing a history degree or a politics degree. Its never too late - go and do one. 4. Close your eyes - try to picture yourself in your dream jo...

CV Blooper of the Month

CV Blooper of the Month Extract from Senior Solicitor's CV - 30 years experience. Education - O Levels in English, Math’s, Geography, History HR departments - seen any good bloopers recently? Send them over to cv@ten-percent.co.uk and if I publish them I'll send you a £10 Waterstones voucher by way of thanks. Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.

Facebook Advertising - is it any good?

Facebook Advertising - any good? I could cut this article very short by saying no, but here is a bit extra. You can advertise your law firm on Facebook to a very wide audience simply by clicking a few links, adding a credit card and bingo! You have pay per click or view advertising on Facebook. We have been on Facebook for many years and my advertising budget is currently set at something like £5 per day. However - some fairly startling facts for you! Between 2008 and 2017 we spent the grand total of £10.66 on advertising on Facebook. That's £10.66 in total, not per day. This is based on how many people have clicked our adverts. To put this into perspective - in the same time frame on Google Adwords we spent just short of £39,000. I should add that the very low advertising spend is not through the want of trying - its just that people do not use Facebook for business. We are planning an experiment to test this theory. If I post a vacancy on the internet, acr...

CV Bloopers of the Month

CV Bloopers of the Month Full CV received from a 10 year PQE Solicitor applying for a commercial solicitor role in London. [Name Address Email, Phone] Personal statement I like to provide service to the highest standard. I used to have very high marks for essays. I worked in Legal departments of local authority and many large law firms. Work Experience Solicitor Responsibilities & Achievements - sole practitioner CV sent for a training contract application "Work Experience I work from 12 years old. Any salesmanship and last 4 years as store manager." (no other details provided) Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.

Using LinkedIn to Headhunt and Recruit new staff – does it work?

How long will LinkedIn last? Who knows? I imagine something else will come along sooner or later that does the same thing bigger and better. LinkedIn restricts certain access (eg contacting other people requires using up a limited number of contact credits) and I suspect another network will come along and do the same thing with free access and consign LinkedIn to the dustbin. You would probably expect me to write something similar to the information below as it is in my company’s interest for you not to go directly to candidates and instead ask us to help you recruit and get paid a wodge of cash. However LinkedIn has been promoted as the next best thing in so many articles and advice documents recently (including whole courses on how to use it to recruit) that I thought an article injected with a bit of reality and anecdotal evidence may be of interest. Here is a conversation I have on the phone from time to time. Caller: “Hello can I speak to Jonathan Fagan pl...

Get Away from it all and start again - Unique Opportunity for Partnership Offshore

Unique Opportunity for a Clean Break - Offshore Law Firm for sale/partnership Ref VAC 17235 Very rare chance to take partnership in an offshore law firm. The practice undertakes a range of work that includes (properly funded) legal aid crime work - which is fairly lucrative without much competition, family and commercial. The crime work is a mix of mainstream general crime, some specialist complex matters and some military. The firm would be interested in speaking to anyone looking to run their own practice on a full time or part time basis. Not necessarily seeking an immediate buyout or purchase of equity. Opportunity to benefit from profitable levels of legal aid rather than punitive. Owner looking to move on to non-law related pastures new and move back on shore. Well established law firm in a stunning location offshore. Very similar law to England and Wales. Current partner happy to stay in situ to assist or sell outright. All options available for purchase - i...

How to Review your own CV

How to review your own CV We recently received a CV from a candidate with the following advice placed at the bottom (would this fit into our CV Blooper series? Quite possibly..). I have edited it for a bit of content - eg the writer recommended 2 pages max but we think a CV can be as long as it needs to be for someone with experience. The remainder is a very effective and useful guide to reviewing your own CV. CV Guide 1. Check and recheck for spelling and grammar. Attention to detail is absolutely key so ensure dates, names of companies etc are all correct and never use abbreviations or colloquialisms. Ask someone you trust to proof read your CV as a new pair of eyes can often be useful in identifying mistakes. 2. In order to demonstrate a professional image it is best not to use fancy fonts or include graphics, photos or colour of any kind. Ensure spacing, alignment and font style is consistent throughout the documen...

CV Blooper of the Month - June 2017

CV Blooper(s) of the Month This is taken from a law student's CV: "I went to watch a court case in the old bailey where a young man was being cross examined (a term I learned there ) for a drug charge. He represented himself without a lawyer and I was surprised by the strength of his rebuttals (another term I learned there) and also by how eloquently and respectfully everybody talked in the court. When leaving I decided that I was a bit more sure that I wanted to ingeniously use a thorough knowledge of the law as a career. I decided to enter a Cambridge Law essay competition where the question was “Should we repeal the human rights act 1998 “. The effort and private study I put into this essay was proof enough for me that I was compatible with a law career. I naturally feel I gravitate towards law, I love writing, studying and thinking about it. I haven’t been able to get an opportunity to explore any fields of law which I hope to do in summer." You couldn't ma...

Minimum Wage and the Legal Profession

Minimum Wage and the Legal Profession Over the last few months we have posted fairly junior job vacancies for a couple of our member law firms (ie firms who have signed up to TenPercentUnlimited - google for further info). One was for a receptionist at a salary of £13,000 and the other a paralegal for £14,000. We received a couple of responses, one of which is below (and quite fair I thought!): "I [have] reported you for offering a low salary of £13000 which is under [the] minimum wage. A person who needs to pay rent, transport, food and try to save, will never be able to live a decent human life with that salary. Shame on you for offering slavery! You are disgusting." I sympathise entirely with this thinking (who on earth can live on £13,000 in London?) and had a look into the regulations in a bit more detail. We often get confused by the hourly rate translating into annual salary levels and as a result thought it might assist to publish our understan...

CV Blooper of the Month

CV Blooper of the Month - May 2017 CV Blooper of the Month: References section from a CV of a Paralegal applying for a job:

The Cure Parkinson's Trust - charity supported by the Ten Percent Foundation in 2016-2017

The Cure Parkinsons Trust - charity supported by the Ten Percent Foundation 2016-2017 Our criteria and policies for donating to charities can be found here – https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/charitable-trust/ This year we have written a piece about each charity we have considered and explained why and what we are funding. We have also included any information the charity have sent us including updates from last year on our ongoing donations. We discovered the existence of The Cure Parkinson’s Trust whilst researching alternatives to Parkinsons UK. The cure or treatment of Parkinson's is of particular interest to us as we have lost a family member (and former trustee) to the disease. In 2016 we wrote an article about high salary paying charities and were surprised to discover that Parkinsons UK were on the list (we have donated to them in the past). 10 staff at the charity were earning between £60,000 and £130,000 in 2015. Total amount paid to the se...