Legal Recruitment Blog

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...

The KPMG and REC Report on Jobs is just out - this measures the recruitment market on a monthly basis by requesting data from recruitment agencies, including ourselves ( Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment ). Main points are: Permanent placements and temporary billings rise at slower rates Job vacancies increase at fastest pace for 20 months Availability of permanent staff declines Temp availability unchanged Pay growth quickens but remains subdued overall The Report on Jobs is a monthly publication produced by Markit and sponsored by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and KPMG LLP. The main findings for December are: Slower rises in permanent and temporary appointments... Although there were further increases in permanent and temporary staff appointments during December, in both cases the rates of growth eased since November. ...despite vacancies increasing at faster pace Demand for staff continued to rise in December. The rate of expansion of overall job vaca...

Interview Question & Answer – Are you able to supply any references and if yes, who? What do you think they would say about you? Firstly the answer to this question always has to be yes, secondly you need to make sure the references on your CV are legally related if at all possible and thirdly you need to explain that they would have nothing but positive things to say about you. There is really no other answer to this question unless you have very specific circumstances that necessitate further explanation. If you have been in employment recently where you will not be able to get a reference because of an acrimonious departure (whether this is any fault of your own or not) you need to be careful in the way you approach this in interview. Very often people get worried about the issue of references and employers get away with murder as a result because employees are frightened that they may not be able to work again due to the lack of a reference. There are always ...

New Year Predictions Last year we carried an article in our January Newsletter about predictions from 2011 by the experts (and ourselves) on the state of the legal profession, the economy and general life. This year, for something different, we have included a list of predictions from a self-professed online pyschic, Craig Hamilton-Parker (taken from www.psychics.co.uk). 1. War in the Middle East - February. Israel will attack Iran. 2. Terrorist attack on Chicago in the summer. 3. Syrian uprising to continue. Iran to invade. 4. Poor grain harvest to occur in Russia. 5. Robert Mugabe will be assassinated in the Autumn. 6. Revolution in China - June 2013. China to split up. 7. Google will be attacked by terrorists. 8. Search engine to be released in Europe - funded by the EU.  9. Spain's economy to fall apart. 10. Ed Milliband to be replaced by Yvette Cooper. 11. NIck Clegg to fight off a challenge from Vince Cable. 12. Victoria Beckham to launch a range of maternity ...

12 Months Training Contract Application Mentoring for up to 15 law graduates, paralegals and non-qualified lawyers from Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. Looking for help finding a training contract? From January 2013, Jonathan Fagan , legal career coach, author of the Legal Recruitment blog, solicitor (non-practising) and MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment is going to work with up to 15 people for 12 months at a time to help each one to find and secure a training contract and qualify as a solicitor. The assistance will be as intensive as you want it to be. You will have access to expert advice on training contracts when you need it by email and telephone, as well as face to face meetings as you progress through the process of making training contract applications. The scheme is just as relevant to those applying for Magic Circle training contracts as it is to those applying to high street law firms. If you would like to be considered for this scheme, please email us at jo...