Articles From the Team

How does a 4 year PQE pensions lawyer get offered 3 in-house commercial jobs?

ANSWER: Our clients rightfully focussed on personality and aptitude.

Richard Branson recently said: “There is nothing more important for a business than hiring the right team. If you get the perfect mix of people working for your company, you have a far greater chance of success. However, the best person for the job doesn’t always walk right through your door”.

How right Mr Branson is! We have been telling clients this for months… but it seems like every day clients are saying to us post their direct adverts: “I thought there would be loads of great applicants”. For the reasons why this is not the case read various previous blogs.

Over the years we have learnt that the first thing we need to look for when searching for a new recruit for our clients is somebody with a personality that fits with the company culture/ current legal team. Most skills can be learned, but it is difficult to train people on their personality. If you can find people who are bright, fun, friendly, caring and love helping others, you are on to a winner.

You can learn most jobs extremely quickly with the right support. Within three months you can usually know the ins and outs of a role. If you are satisfied with the personality, then look at directly applicable experience and expertise.

This is definitely what happened in this case! I was asked to assist a lawyer who had only recently moved from a pensions role in private practice to an in-house role. Unfortunately for her, one month into the role the company relocated its legal team to London. Putting legal skills aside her personality and character were just perfect for in-house and we knew that if our clients met her she would win them over, and that is exactly what happened. Well done to her and also to the clients that focused on getting the right character into their team/ business irrespective of her previous experience.