Articles From the Team

Is there any flexibility… in relation to your perfect candidate?

I have had a conversation recently with a client who was looking to find a lawyer with between 1 and 3 years PQE with fairly a niche mixture of legal experience to join the company’s in house team.

There were certain factors that were going to make this appointment more difficult than normal; in particular the location; the varied location of the current legal team and the specific skill set required for the role.

The perfect person that meets a client’s wish list and who is ready and willing to apply and fill that vacancy does not always exist. Whilst we would hope that could be the case, where it is not, it is important to be open minded to the potential options, especially in the current market where we have found that the private practice and in-house market is buoyant , with lawyers moving job having more options than they might have had 2/3 years ago.

A number of months into finding the ‘ideal’ candidate some of my suggestions included:

• Could the role be performed by a more senior lawyer on a part time basis? • Retrain an individual who has another legal skillset or who only has one of the mixed skill set required and develop as required. • Is there flexibility in terms of the location in terms of making the commute manageable and/or the possibility of working from home part of the week? • Another option whilst ‘waiting’ for the perfect candidate would be to recruit an interim to fill in for the time being. (In one case we placed a senior interim who then trained the new recruit in areas that they were lacking!).

Ultimately my suggestions fell on deaf ears. Only time will tell what this client does to find the ‘perfect lawyer’.

For more information please contact Joanne McKernan or visit our website BCL Legal.