Articles From the Team

How do I manage the interview process?

I work with hundreds of candidates every month and for the majority of them, managing the interview process isn’t something they are all too familiar to with. As such, I felt it would useful to collate a brief a run through of how best to manage the process. You’ve decided to explore the market and look for a new role. You may be unhappy in your current role, want a new challenge or simply not being paid enough! So you get in touch with an agent and are made aware of a handful of opportunities that would suit.

At this point, it is essential that you have a conversation with your current employer. The likelihood is that they won’t be best pleased to see you leave and if you’ve spent some time with your current employer, you may well find it difficult to want to leave. It is important that you take the time to iron out any issues and speak openly about what the ideal solution looks like to you. It is then and only then that you’ll be sure that exploring the external market is indeed the best option for you. Nor the agent or the interviewer will appreciate being used as a stalking horse, so honesty definitely is the best policy, especially in this close knit legal market place.

Upon having the conversation with your current employer, your fears are realised and they can’t offer you the solution you were hoping they might! So you decide to make applications with prospective employers and before you know it, you’ve been invited to attend an interview. You attend the first interview and feel it went well and you’re interested in the role but you know you have a few other interviews coming up. You then receive a call from the recruitment consultant informing that you have been made a job offer. What do you do now?

The Insurance Litigation market is very buoyant and as a candidate you tend to have a selection of opportunities. We are finding that many of our candidates have the opportunity to attend an interview with not just one firm but several. Most people also tend to think that the job offer they receive first could be the only one or that other offers will be similar if not the same or simply they have just had enough of looking. However, in reality every firm is different. Each firm has its own personality and everyone within each firm is different. All roles may sound the same however each role will vary depending on the individual firm.

So until you actually go to the interview and meet the people at the firm it is impossible to say you have made the right choice. It could turn out that you actually prefer the firm that you have just interviewed with rather than the one that has made you the offer but you could discover that actually you had made the right choice. The biggest reason that people think it is necessary to cancel interviews is because they don’t want to keep the potential employer waiting for any period of time. People tend to think that they will lose the job offer if it is not accepted straight away. A good recruitment consultant will be able to advise you on this, they should know what the acceptable waiting period for their client is. So in reality the interview you are thinking of cancelling next week should not be a problem as this is a realistic timescale for you to consider your offer. The reason I say this is because this is my job and I see it all time.

If you are seeking to explore your options or are curious to see whether or not you may be of interest to prospective employers, please feel free to contact BCL Legal or call 0845 231 0933 for a brief and confidential conversation.