Articles From the Team

There is more to recruitment than you might well first think!

First of all I am delighted to announce that the in-house team at BCL Legal has a new starter. Joanne McKernan is joining the team. Joanne is making the step into in-house legal recruitment after 6 years as an in- house lawyer with Thales and BAE Systems. Yesterday was her first day with us and together with my colleague Victoria Moore we started the 'initiation' process to turn her into a recruiter!

As a starting point we focused on dealing with lawyers who are looking for a new role. 5 hours later and having really only touched the surface I think she was a bit shocked at what goes into the process. At BCL Legal we have spent hundreds of hours developing a process that makes sure when we are working with a lawyer who is searching for a new role we truly understand what they are looking for. We also need to make sure that the lawyer understands if their aspirations are 'possible' or whether they might need to take a different route to achieve their long term goals.

I have suggested in other blogs that with technical skills often taken as a given it is personality and 'life position' that is the key defining factor when recruiting clients come to make their decision on who to hire. Therefore it is imperative for us to get under the skin of who you are, what makes you 'tick' and what you want out of your career as well as personal life - to me this is all intertwined!

Whenever we speak to a lawyer for the first time we are keen to understand what it is that motivates you, what you want to achieve from a move and why you are unlikely to achieve it where you are! The main factors that people look to move are for a better financial package, better work life balance, more interesting work and/ or greater level of role.

Often job seekers haven't actually considered enough about what their own motivations are or whether or not these could be met internally from their current organisation. Ultimately we want to offer those lawyers that decide to work with us something better/different to what they currently have; otherwise it's not worth the relative upheaval of moving jobs!! If you can get it internally then great- it also doesn't benefit anyone to get it at the point that you have a job offer externally only to be offered what you wanted at the point that you resign.

We hopefully glean the information that we need to ultimately help you without making it feel like either an interrogation or a visit to your psychologists!!!

At the end of the first day I think it was clear from Joanne's face that she realises a lot more goes into being a professional recruiter than first meets the eye!!

For more information please contact Mark Levine or visit our website BCL Legal