Kiwi lawyers: How to get a job in London late 2019 update
It's about time I updated my "how to get a job in London" article because although a lot hasn't changed, some things (or at least my thinking around them/way of expressing them) have.
Every candidate remains different, and there's really no substitute for getting in touch for a chat about your specific situation. But there are still a few things which are universal.
The UK is still in the EU and nobody knows what's happening with Brexit yet (though I make a couple of predictions at the bottom).
New Zealand (and to a lesser extent, Australia) is still mostly small enough that employers can pretty much avoid paying an agency fee to get the best talent. Posting an ad and encouraging employees to refer a friend draws a reasonable sort of response. But in a large market like London, fierce competition still rages for the brightest and best, and law firms are (mostly) prepared to pay for it. Like it or not, at some point, your job search in the wider world is likely to involve a recruiter.
So, how to find a good one? I feel like this needs another article, but in short:
- Do you like them? Do they care or are they just trying to sell you something/tell you what they think you want to hear? Are they listening?
- Can you trust them? Are they from an established agency, can you check out their individual background? Have they worked with any of your friends or colleagues?
- Do they recruit the right sort of job for you? If you're looking for a permanent job in private practice there's little point spending a lot of time speaking with a recruiter who specialises in interim in-house.
- Do they/their company place candidates like you?
- Has somebody you know had a positive experience with them? It’s a people business, and recruiters will value a referred candidate.
Private practice or in-house?
The intended readers of this article will be New Zealand lawyers in New Zealand law firms. In a law firm the career path is sure, or at least you know what the end goal is supposed to be. Even where partnership isn't your goal, a career in a law firm offers a well-paid and comfortable trajectory. But it's not for everyone, and there's often a temptation on moving to a larger market to take advantage of the much wider array of in-house jobs on offer.
If you do want to go in-house, my advice is still that in order to secure the very best international in-house roles, there's no substitute for getting international firm experience under your belt and name on your CV. Plenty of kiwi lawyers come over at 2-3 PQE and end up with perfectly good careers in-house in London, but if you want to position yourself to work for large internationally known companies it can do you no harm (and may make your path easier) to spend a few years with an international name.
Having said that, kiwi lawyers are pretty awesome, and I've known (and placed!) some who have moved in-house "too soon" by this metric, and had stellar careers.
And frankly, if you've had enough of private practice when you travel abroad (or never went there in the first place), there will be options too. They just won't come by as readily as if you've spent a few years with an international law firm in London.
When to come
I still can't emphasise enough how important it is to get a couple of years' post-qualification experience ("PQE") in New Zealand or Australia before you come to London. There are VASTLY more vacancies between 2-4 PQE than there are at Newly Qualified (NQ) and 2 PQE (I must find a study to illustrate this somewhere - at this point just trust me). When you factor in some kind of "PQE discount" for the fact you haven't done a two year training contract like your England & Wales-qualified competitors, the importance of getting a few years in New Zealand is even greater.
If you're not sure, get in touch to discuss - I'm always speaking with kiwi lawyers well before they make the move, and I'm happy to do so. This also means I can keep you on the radar in case anything interesting comes up at your level.
How to present yourself
Your CV is the first thing an employer will see. I've helped a lot of kiwi lawyers successfully finesse their CVs for the London market. Get in touch to make a start (ideally before you get here): [email protected].
Applying for jobs and agency etiquette
I'm still amazed at how many kiwi lawyers don't think about where their CV is going and blindly email it around and apply through portals without having a conversation. Get in touch with whoever is advertising a job and see if they sound sensible and seem like somebody into whose hands you want to put your career. Although recent privacy law changes have shifted the balance in the right direction in terms of keeping your data safe, there are no controls around agencies (or employers) advertising for a job, and you should have no expectation of a response if you don't fit the bill. You should have some sympathy for agencies or employers who don't respond to unsuccessful applications: it is easier for the most hopelessly unqualified candidates to click send on a million applications than it is for any agency or employer to sort out the good ones. Save yourself the pain of not knowing and ensure you become one of the good ones by getting in touch with whoever is advertising by email or phone before sending your CV into the ether. I could go on.
Please be careful you don't instruct two agencies on the same role. It makes us all look stupid and wastes time (ours and yours). As a law firm applicant you should need to talk to only one or two recruiters; give them some respect for the time they spend/advice they provide and don't spread yourself around the market. When you find a good recruiter you'll thank me.
In-house is a little different - although the number of law firms who might recruit you are finite (and most use specialist legal agencies, also finite), the number of in-house employers is near enough to infinite and they won't all use all agencies. Find a few in-house recruiters you like and who are recruiting for the sorts of roles you want, and also keep looking in the legal press (thelawyer.com, totallylegal.com, legalweek.com) and get in touch with the agency advertising them. Many employers will also advertise directly on these job boards and Linkedin (so you should make sure you have a Linkedin profile worth finding/hiring).
Brexit - bad for Britain, good for Kiwis?
I told you I was getting to this (I had mentioned it a year ago).
Firstly - the lead up to Brexit has been good for law firms. Big law firm clients are super good at making money and it's not as if the uncertainty of Brexit hadn't been sign-posted. This has been the busiest summer I can remember in 13 years of legal recruitment, and the training, skills, personality and work ethic of Kiwi lawyers are as much in demand as ever.
Although some kiwis are lucky enough to be sponsored by an employer, most kiwis come on their OE with some sort of long-term right to work (either a British/EU Passport or some sort of Ancestry visa) or on the Tier 5 visa which allows you to work for two years. Sponsorship is generally pretty easy for law firms, tougher for in-house (as you're a cost on the business, the ￡5,000ish fees and admin hassle isn't often seen as a worthwhile expense). But if you can't be sponsored and don't have the right to work through a fortunate family line, things are about to get easier for kiwis, thanks to Brexit.
If there's one thing the whole Brexit debacle has thrown into sharp relief, it's that nobody is happy with the UK's immigration system. Unlike most of the EU, the UK refused to register EU nationals taking advantage of the EU's "Freedom of Movement". This meant it was near enough to impossible to ensure that immigrants weren't simultaneously taking British jobs and scrounging off the British benefits system (there's plenty of evidence that immigration has been a net benefit for hundreds of years but that's for another day).
Late last year the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) published an “immigration post-Brexit” report, in which it recommends scrapping the cap on Tier 2 (ie. sponsored) visas, and the Resident Market Labour Test (the flawed test under which employers had to advertise to prove that they couldn’t find the employees they needed from the EU). If the MAC’s recommendations are enacted, it will mean that employers will find it a lot easier to sponsor workers from all over the world.
Now, we haven't left the EU yet, and I hope we never do - but maybe, just maybe the ￡66 billion which has been spent on Brexit (so far) will lead to a better immigration system. They'll have to replace those EU teachers and nurses somehow.
Next steps
Every candidate is different. Get in touch with me at [email protected] when you’re ready to hear more.
David von Dadelszen is a kiwi ex-lawyer who has been working in legal recruitment in London since 2006. He has particular expertise in helping New Zealand and Australian lawyers find their way (not just in London, but in Asia and the Gulf as well). David also runs a “Kiwi lawyers around the world” LinkedIn Group.