Reaching Out to Passive Candidates: A Winning Strategy for Legal Recruitment

In a recent conversation with a senior manager from one of the UK's leading recruitment agencies, an interesting shift in recruitment strategy was discussed. This manager, who oversees a team of 17 legal recruiters, emphasized the importance of targeting passive candidates—solicitors who aren't actively looking for new job opportunities—instead of those who are already in the job market. This approach, he explained, helps to avoid competition and can often lead to finding high-quality candidates that other firms haven't yet approached.

Current Challenges and Practices

One of the significant challenges highlighted was the allocation of time. Recruiters, especially those working outside London, need to spend about 80% of their time on candidate generation. This focus is crucial because generating a strong talent pipeline translates directly into revenue. As the manager noted:

"By generating talent, taking it to market, you're gonna make money. A good recruiter outside London really is probably spending 80% of their time on candidate generation and 20% on business development."

However, this process is often time-consuming and labour-intensive. For instance, recruiters spend considerable time manually searching for candidates on platforms like LinkedIn and the Law Society websites, with poor response rates—sometimes receiving only three replies from 50 messages sent.

Additionally, feedback from the team revealed deeper challenges in attracting candidates outside London. Despite utilizing tools like Atlas, which is praised for its accurate data due to regular manual checks, the data accuracy in regions outside of London remains a concern. This discrepancy indicates a need for more refined and region-specific recruitment strategies.

The Passive Candidate Advantage

The rationale behind targeting passive candidates is straightforward but compelling. Active candidates are typically already engaged with multiple recruiters and may even be deep into interview processes with potential employers. By the time a recruiter reaches out, these candidates might be close to making a decision, making it harder to sway them towards a new opportunity. In contrast, passive candidates are not actively looking for a new job but might be open to discussions about their career trajectory if approached with the right opportunity. This means they are less likely to be considering other offers, giving the recruiter a unique advantage. The manager elaborated:

"Our guys are proactively talking to the market every single day to people that are passive or perhaps inactive. Actually, they're the candidates that we're focusing on generating because we need to find those people that the competition don't have, that the clients aren't seeing."

The Role of Technology

To support this strategy, our company has developed a "move score"—a predictive tool that gauges the likelihood of solicitors moving jobs based on their online behavior and career history. This tool analyzes factors such as the frequency of role changes and updates to LinkedIn profiles to predict when a solicitor might be ready to consider a new opportunity. This predictive capability can help recruiters identify passive candidates who might be more receptive to a conversation about their next career move.

Enhancing Data Accuracy

One key piece of feedback was the necessity for high-quality, accurate data. The manager stressed that the success of their recruitment efforts hinges on the accuracy and relevance of the information they have. Despite the effectiveness of tools like Atlas in London, regional data accuracy remains a challenge.

Our Approach to Data Enhancement

Initially, we faced challenges in finding relevant data. One major obstacle was that solicitors often aren't fully transparent on LinkedIn about their areas of specialism. To overcome this, we recognized the need to cover multiple sources such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), LinkedIn, and individual solicitor and law firm websites.

The key to improving data accuracy lies in specificity. It's not enough to categorize solicitors by broad areas of law or even secondary specialisms. We need to delve into the third level of specialism. As the manager pointed out:

"You need to not just code somebody by the top-level area of law they do or the second, it's the third level of law that they do. For example, you have corporate, then you have corporate finance below that, and then you'd have private equity and venture capital sitting below that."

Our platform has been enhanced to be very precise in how it searches and combines keywords. This involves not only identifying where these keywords appear—such as in the about section or recent job descriptions on LinkedIn—but also cross-referencing this information with other sources. Additionally, we have improved our system to display where specific pieces of information were found, allowing recruiters to assess the relevance and accuracy of a profile more effectively. The manager emphasized:

"If the accuracy percentage isn't high, we're just wasting time. The platform should be able to show the recruiter where that information is coming from so that they can decide whether that's a profile worth looking into."

Trialing New Approaches in Regional Markets

The feedback we received highlighted some challenges, particularly in regions outside of London where traditional tools have been less effective. To address this, we agreed to run trials in these areas to refine our approach and improve the accuracy of our data. The trials will focus on mapping the regional markets, ensuring that our data on qualified solicitors, including legal executives, is comprehensive and precise.

Conclusion

Our discussion reinforced the value of a proactive approach to recruitment. By reaching out to passive candidates and leveraging advanced tools like our move score, recruiters can stay ahead of the competition and uncover hidden talent. As we continue to refine our product through targeted trials and continuous feedback, we aim to support recruitment agencies in finding the best candidates more efficiently, even in challenging markets. This strategy not only aligns with the evolving needs of the recruitment industry but also sets the stage for future innovations in how we connect talent with opportunities.

Are you ready to gain a competitive edge in legal recruitment? Request a trial of our enhanced recruitment platform today . Shorten the time you spend finding solicitors in specific areas and connect with solicitors just before they start thinking of moving. Discover how our move score and data enhancements can help you target the right candidates at the right time. Get in touch with us to start your trial and revolutionize your recruitment process.