Why use a legal recruitment agency?

They are sharks (along with estate agents) - that's what some think of legal recruitment agents and to be fair it probably what I thought myself before we started doing our own recruitment for the law firm. Send a brief and candidates CVs magically appear in your inbox, you pick a few, run some interviews and voila! A brand new Solicitor.

In truth, until you really start to nail down on the work required in a candidate led market it does not become clear what is actually involved to run a successful process and the time (and expense it takes to actually do it successfully). Here is the brief process an agency has to run to find a new recruit for a client:

1. Take instructions and offer advice on the likely market and salary to be paid.
2. Draft a careful job advertisement to sell the firm to potential candidates.
3. Post that advertisement to multiple platforms.
4. Search our own database for potential candidates, as well as external databases we have access to.
5. Carefully vet candidates CVs to send to the client.
6. Arrange interviews.
7. Deal with offers for the client and advise on offers.
8. Obtain feedback for candidates.
9. Deal with references if client requires and post interview follow up work.
10. Keeping in contact to make sure the start date runs smoothly.

When you do consider the time and money taken to do the work, one can see why it pays to use an agent. The worst part of recruitment is when you get a candidate you think is given a start date, and it all falls through or the ideal candidate slips through the net because the terms of the offer were not quite there.

For small firms with no dedicated HR or hiring manager, using an agent allows them to take stress and hassle out of the process.

Mckie Recruit run a legal recruitment agency for small and medium firms. We offer 10% on first new instructions and our standard fee is 12.5%. www.mckierecruit.com