Is your swim lane wide and deep?

I spent last week on holiday in Cyprus. It was wonderful.  The majority of each day was taken up in the pool teaching 3 children of different ages and abilities how to swim - doggy paddle; breaststroke; freestyle with proper breathing; treading water; dolphin kicks; diving for coins - the list goes on  (tumble turns were, thankfully, not required). I learnt a lot during this process. First, a 5 year old boy who prefers the shallow end where he can stand whilst his 11 year old sister wanting to show off her newly perfected crawl starting in the deep end is going to create some management of time and place challenges for the teacher; Second, kids get stuff. Quickly. And will practice time and time and time again. Finally, they understand what their swim lane is and they stick to it. The 8 year old was beyond doggy paddle and putting his head into the water to learn to breath out through his nose but was not yet ready for competitive freestyle. That was his swim lane on day 1 of the holiday. By the end of the week though it had grown. It was wider. It was deeper. It was more complex as additional skills (diving for coins and treading water had been added). It got me to think about lawyers and their careers and what their swim lane looks like. And what does this mean for success in a hiring process.

Each lawyer has a level of competency learnt through the qualification process - the basic doggy paddle and treading water swim lane if you like. There will be specialisation - just like swimmers - with our wonderful commercial lawyers being the medley swimmers (all 4 strokes) whereas perhaps our competition lawyers are the 'fly specialists. But it is the width and depth of the swim lane and understanding what that encompasses that can start to distinguish people within their careers and give them more career options.

What do I mean? To me, the broadness of the swim lane includes other skills: management of people; hiring; budget planning; strategy; emotional intelligence; the more of these skills you add the broader your swim lane becomes and the more attractive you are to employers. The depth of the swim lane is really the sector specialisation, and even a specialisation within a specialisation. This is also attractive to employers. What we see daily at Laurence Simons is that it is the combination of depth and breadth that will edge one candidate ahead of another.

Look at what you are currently missing within your skill set. Is it width or depth of swim lane? What can you do to acquire the missing skills? What experience is missing for that next role? What is your action plan to get them? What commitment and practice is required? How can you explain that whilst the swim lane isn't broad it is very deep? Or vice-versa.

Kids learning to swim. Fully present in the learning moment. Practising 8 hours a day. Learning through their mistakes. Making their swim lane broader and deeper each day. Yes, it was a great holiday. I just need another holiday to recover.

Laurence Simons is a legal and compliance search firm with 30 years experience of placing candidates across all sectors into all level roles. If you are looking to change jobs or wanting to build a high performing team - please do contact us on [email protected]