Before talent acquisition was the business it is today, the hiring process depended largely on one factor: your connections. If you knew someone who knew someone who worked at your dream company, you had the opportunity to land yourself a career defining job.
Eventually, as the job market got larger, there was a need to hire multiple people at once. This is when recruitment agencies found their footing in the market. Today, recruitment agencies and top headhunting firms connect employers to job seekers worldwide. This is also true in the field of law, where law firms with requirements for professionals with niche specializations have a larger pool of candidates when they hire through an attorney headhunter or talent acquisition agency.
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Can agencies replace networking?
Before we answer that, let’s look at the pros and cons of both options:
Networking
· Pros
o You can hire people you are familiar with. You know their work ethic and whether they will fit into the company.
o In case of hiring juniors from your alma mater, you maintain a positive relationship with the institution.
o When hiring through references, you may find the perfect candidate who has slipped through the system.
o References are also useful to maintain an amicable and professional relationship with your peers in the industry.
· Cons
o Familiarity does not always mean skill. Hiring someone due to reasons other than competence can be a loss for the firm.
o The lines between work and personal life become blurred.
o The candidate pool is finite, since it is restricted to first and secondhand references. When recruiting for an international location, this can be a hindrance. Hiring only through your network can lead to limited diversity in the firm.
Recruitment agencies and headhunting firms
· Pros
o Agencies have access to a large pool of qualified candidates.
o You can find candidates with the right qualifications for vacancies with niche requirements.
o The hiring and vetting process is taken care of by the recruitment agency or headhunting firm.
o An experienced attorney headhunter can discreetly approach candidates from competing firms without any risk to your firm’s reputation.
Video Source:- HR Reflections HR Consultants Mumbai, India
· Cons
o You have no personal knowledge of the candidates’ work ethic
o You will have to pay a fee to hire a candidate who is represented by an agency. While this may be acceptable for higher positions, paying an agency for an entry level candidate is not a preferred hiring strategy.
Now that we have established that both these options have their merits and challenges, we arrive at the main question:
Can networking be replaced by hiring agencies in the legal field?
Maybe it could be. Talent acquisition agencies and headhunting firms offer quite a few advantages that negate the cons of networking. However, networking is a deeply entrenched ritual in the legal field. Be it the connections between industry professionals and the juniors at their alma mater, or the tenuous power of a second-hand reference, a professional with amicable relationships is more likely to thrive in the legal field than one without. In a field that thrives on the unfeeling interpretation of the written word, networking is a rare vestige of the human connection.
For more information:- https://www.alliancerecruitmentagency.com/head-hunting-firms/
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