The New Year is an ideal time for a fresh start and, as a result, more people decide to make a career move than at any other point. So, with companies likely to see a significant increase in the amount of applications from which they must shortlist, how can they ensure that they pick out the right candidates? Here are our top five tips.

1) Before you begin to look at the applications, it’s vital that you define your ideal candidate. Use your job description and person specification to create two checklists: the essential criteria and desirable criteria needed to do the job. The standards are likely to relate to all of the following key areas, plus any others that are relevant:  education, work experience, skills and knowledge, competencies and personality traits. Be very strict about the criteria you term ‘essential’: these should relate to the qualities and traits of top performing employees in the role.

2) The next step is to begin the shortlisting process. At this stage, some employers choose to utilise the services of a specialist recruiter that knows the market inside out: they can identify the right talent quickly and may already have people among their network of candidates that might fit the role.

3) If shortlisting in-house, do so in stages.

Stage 1: Go through the applications and discard any that don’t meet all of the essential criteria. You now have a list of candidates who can all do the fundamentals of the role. At this point, it is also worthwhile noting where applications have come from so that you know where to advertise future vacancies.

Stage 2: Decide how many candidates you want to interview. Go through the remaining applications, weigh them against each item in your list of desirable criteria and record the number of criteria they meet. Some recruiters like to use a spreadsheet as this helps them to rank candidates at a glance. During this stage, you should also check that there are no inconsistencies in their CV and that spelling, punctuation, grammar, presentation and attention to detail are in line with your expectations.

4) You can now decide who to select for interview. It is important to think outside the box here: you may have a list of desirable criteria, but it’s unlikely that an individual will meet all of them, so decide which combination will have the most impact. Also, if you are replacing a current post holder, don’t have a vision of replacing like with like: think about what they could do when they joined, rather than what they can do now.

5) In addition to notifying the candidates selected for the next stage, ensure that you also contact everyone who applied –even if there were hundreds- to thank them for their interest, but letting them know that, unfortunately, this time they have not been shortlisted for interview. A superior candidate experience is crucial in today’s skills short environment. After all, a candidate that isn’t the right fit for now might just be, in the future.

If you have a vacancy and would like to talk to us about how we can help you shortlist the right person for the job, contact our specialist team of recruiters.

Hardly a day seems to go by within the legal profession without some piece of publicity about, or new initiative around, workforce diversity. But while almost everyone would agree that this trend is a good thing and that the profession should offer equal opportunity to all whatever their gender, social background, ethnicity, etc, how many of us really understand that there is also a compelling business case shoring up altruistic motives?

The reason why many of the very largest firms have been devoting so much time, effort and cash to building more diverse workforces is not because they have experienced some unexpected attack of niceness, but because they grasped some while ago that this makes good business sense.

The business case for diversity

In the days when the great majority of customers for legal services were white, middle class males, who had attended similar schools and universities it may have been sensible if many law firm partners looked exactly the same. But the world has changed. And when partners at major firms found themselves in meetings with potential clients from every corner of the globe and from backgrounds as far away from the English private school system as it’s possible to get, they quickly got the message that the cosy, old arrangements of the past might no longer be fit for purpose.

However the business principles behind diversity are not simply the province of the ‘Magic Circle’ and its peers. Firstly, no organisation can genuinely understand and respond to what motivates its customer base unless it mirrors it, at least to some extent. Secondly, diversity is often the source of new and innovative​ideas and approaches – something that every firm needs to embrace in this age where traditional ways of operating can be rendered obsolete virtually overnight. And finally, ignoring the potential of diversity and simply recruiting the same people from the same places you always have is transparently self-defeating. The best talent is the best talent, no matter what it looks or sounds like or where it happened to be educated.

Achieving workforce diversity and accessing the commercial benefits that it can bring does not have to be the daunting challenge it is often portrayed as. An open mind and a willingness to look beyond the obvious to what an individual can really offer can achieve an awful lot without any investment in glossy, formal programmes or initiatives. And once the diversity gets started its momentum can end up doing your job for you. As the barrister and diversity campaigner, Miranda Brawn puts it, the key is for individuals from what might be regarded as disadvantaged groups to see role models across the profession in firms of all sizes. Because if they can see people like themselves in senior positions, the brightest and best will do everything they need to do to emulate them. And that can only be good for talented lawyers and the firms that will gain commercial advantage by hiring and developing them.

For more insights from the team take a look at our other blog posts. And if you’d like to discuss your hiring requirement speak to us today.

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Lynn Sedgwick, Managing Director of Clayton Legal, was recently featured in Totally Legal discussing the rise of the paralegal role. Here’s what she had to say:

The vast majority of you probably ended up in the legal sector through the traditional route of university and a training contract, possibly with a conversion course sandwiched somewhere in between. For the past few decades, this has been the only option if you wanted to work as a solicitor, lawyer or barrister, but that’s no longer the case thanks to the rise of the paralegal.

An alternative route

Robert Houchill made waves in 2015 by becoming the first person to qualify as a solicitor through ‘alternative means’ after working as a paralegal for four and a half years as part of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) ‘Training for Tomorrow’ programme. This initiative was launched to inject more flexibility into the routes to qualify in the profession.

The move highlights that the role of the paralegal is significantly changing. Where in the past the position was solely focused on admin support for qualified solicitors, now the distinction between the two is considerably smaller and operating as a paralegal represents a viable route into the sector for professionals who were unable to secure a training contract, for whatever reason.

The trend is still very much in its infancy, but times are changing. While less than 10% of training contracts are currently awarded to paralegals, there are some firms acting as outliers, including Trowers & Hamlin which recruited 40% of its trainee workforce from paralegals. In addition, DAC Beachcroft has given 60% of its entry level roles to existing paralegal employees.

The necessary skills

There are no definitive rules for what skills are required by paralegals as the role can vary depending on the work of the firm and what area it operates in. However, generally good organisation and administrative abilities are always highly sought after, as are research skills and the ability to communicate findings with senior professionals and qualified solicitors. Opting for this route also highlights to potential employers that you have the drive and determination to work for what you want and that you’re keen to progress in the sector.

It’s still the norm for professionals to operate as career paralegals, but the ‘alternative means’ option provides a second viable route within the sector. It’s estimated that in the next seven to ten years there will be more paralegals than solicitors and it’s highly likely that a significant chunk of qualified solicitors will be those who started off as paralegals.

Naturally, there are some doubts and some commentators have suggested that the move could potentially undermine the profession or reduce the quality of people being admitted. However, the SRA has made securing the opportunity to qualify as a solicitor a demanding process and all paralegals must prove that the experience they’ve gained equates to the requirements of recognised formal training.

It’s highly encouraging to see another route opened up into an area that has historically had rigid entry requirements. Such a move could also help to increase social mobility within the profession, a target that many firms have been struggling to meet. The success of the programme can only be judged further down the line, but the idea, and the development of the paralegal role, should be greatly welcomed.

For more tips and insights visit our blog.

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