Being Honest With Attorney Recruiters . . . And Yourself
The scenario is always the same: after several attempts, an attorney recruiter finally reaches a law firm partner on the phone (usually after the partner’s assistant has left for the day), presents an attractive opportunity with another firm, spends a while answering the partner’s questions about that opportunity, and receives from the partner some variation of the same answer: “I’m not really looking right now” or “Thanks for the information, but I’m not interested” or “Things are going great at my firm so I’m not in the market – try back in 6 months.”
But here’s where things start to get interesting: In our experience, a good percentage of the attorneys who say they’re “not interested” actually do switch firms not long after their expression of disinterest, suggesting either that that they were being dishonest with the recruiter, dishonest with themselves, or that something happened to change their minds radically between when they declined to speak with the recruiter and when they actually made a move. Let us examine these possibilities in turn.
Attorney Recruiters Deliver Options
There are innumerable reasons why lawyers are less than candid with recruiters, ranging from being too busy to speak at the moment, to a fundamental failure to appreciate how helpful recruiters can be. Granted that Charles River Recruiting is biased, but we posit that recruiters can always be helpful—and can never be harmful—to attorneys. At the very worst, a chat with one of our recruiting professionals entails a brief investment of time, at your convenience. If one of our legal recruiters reaches you at an inopportune moment, simply schedule a few minutes for another day, or for a time when you are otherwise unoccupied, such as on a drive home from work. (Just remember to use a headset.)
The subject matter is usually straightforward: we share information about the opportunities we are working on, and you share information about your law practice that lets us assess whether there is a potential fit with any of our current opportunities—or with one that may cross our desks in the future. Overall, it’s a simple conversation; we’re looking to build relationships that last a career and to learn about what’s important to you and to your practice.
Some attorney recruiters profess surprise at how little many lawyers think of recruiting professionals. While we don’t have statistics, anecdotal evidence suggests that up to 50% of lawyers have a low/poor opinion of recruiters—just as an equivalent percentage of the population has a dim opinion of lawyers themselves. In some ways, however, the numbers are reminiscent of the stats for Congress: a vast majority of the U.S. population complains about Congress as a whole, but they almost invariably reelect their own representatives. Just as, when a layperson is in need, she will begin looking for a lawyer.
The same goes for lawyers and for recruiters: lawyers who have a good working relationship with a recruiter recognize the benefits they provide, such as market intelligence on competing law firms, opportunities with other practices, and advance warning of changes that may be about to occur in their own, or other, firms. And they also recognize that a good attorney recruiter has the ability to put them on the inside track for the dream opportunity that they might not otherwise even have heard of.
Change Can Indeed be Scary
By contrast, lawyers who brush off phone calls from legal recruiters are often being dishonest with, or not really listening to, themselves. They often carry an erroneous (or understandably repressed) sense of their own satisfaction. And why not? Nothing makes you unhappy, and forces you to act in ways that may be scary, like admitting you’re unhappy. Especially in a high-stress profession like law, overestimating one’s satisfaction protects the bruisable ego from wear and tear, so it is not surprising that lawyers reflexively report higher happiness than they admit to in unguarded moments.
But if you open up your consciousness to embrace consideration of a superior situation, you’ll see you have options — real options. This is not to say that the opportunity about which a recruiter happens to be calling is the one that the lawyer has been waiting for; rather, it may be one opportunity among a broader set that the lawyer would be well-advised to contemplate, if only to avoid assuming that his or her status quo represents his or her only possible professional universe.
Lawyers who brush of phone calls from recruiters do themselves a disservice by eliminating an important source of information about their industry and about the other players in it. Where else, for example, will the typical partner hear about new additions (or departures) from other firms—including personnel changes in other cities, which might not make the local press? Information like that could materially affect one’s choice of whether a particular firm deserves consideration.
And how else can he or she make a discreet, no-names inquiry into whether a firm would be interested to engage in a conversation in the first place? (Even approaching a target firm through a buddy on the inside undercuts one’s posture—putting the partner in the position of sheepishly approaching “hat in hand” rather than from a position of strength as a great candidate who “isn’t looking” but whom the recruiter has persuaded to be willing to have a conversation).
Lawyers are Almost Always More Interested in Change Than They Think
So, what makes a lawyer who had previously said “no” to a recruiting call change his or her mind? Any number of factors could come into play: the second recruiter may simply have caught the lawyer at a more opportune moment; the lawyer could have become more frustrated with his or her situation—e.g., shortly after having had to turn away a client due to a conflict; or he or she may have learned about a peer who recently changed firms. Sometimes, the first recruiter’s questions, more direct than most people to whom the lawyer speaks, simply got the lawyer thinking.
In any case, the next question to ask is whether lawyers even know what information they would like to hear about other firms. Indeed, do they even know what information is important for them to have if they do choose to contemplate changing firms? Often the answer is “no”: they often have no idea. For example, the first thing many partners want to know about other firms is their profits per partner.
The question, while valid, only tells part of the story, because individual compensation varies so much from person to person. While profits per partner is a good measure of a firm’s average profitability, it actually has little to do with a particular partner’s actual compensation or—often as significantly—his or her personal satisfaction. And satisfaction often comes down to a factor that is impossible to assess except by forming one’s own opinion based on meeting the people: culture.
Here’s a suggestion for what to do next time you receive a call from a legal recruiter: take it. (And if you don’t have a moment when the call comes in, set a specific time for the recruiter to call you back). At the very worst you will lose a few minutes, even while you lay the basis for a positive relationship in the future, and at best you may learn about the dream opportunity you have been waiting for. More likely, you’ll attain something in the middle: a deeper understanding of the players in your industry and a meaningful relationship with someone who has a vested interest in your being happier than you are.
Being Honest With a Recruiter . . . And Yourself
The scenario is always the same: after several attempts, a recruiter finally reaches a law firm partner on the phone (usually after his or her assistant has left for the day), presents an attractive opportunity with another firm, spends a while answering the partner’s questions about that opportunity, and receives from the partner some variation of the same answer: “I’m not really looking right now” or “Thanks for the information, but I’m not interested” or “Things are going great at my firm so I’m not in the market – try back in 6 months.” (Fill in your own answer—the variations are endless but the underlying sentiment is the same: “I don’t want to hear about what you have to offer”).
But here’s where things start to get interesting: In our experience, a good percentage of the people who say they’re “not interested” actually do switch firms within the year or two following their expression of disinterest, suggesting either that that they were being dishonest with the recruiter, dishonest with themselves, or that something happened to change their minds radically between when they declined to speak with the recruiter and when they actually made a move. Let us examine these possibilities in turn.
There are innumerable reasons why lawyers are less than candid with recruiters, ranging from being too busy to speak at the moment, to a fundamental failure to appreciate how helpful recruiters can be. Granted that Charles River Recruiting is biased, but we posit that recruiters can always be helpful—and can never be harmful—to attorneys. At the very worst, a chat with one of our professionals entails a brief investment of time, at your convenience. If one of our recruiters reaches you at an inopportune moment, simply schedule a few minutes for another day, or for a time when you are otherwise unoccupied, such as on a drive home from work. (Just remember to use a headset.)
The subject matter is usually straightforward: we share information about the opportunities we are working on, and you share information about your practice that lets us assess whether there is a potential fit with any of our current opportunities—or with one that may cross our desks in the future. Overall, it’s a simple business-development conversation; we’re looking to build relationships that last a career and seek to learn about what’s important to you and to your practice.
Recruiters are often surprised at how little many lawyers think of recruiting professionals. While we don’t have statistics, anecdotal evidence suggests that up to 50% of lawyers have a low/poor opinion of recruiters—just as an equivalent percentage of the population has a dim opinion of lawyers themselves. In some ways, however, the numbers are reminiscent of the stats for Congress: a vast majority of the U.S. population complains about Congress as a whole, but they almost invariably reelect their own representatives.
The same goes for lawyers and for recruiters: lawyers who have a good working relationship with a recruiter recognize the benefits they provide, such as market intelligence on competing firms, opportunities with other practices, and advance warning of changes that may be about to occur in their own, or other, firms. And they also recognize that a good recruiter has the ability to put them on the inside track for the dream opportunity that they might not otherwise even have heard of.
By contrast, lawyers who brush off phone calls from recruiters are often being dishonest with, or not really listening to, themselves. They often carry an erroneous (or understandably repressed) sense of their own satisfaction. And why not? Nothing makes you unhappy, and forces you to act in ways that may be scary, like admitting you’re unhappy. Especially in a high-stress profession like law, overestimating one’s satisfaction protects the bruisable ego from wear and tear, so it is not surprising that lawyers reflexively report higher happiness than they would admit in unguarded moments.
However, opening up one’s consciousness to at least the possibility of a superior situation facilitates the consideration of innumerable alternatives to one’s status quo. This is not to say that the opportunity about which a recruiter happens to be calling is the one that the lawyer has been waiting for; rather, it may be an opportunity in a broader set that the lawyer may be well-advised to contemplate, if only to avoid assuming that his or her status quo represents his or her only possible professional universe.
Lawyers who brush of phone calls from recruiters do themselves a disservice by eliminating an important source of information about their industry and about the other players in it. Where else, for example, will the typical partner hear about new additions (or departures) from other firms—including personnel changes in other cities, which might not make the local press? Information like that could materially affect one’s choice of whether a particular firm deserves consideration.
And how else can he or she make a discrete no-names inquiry as to whether a firm would be interested to engage in a conversation in the first place? (Even approaching a target firm through a buddy on the inside undercuts one’s posture—putting the partner in the position of sheepishly approaching “hat in hand” rather than from a position of strength as a great candidate who “isn’t looking” but whom the recruiter has persuaded to be willing to have a conversation).
So, what makes a lawyer who had previously said “no” to a recruiting call change his or her mind? Any number of factors could come into play: the second recruiter may simply have caught the lawyer at a more opportune moment; the lawyer could have become more frustrated with his or her situation—e.g., shortly after having had to turn away a client due to a conflict; or he or she may have learned about a peer who recently changed firms. Sometimes, the first recruiter simply got the lawyer thinking. Or think of your own scenario.
In any case, the next question to ask is whether lawyers even know what information they would like to hear about other firms. Indeed, do they even know what information is important for them to have if they do choose to contemplate changing firms? Often the answer is “no”: they often have no idea. For example, the first thing many partners want to know about other firms is their profits per partner. The question, while valid, only tells part of the story, because individual compensation varies so much from person to person. While profits per partner is a good measure of a firm’s average profitability, it actually has little to do with a particular partner’s actual compensation or—often as significantly—his or her personal satisfaction. And satisfaction often comes down to a factor that is impossible to assess except by forming one’s own opinion based on meeting the people: culture.
Here’s a suggestion for what to do next time you receive a call from a legal recruiter: take it. (And if you don’t have a moment when the call comes in, set a specific time for the recruiter to call you back). At the very worst you will lose a few minutes, even while you lay the basis for a positive relationship in the future, and at best you may learn about the dream opportunity you have been waiting for. More likely, you’ll attain something in the middle: a deeper understanding of the players in your industry and a meaningful relationship with someone who has a vested interest in your being happier than you are.
