The legal sector is a complex and intricate industry that is facing numerous challenges when securing talent. With a rising skill shortage, competitive employer landscape, limited Hiring Manager resource, and increased reliance on technology, it is important to have the right tools and techniques in place to attract and retain employees.
Navigating the talent shortage
One of the biggest challenges for recruiting in the legal sector is the limited number of candidates available to carry out the advertised roles. Roles within the legal profession often require a strict set of qualifications and experience, which takes years to complete to progress up the legal career ladder. Due to this, there is likely to be talent gaps for more senior and experienced roles. This is further exacerbated by a fierce competitive market, where strong contenders will be sought after by other law firms.
To support you in navigating this challenge, you need to ensure your roles are attractive, assessing your employer brand and building a healthy talent pipeline. When advertising job openings, you should ensure your job descriptions are relevant, highly optimised for key search terms and also address the needs of the candidates you are looking for. This could include explaining the niche skills and experience required, whilst reflecting on the company culture and progression opportunities.
Your end-to-end recruitment experience will impact your talent acquisition success, but this should be seen as a great opportunity.
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Building a talent pipeline
As talent is in short supply, you should look at different ways to improve your talent pipeline. This could include greater presence in professional networks, internal job advertisements to retain talent and offer progression, and defining a talent pool you can regularly communicate with about your opportunities.
Working in the legal profession can be incredibly busy, with long hours and great employee commitment. This means Hiring Managers have less capacity to be hands on in the recruitment process, so building a talent pipeline and automating personalised templates can really improve efficiency, whilst still building a relationship with your audience.
Executing a strong employer brand
Your employer brand is one of your strongest assets when attracting new talent. Traditional recruitment methods of relying solely on your advertisement is not competitive in the digital world, you need to also be working on the perception of your organisation as a strong employer brand.
Traditional recruitment techniques of looking solely at University qualifications and geographical location are no longer enough. Law firms must evolve to deliver a dynamic, innovative and creative workforce.
This includes clearly communicating your vision, mission and values, ensuring that these are aligned to the real-life culture within the organisation. This is a lot more than a tick box exercise and should be what your existing employees live and breathe. It should be visible for all those researching your company to see, through careers sites, social media and article content; this is a great way for you to differentiate your organisation from your competitors.
Developing an inclusive culture
It is undeniable that having a collaborative and inclusive culture impacts your work environment and this is especially important in the legal sector. Traditional recruitment techniques of looking solely at University qualifications and geographical location are no longer enough and law firms need to evolve to ensure they execute a fair process, to deliver a dynamic, innovative and creative workforce.
From adopting new attraction strategies and accessing new talent pools, to removing unconscious bias and obtaining key reporting metrics, law firms across the UK are pioneering the way when it comes to equality, diversity and inclusion. Introducing gender neutral advert creation and copy and exploring automatic candidate anonymity and blind scoring, you can achieve the key benefits of a diverse workforce.
Time is of the essence
As you will know from working in the legal profession, deadlines and timely communication is vital. The same can also be said for your recruitment process. With limited talent and a fiercely competitive market, you need to move quickly and communicate clearly to ensure your candidates keep you and your business front of mind when deciding on their next opportunity.
Utilising applicant tracking technology to map the candidate journey and integrating with digital onboarding, can streamline the workflow internally and ensure every candidate receives the relevant information, at the right time. Using tools such as candidate alerts, instant SMS notifications and video technology can further enhance the experience, in a time-efficient manner.
In conclusion, it can be difficult to navigate and overcome the challenges faced by recruiters and hiring managers in the legal sector, however there are plenty of steps you can take to ensure your future campaigns are a great success.
