Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Legal Recruiting Coordinators and Their Role in the Attorney and Law Student Hiring Process

Transcript

 [00:00:00] I'm going to be talking about legal recruitment coordinators and the role that they have in the hiring process. And this is actually a very important presentation because recruiting coordinators have absolutely a ton of let me just make sure there's something here.

[00:00:13] I was trying to close. Let me just see here. Sorry, just give me one second here. On a power in terms of how you, whether or not you get hired and in many cases there the most important component for you getting hired in terms of many things. And I think that a lot of times people don't understand that attorneys and younger attorneys don't really understand how important they are and how crucial they are and how much work they do in terms of everything that's involved in the hiring process.

[00:00:39] So I'm going to talk about that today and And quite a bit of doubt. And then after I'm done talking about that, we'll take as many questions as people have, but this'll probably be the only presentation that anyone ever watches about legal recruiting coordinators. And and it's just a very important one to understand, and it can help you it will help you get hired.

[00:00:59] It will [00:01:00] help you hold onto jobs. And it will for many of you, it may actually make you interested in the profession because I think it's a fascinating profession. And and something that a lot of attorneys actually are choose to do and become very happy doing. There, we're really the central piece of the puzzle and and most law firms and and a lot of what they do is misunderstood.

[00:01:16] And I when I was practicing law, I didn't always understand what they did and the there's an article that I have done related to it. But I'll also talk about how the article a little bit, and then I'll talk about some other ideas. The first thing is in terms of the history of legal recruiting coordinators and the position and the history is important to understand because of the role that they fill in the reason that they're there.

[00:01:38] And historically law firms house, you didn't have a recruiting coordinators. They had hiring partners. And honestly the recruiting coordinator is a much newer role than the hiring partner. I There've been hiring partners for, eight, been around for over a hundred years, but in terms of the legal recruiting role, that is actually a relatively new role.

[00:01:58] And today a lot of smaller to [00:02:00] midsize firms don't have lubricating coordinators and most law firms have them when they become when they grow in size and stature. So if you're writing to a Luca recruiting coordinator inside of a firm, the odds are pretty good that it's a important firm.

[00:02:13] And there's and there's a reason for that position. The position started in the early 1980s and then became very popular in the middle of the 1980s. And at that time there wasn't a lot of lateral hiring people would join a law firm and stay there in most cases until they either went in house or for their whole careers.

[00:02:31] And, as people started lateraling and that became much more popular. And then Lulu recruiting role became a much more popular one. And what happened in the mid 1980s as a law firm started it in expanding and as they started expanding, they started learning people from other firms and and really growing to reflect the larger us companies and us companies were getting larger and law firm start again.

[00:03:00] [00:02:59] And and that's started working. So what happened is law firms started the live recording coordination position because what happened is, as they started working with recruiters and the firms started growing and hiring laterally, a lot of times they were working with recruiters and recruiters would always talk to the hiring partners about different positions and they would get close to them and start recruiting them away.

[00:03:19] And and so that as something that the firms, Mike and and was actually very funny. They the recruiting coordinator role was actually created because law firms wanted to protect their hiring partners from getting recruited away in many cases by recruiters.

[00:03:35] And and as law firms grew, they started realizing that it took a lot of attorney time to talk to recruiters and to. And people and so forth. And the recruiting legal recruiting coordinator role started, and there was a lot of turnover among the attorneys that were talking to legal recruiters.

[00:03:50] And so the recruiter became a legal recruiting coordinator's role kind of sorta became as a gatekeeper. And you may notice today, like even legal recruiting coordinators tend to be [00:04:00] very angry. If you contact partners directly they don't want you going around them. And then if you do, they want to be circled in, and that, and they're very territorial with that because their job really is to protect in many cases the firm partners in the firm from recruiters, or to make them able, so they can be productive and put their work towards billing.

[00:04:18] A lot of ours are bringing in clients and not necessarily working with the candidates that are coming in the door. So recruiting coordinators in large and mid firms really do want everything to both through them, because their role really is to protect the productivity of the partners and to make sure that everybody knows what's going on in the process And so the recruiting coordinator role was born.

[00:04:39] And the first reason obviously is because they didn't want anybody recruited away. So they didn't want to they don't want their people recruited away. And and they also wanted to free up more time for the hiring partner and other people to do to do work. And that's really what you need to understand is that the legal recruiting coordinator today is a gatekeeper that protects the [00:05:00] productivity of the firm and enables them to centralize all those activities.

[00:05:04] And then it also prevents attorneys from being recruited away. And it's actually a good idea. When I, it's funny, cause I, it, part of my job, I deal with it brand partners all the time. And sometimes firms are lax and making sure that the hiring partners deal with don't deal with recruiters.

[00:05:20] And when I'm talking to hiring partners mean, I would say, 20 to 30% of the time, if I have several conversations with them, they always ask me what different opportunities are for them. And I always share the conversation towards them, which is funny now it doesn't happen everywhere.

[00:05:33]But if I form a good relationship with them, that will typically happen. So it is smart for law firms to have recruiting coordinators and you need to understand the role really is a very important gatekeeper. And as a gatekeeper, the last person you ever want to upset in the recruiting process is that gatekeeper.

[00:05:48]And then other things happened that the role grew as law firms moved from lockstep compensation systems that you would get kill compensation. The the in smaller firms the role may not take a lot of time. But [00:06:00] if a law firm is compensated or the people that are compensated based on how much money they're bringing in and so forth, and they're billable hours, then it's really not a job that they want to do in lockstep compensation systems.

[00:06:12] What happens is people start out at one salary as a partner, and then they move up and their salary as time goes by. And that was a very common model in the past. But now most people are most law firms compensate partners based on the amount of business they're bringing in.

[00:06:26] So the last thing those partners want to do is spend time talking to law students and attorneys. They don't really want to do a critic. And certainly that they don't want to review resumes, schedule interviews, and and do all this sort of stuff. And those type of arrangements, they just want to be in a position where they can be productive.

[00:06:43] And a lot of times The best attorneys do not want to be hiring partners because it takes just too much time and and it's time so that they could use for other things. Initially the role of the recruiting coordinator was a lot of times the hiring partner would have their secretary help out with that.

[00:06:55]But. You can imagine like how demanding [00:07:00] it is. There's they have to schedule interviews, have to send out rejection letters. They have to answer calls. They have to place advertisements in newspapers and now online and and many smaller firms still rely on that. But for the most part that legal recruiting coordinator has been very professionalized.

[00:07:14]They have their own conferences. They're they're on webinars like this and learning and they're doing continuing education. They're they're very they know the attorneys in the firm very well. They know the kind of work they do. And it's really become a profession and it's a serious profession.

[00:07:27]In some firms That I know of just give you an understanding of how important it is, the recruiting coordinators to people that are in charge of that for the firms to have people that do it nationally and so forth, a lot of cases, they make more than some partners in the firms.

[00:07:40]That role can actually be very highly compensated. Now they may call them a legal recruiting manager or something along those lines, but it is a very highly compensated role in a lot of firms and and the larger the firm and the more responsibility the person does the better.

[00:07:54] So it's a place where if it's a job that you were interested in where you could actually have a very good career and the right firm if you were to [00:08:00] do it so over time secretaries assistants and other nonprofessionals that were assisting hiring partners that, that job became more specialized and then the largest firms the recruiting coordinators tend to understand very well what the firm's needs are with what the attorneys can do.

[00:08:15]And it just become a very essential and important role in most firms. And and it's a profession. That's there are a lot of non-practicing attorneys doing it but some of the people are, former attorneys and a lot of them are former big part, big law firm partners.

[00:08:29] And and and they often worked very hard. Some of them work as hard as the attorneys and and And they can make very good money. So it's a very serious job. And a lot of times when law students and young attorneys are talking to recruiting coordinators, they don't give them the same deference sometimes that they might give an attorney which is very stupid because they are really have a lot of say in what happens in your career.

[00:08:52] And because a lot of times even the attorneys don't want to make the decisions because they're too busy practicing law. They rely upon the legal recruiting [00:09:00] coordinators should decide who to hire and to make hiring decisions. And it can be a very important job and something that you really don't want to take for granted.

[00:09:07]They that there's a huge volume of applications that come into a lot of large firms. There's there's a lot of scheduling, there's offer letters, rejections, there's being able to read resumes and understand what makes a good attorney and a bad attorney. What makes someone in a certain practice here desirable versus not desirable.

[00:09:24] And and it really is a form of legal practice and it's a skill. And and the, a lot of environments do not reward that skill and their attorneys. And so they hire a very good legal recruiting coordinators to do that. And I've been amazed at the salary. Some of them make, some of them I've seen ones that are making, several hundred thousand dollars a year doing the job, they did some big firms, so it can be a very lucrative profession and it can also have a lot of responsibility.

[00:09:47] And and and it's a serious job in our respect and for law firms that are considering hiring legal recruiters the coordinators. Yeah. I It's usually just an amazing investment because it frees up their attorney's time. They can bring in better attorneys [00:10:00] the right attorney, Lu recruiting coordinators.

[00:10:02]No, the type of people that the law firm wants, so we'll be able to make cultural fit. There'll be able to network with the right people. And they'll also give them a very professional experience to people that are joining the firm. Okay. So what illegal recruiting coordinators do?

[00:10:16]This is not that kind of have an understanding of the importance of the role. I'd like to tell you some of the tasks that they do and why these tasks are important. And and they really are multitasking and and doing quite a bit of work. The first thing is they do is they have to constantly work with attorneys in the firm to decide on their needs.

[00:10:33] And one of their main jobs is they'll sit in hiring meetings, they'll get requests from people to hire certain people. They will be in growth mode sometimes, or sometimes they will be in cutting back note mode. And and so the recruiting coordinator really has their pulse on the firm.

[00:10:49]Unlike a lot of people even working there, including associates and even partners they know what the needs of the firm are at various points in time. They may know who's in trouble in their job. They know [00:11:00] who's doing well. They know partners that are bringing in business and but they, but the big thing is that they're responsible for bringing in talent, which is how law firms make money.

[00:11:10] So they're they're really in that role, which is an extremely important role. And obviously if a law firm doesn't have enough people that. It's not doing as much work as it should. And its profitability will suffer. If it hires too many people, then it will suffer as well because it will be paying salaries of people that did not keep him busy.

[00:11:29] And then the morale will be low. So the recruiting coordinator is sitting there in the middle of all this, and I'm watching these inputs and hearing from attorneys that want people, they're hearing other people that have budgets, they're hearing they can hire for certain attorneys and the other attorneys, certain departments and other departments.

[00:11:45] And they're the central repository of all this information. And it's almost it's almost like a, in many cases like having the role of a CEO because they're understanding and getting so much information coming at them to help them make decisions. And so their job is to really understand all that [00:12:00] information and help the firm.

[00:12:01] And sometimes they they'll have to make decisions based on, they'll know gaps that they may have in the firm in terms of people that may have left. They may have. Practice areas may be slowing down and they don't want to hire they're.

[00:12:13]They may be the firm may be refocusing or lighting associates go in certain practice areas. So the thing is recruiting coriander sitting there, and people are calling them all day long recruiters attorneys are sending them resumes and they're getting all these inputs. And so they're actually able to make decisions about, should I send this resume to someone, should I show this resume to someone?

[00:12:33] Should I what should I do with this? And so they're making these decisions and they're very important decisions and that recruiting coordinator likes you. Then they're more likely to get involved and interrupt people. They may say, if they hear that a big case came in, for example in a certain practice area, say it's a Rissa litigation.

[00:12:49]And they see an Arista resume, even though the firm doesn't technically have an opening for an Arista litigator, they see a resume come in, something that they would otherwise not do [00:13:00] anything with because the firm is not hiring, they may forward it to the right people and get it looked at, and that person hired.

[00:13:07] So they have a tremendous amount of power and they can also be making decisions about they know if maybe if someone's leaving in the future and then they have a resume that they keep on hold. And so all of these sorts of decisions they're working with the firm to understand the hiring needs and and law firms will constantly be letting certain people go.

[00:13:25]And and other cases the recruiting coordinator may help them hire contracting staff attorneys. If they know that the law firms not a competent about long-term hiring they may have large institutional clients that the recruiting coordinator can bring in senior attorneys without business to work on.

[00:13:41] So they have this pulse on the firm, which is, it's actually pretty incredible when you think about it and they know where the openings are and they know where the opportunities are in each firm. And because of that it can make a major difference. If they, if you can come to their attention at the right time.

[00:13:57] And and as the firm gets larger And [00:14:00] as the recruiting coordinator has been there for a longer time that we can have institutional memories about different types of people that have been hired in the past and aren't hired. And and they're going to know that they're going to have a good understanding of what's going on.

[00:14:12] And so this is one of the most important things and they're always going to be working with attorneys in the firm to decide what the firm needs. And so obviously because the recruiting coordinators in this gatekeeping role, the better relationship that you have with them as an attorney the better off you're going to be.

[00:14:26] And, frankly the better the recruiting coordinator, the better they're going to understand whether or not you're a fit or not. And many of them do, especially the ones that have been in the firms for a long time. Another thing that the law firm will do and the recruiting coordinator will do is and that I think is extremely important is they will they will understand because they're advertising jobs and they're they're watching the things that come in through recruiting firms and and all the resumes that they received.

[00:14:50] They're going to know how, if there's certain people that are good opportunities to candidates and they're going to be able to recognize them. A good recruiting coordinator can understand certain attorneys that are very rare [00:15:00] and that are hard to find. And then if they do come in, they can bring them to the attention of the right people.

[00:15:05] And and they can also convince the firm to hire certain people to the firm might not otherwise hire. They can go and they can they can explain why they think the person's qualifications are good, why they need to hire this person now, why there, why this is a good candidate and so forth.

[00:15:18] And they do that. And recruiting coordinators will do that. With candidates. They like they will do it with candidates come through recruiters that they trust and that they like they will they'll do it with people that they believe are going to be hard to find in the future. And so they have a lot of power.

[00:15:33]If you're one of five candidates for a job and that recruiting coordinator likes you a lot, then that can be very helpful. Even sometimes they just may want to promote someone like you, they may want to give someone like you a chance because something about your background suggest to them that you'll do well.

[00:15:48] Or maybe they identify with some portion of it and they want to see a person like you in their firm. And so th there's all sorts of ways that people can push forward people that they like. And I've certainly [00:16:00] seen that happen in organizations all the time. And it's a very important thing.

[00:16:04] And and so recruiting coordinators to will help the law firm from making stop them from making mistakes. So many times law firms get very busy and they may just want to throw bodies at cases and problems and liberal Lew recruiting Kurt, or can stop that. And they can make sure that they're only hurting the type of caliber of people that they want.

[00:16:22]And then they can, they sometimes many times LA recruiting coordinators will interview people as well as the attorneys. And they'll have a lot of contact with them throughout the hiring process. So they may be talking to you and calling you on the phone and they may be speaking to you when you come in for interviews and though they're going to see how you act on the phone and how you communicate via email and how if they're texting you, how that's calling and whether or not you're showing up for time on interviews and so forth.

[00:16:47] So they actually play a very big role. And and when they get into making hard decisions, many times there's two or three people and all it takes is a couple of negative or positive words and that recruiting coordinator, and you can actually get hired or not. I've seen it, [00:17:00] they've said, this person was so nice.

[00:17:01] He has sent me such a nice thank you note. Or they did this or they everybody just seemed to like them a lot. I really liked them. And if, you can be friendly with them and so forth when the Harmon's going on, then the better and the better off you're going to be if they like you.

[00:17:13]It's literally babe many times I would say a good portion of the time, their decision of who to hire can also often carry the day and that can apply to summer. Associates can even apply to lateral partner attorneys and and they can decide who and who isn't a good match.

[00:17:29] And because they have institutional memory of people that have worked out and haven't worked out now, they can always bring that stuff up. And so it's even better even a bigger role even then a gatekeeper is they're trying to maintain the brand. And they're trying to prevent the firm from over hiring and different recruiting coordinators have different standards.

[00:17:45]I can think of the office of one LA based firm that is, difficult to get into, but it's not impossible. And then the recruiting coordinator and their New York office is extremely demanding and has much higher standards than even the main office. [00:18:00] And so she sets the tone and by the way, really recruitment vendors are both men and women.

[00:18:05] It doesn't matter. They're both do the position, but that particular, our recruiting coordinator sets the tone and some recruiting coordinators it's easier to get jobs with or get in than others. And so there really are the gatekeeper and they their role is huge in the process.

[00:18:20]And every law firm we're recruiting coordinators also are very good at recognizing the people that are good and bad cultural fits for the firm. Yeah. Cultural fit can mean a lot of things. It can mean how the attorneys carry themselves.

[00:18:34] It can, it's even things like, there are certain firms that I know of where, if you see pictures of the attorneys online, everybody's smiling, it doesn't matter. They're just all very excited and there's other ones where everyone's frowny and looks unhappy and there's other ones where, everyone likes to play sports or, and there's other ones where no one plays sports or, it's just that there's different types of cultures that firms have.

[00:18:54]And And so a good recruiting coordinator understands it can recognize different cultures that firms have, and they can [00:19:00] understand their own firms, culture. And and then they can bring in people that that are like that. And then they can connect with them at the interview stage and they can tell the candidates about, why the culture is a good fit for them.

[00:19:10] And it's just an exceptionally important role, so many respects. And and I've noticed a lot of firms will actually sacrifice so our culture in order to make money. And they'll just bring people that have business simply to do the work or they'll the, and, then those attorneys will work in silos where they won't really work with attorneys and other practice areas and so forth.

[00:19:30] There are other attorneys in the firm and they, so a group of four or five partners may work together or partner in three associates and they don't work with other people. And and the problem is that that there, there's not a good culture and the culture is not held together by the recruiters then by the firm, then people will end up leaving.

[00:19:47] People will be unhappy. And the law firm will eventually go out of business. I've seen a lot of firms where that happens and they almost always go out of business. I don't know why law firms don't, they will emphasize profit of their culture, but recruiting coordinators really [00:20:00] job is to guard against people that can threaten their culture and and that's and something that they do very well.

[00:20:06] And and then the other thing that the recruiting coordinator will work on is they will. Work on job descriptions for the website job boards and critters. And though basically understand the different roles of what an attorney does and they'll put together a job descriptions and this really requires them to have a really good understanding of the type of work that attorneys in different practice areas do what the educational work qualifications, the firms looking for how to make the position sound good, so we'll have to, write very well.

[00:20:35] And and then to make sure that they're able sometimes communicate the culture of the firm in those job descriptions and and that writing ability and the way they put together, those subscriptions will determine if the law firm receives applicants from the sort of attorneys they want.

[00:20:48] And obviously that's a big scale. And so there's a lot of marketing involved and most legal recruiting coordinators have degrees and they college degrees and so forth, and they like writing. And they're able to understand [00:21:00] what attorneys do and write about them.

[00:21:02] And they're able to understand the culture of the firm as well. The other thing that legal recruiting coordinators do is they're able to stay in touch with past applicants. So the firm that may be promising they may interview people and not be able to hire them at one point in time, or they may interview people on want to maybe person to get more experience.

[00:21:19] And so they have to keep them warm and check in with them on an ongoing basis. And and because not everybody is always going to be a no. They may check in with past applicants. They may, go to networking functions. So a lot of times you'll see recruiting coordinators and all sorts of different bar functions on other things because they're learning to, they're out there meeting people and try to help the firm.

[00:21:39] And I know several that are very active doing that. They also will network with other legal recruiting coordinators about potential candidates, sometimes that people may be interested in, in the market. And and so that's a very important role too, that they do. Another thing that they do is they will there's a lot of politics involved the learn secrets about individual applicants, which could be, former discipline [00:22:00] problems.

[00:22:00]They may learn about problems that attorneys working in the firm are having and may need to be replaced or having problems. And they're gonna learn about all sorts of kind of secrets that the firm has. Sometimes law firms may hire children of clients and do things that that they shouldn't do or that they I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, but that they might not otherwise do.

[00:22:20]Or they might've fire. They may avoid hiring people because of they don't like their political or ideological beliefs from you just don't know. And recruiting coordinators have to be very. Aware of those sorts of things can be keep confidences and many times keep that information secret.

[00:22:35] And and even if they're no longer working there and do so from firm to firm. And then they also need to understand a lot of cues. So a lot of times people may not want to hire someone for different types of reasons, but they may not say certain things. So an example may be if they feel like an attorney is socially awkward and they want someone, that's not, people may not actually talk about that because they don't want to be seen as, the negative, but they may talk about it [00:23:00] and indirect ways.

[00:23:01] And and so the recruiting coordinator coordinators to pick up on that and understand what the firm is looking for. And then and then also many times the recruiting coordinator will be tasked. And this is very common. There's B there's people that the law firm does a lot. They'll know who's on the way in, and who's out and so forth.

[00:23:14] And the recruiting coordinator might have to hire people for positions of people that are actually still working there. The firm is planning to getting rid of a lot of recruiting coordinators will actually do outbound recruiting and this is more common, so they will use online from directories and do a research for attorneys.

[00:23:32]Sometimes they'll cold call them other times I'll email them. And and they'll get in touch with them. I know one recruiting coordinator that spends his days making cold calls all over the country and he's very well compensated, but they basically have him doing the role that her additional recruiter would do.

[00:23:47] And a lot of firms do that. They have them aggressively doing outbound calling and so forth. And and and that's a role sometimes too that the firms will do, especially when they have kind of niche opening. So there are some types of openings [00:24:00] that law firms may have, or there only may be a limited amount of people in the country or the area that do the type of work.

[00:24:05] So they'll just tell that recruiting coordinator to go make contact with them. So the position requires a lot of confidence, how is he to do that? And and they'll network with them in different ways too. The idea would be like a pull off from Nevada and need someone that has FDA experience.

[00:24:19]Maybe there's only a couple of people that are in Nevada that do that. So they would contact them and and just and find those people for the Pharaoh. And then the other thing that the recruiting partner does and this, I hope you can see this. I There's an amount of roles that they do is just huge.

[00:24:32]They'll decide how to promote the needs of the law firm. Either using recruiters or advertising, or just generally branding the firm and and you can see here all the options they have when they have a position, many times they can use their existing openings that they may have, or they can advertise it and on job sites and legal publications, they can sometimes they'll do banner ads.

[00:24:53] I've seen law firms doing a lot of banner ads. They can, they can put it on their law firm, career pages they may sometimes promote jobs [00:25:00] widely or other times they may not. Some cases law firms have openings and they don't want to post them publicly. They only want recruiters to know about them because they don't want people in their own staff to know about them or competitors or so they have different ways of recruiting.

[00:25:11]Many times they are responsible for working with also marketing agencies and, or on their own and writing content for the website. That can be quite a bit of work. They're responsible for all this work is actually making me think about on those it's from the heart and very difficult job.

[00:25:28]And then the, one of the big things they also do is they review applications. So for you, it's important to understand that when you're applying to a law firm, many times the only person that's going to see your application is really recruiting coordinator. Because if you're sending your applications directly to them, they have the responsibility as a gatekeeper, to many cases, to reject people in most cases to and to determine whether or not they think you're a good fit.

[00:25:51] They may just call you up and ask you some questions or email you some questions. You may never hearing anything from them again. And so the point is that they have a lot of power and [00:26:00] there, they can decide who's a good fit and who's not, and they can cut you off based on their thoughts about whether or not you're a good fit or not.

[00:26:08] And and that's their job now. And they make those decisions based on many cases, just their experience in the industry, but they can also make those decisions based on what they know about their firm. And in some cases they're making those decisions to not hire people based on what the firm is telling them.

[00:26:25]Typically a recruiting cornea, we received the application either through an applicant tracking system or they'll receive it the, or you send it to them somehow and they'll review it. And and depending on your background, they may decide not to work with you. It could be, they want to hire on that a certain firms.

[00:26:40] It could be, they only hire from certain law schools or it could be, you have to be at a certain position in your class, or it could be that they don't want to hire people that are relocating and so having a very good relationship with recruiting coordinator is important and many times talking to them sometimes if you can not all of them, you can, but the nice thing about a recruiting coordinator is many times you can, [00:27:00] unlike a hiring partner many times attorneys are not afraid to call them and ask questions.

[00:27:04] You can ask some questions and because they're you have to remember, they're overwhelmed. Many of them with application, some of them are receiving hundreds and hundreds of resumes a week and they need to make very quick decisions. So they look for just as a recruiter, does any type of recruiting and recruiting firm or a law school does when they're reviewing applicants, they look for things that show that they're, you're likely to be a fit.

[00:27:25] And but sometimes you can get beyond that and get them to understand you then you can sometimes break through and they may like you, and people will like people. If they're, if there's some way you can make a personal connection and you can do that often through a good cover letter and other ways as well.

[00:27:40] But the role really is to be an app a gatekeeper and and how you interact with them is going to really affect whether or not your resume is going to make each other next stage. It's very important. And and then like you so you need to understand all this I've seen the best recruiting coordinators, hire people that don't look like a good fit.

[00:27:58]But when you look, when you get [00:28:00] down to it, that there are very good cultural fit. So I have an understanding as well in my position of the type of people that certain law firms are looking for. And and people really can decide what sorts of candidates will succeed in their environments.

[00:28:14]They understand the types of personalities that do they're matchmakers and and so that, that's a, one of the roles and and they can make holistic re re evaluations with people. I And they can understand them at a 30,000 foot level by the person actually would work when that doesn't look like they may not work.

[00:28:29]And but just remember that their job really is no different than than, the w what kind of happens in a in a law school, like if a law school is reviewing an application I remember for example, when I was applying to law schools. There were certain law schools that you knew what you would get looked at very quickly and there were others where you knew you would, it would be much harder to get looked at.

[00:28:49] And there were others where you knew that you might never get looked at. From, for most attorneys. So the best law firms are going to have higher qualifications than than other law firms and different qualifications when we're [00:29:00] looking for different things. So their job really is to understand that and to open the gate to the extent necessary to close them to the extent necessary.

[00:29:07]And then the other thing that they do is they also talk to law school. So recruiting coordinators will often be involved in outreach to law schools that are going to be scheduled interviews with summer associates and communicating with the law schools. They're going to review the resumes and see which ones they want to interview for on-campus interviewing.

[00:29:24]And they're going to and then they're also going to review unsolicited resumes that come in with law schools, with the law firm, traditionally doesn't hire from. And and they may choose to bring in some of those people as well. And then when you interview, of course, as a law student at those firms they will be responsible for that and how you get along with them is going to make a difference.

[00:29:41]The other thing they'll do is No, the coordinate trips you for out of town attorneys and law students. So they're in charge of that arranging lunches and and all that related work, which is quite a bit hotel reservations. If the firm doesn't have a travel department and making sure that people show up on time and so forth.

[00:29:57] And then also they play in recruiting events law [00:30:00] schools and and do that thing. And then also. During the summers for summer associate events, they may be in charge of planning all that and organizing things. And during those events, they will watch you and they will have a sense of how well you fit in with people.

[00:30:13] They'll have a sense of your behavior and whether or not you seem like a good long-term fit for the firm. And they're the eyes and ears of the firm. They're their eyes and ears of the firm. When they're bringing you in to interview and then things that you do in a hotel rooms, if you are ordering bad movies, they may they'll know about that.

[00:30:28] If you're ordering too many, too much food and putting it on the hotel bill and we'll know about that. So you have to remember that they really are the eyes and ears of the firm and and that is important. And then another big thing that they do, that's you shouldn't understand it is they do a lot of networking, so they network most recruiting coordinators, know lots and lots of other recruiting coordinators at different firms around the city.

[00:30:52]So that's very important for you to understand that the quality of your relationship with them can actually follow you throughout your career. [00:31:00] Sometimes they they just like attorneys, they switched firms, so you could start off and have a bad relationship with one of them at one firm and then go to another firm and they later on could be hired there.

[00:31:10]But the other thing that they do is they do have a kind of informal relationship. If you're out of work, for example, and affirms thinking about checking your references that wants to hire you. The recruiting coordinator is going to call the recruiting coordinators. They know at other firms.

[00:31:25] And we'll get information about you many times now that's not something that they do all the time and I don't know but they certainly, they meet informally with people and they they can they can get information about you and and the law firms relying on them to do that.

[00:31:38]And they're certainly not going to get information about you. When you're employed somewhere in interviewing or anything like that and doing anything negative to hurt you, but they can definitely find out about you and so forth. And a lot of them are most of them are members of local and national different societies for critters where they network.

[00:31:54]They they become interested in advocates for, societal higher things that this society is interested in, [00:32:00] like diversity or challenges with certain types of attorneys are facing or so they can help with that. And they learn about that. And they also understand what other law firms are doing, how other law firms are hiring.

[00:32:12] And so there's just a lot of things that they do. And that's obviously, again, a law firm's main product is people. The role that they have is hugely important and impressing them, but whatever from your ad is important, because if you upset them or you they don't like you, or you have a negative relationship with them, it will follow you in your career.

[00:32:31] And they can certainly they do have a lot of power and. They, again the eyes and ears and the firm and upsetting them is not a good idea. And the other thing they can do is say they always they have a public relations angle, so they can promote a positive external image of the firm.

[00:32:48]And what that means is they know the positive things to say about the firm. They can reflect the firm with their level of professionalism and tone and how they write and how they communicate and and that's important just [00:33:00] as it is for attorneys. So they many times can communicate with the firm, with outside firms and so forth in a way that attorneys that gives a good impression of the firm.

[00:33:08] And whereas attorneys are all, all over the map in terms of the qualification, their public relations skills the recruiting coordinator will typically be the a very refined version of what, the way the firms trying to present themselves. And they, they're difficult to get along with and unprofessional, that's not gonna reflect positive in the firm because of all the people that they're in contact with, if they're they're very professional and and, easy to get along with that is going to prevent.

[00:33:30] Present reflect positively and so it's a very public, public relations related position as well. And a very important one. And then and then just, some other things are that there's just, tons of information that's coming at them.

[00:33:46] If you can imagine. If you walked by many of their offices and when their phones are just ringing all the time and it can be exhausting, but the number of applications coming in can be just completely overwhelming for many recruiting departments.

[00:33:57] And some recruiting firms have several [00:34:00] people in a department. They may have five or six in the largest firms and big cities helping, but it's just a continual influx of people and they need to stay on top of that. And that means a lot of that information needs to be entered into databases.

[00:34:13] They need to quickly reject people that they can't work with. They need to do things to respond to different types of applications and and schedule interviews and make sure people don't fall through the cracks and get back to people. And it can be very busy and a big job.

[00:34:29]And if you just think about all the work that will go into it it's just a lot of work. I There's emails and. Phone calls and all sorts of things coming in on a daily basis. And then one of the final things that they do is they interview applicants. So a lot of firms will only have the legal recruiting coordinator interview people that are applicants at a screen and interview level.

[00:34:49] And many times, even in the, follow-up interviews, like if they bring you in for a second round, they'll have you interview with them. And and so they may many times the recruiting criteria may follow-up [00:35:00] just call you and ask you some questions before a formal interview. And that actually is an interview.

[00:35:05]And and they're really whittling things down to try to save the firm a lot of time. And then many times if they, like you they'll bring you in for a formal interview. Any contact with recruiting coordinators is arguably even many times more important than your initial contact with the attorney, because they are the attorney may ask you to speak to other people and so forth, but the final decision may actually be made by the recruiting coordinator.

[00:35:26] And then the other thing they'll do is still they'll review the due diligence on candidate before setting up interviews. They're going to check your references many times. They'll also review the website of the firm or your current employer and your LinkedIn profile and make sure dates and so forth.

[00:35:42] And what you say is your experience matches up. So it's common, for example, for sometimes for attorneys to put down that they're in one practice area on their resume, but really they're doing something else entirely on the law firm website. They'll catch that. They'll catch your bar admission, they'll catch the gaps in your bar admission.

[00:35:59]They'll [00:36:00] They'll often, if you've applied to a firm where there's partners and other people from your previous firm they may check with them and get information. So they're really doing a lot of intelligence background too, as well. And that's another big task that you should not take for granted and and if they don't like you, they can certainly find dirt on most people, they want it to.

[00:36:21]That's not that they would not touch that sir job, but that if they're suspicious about you, they can certainly do that. And then then they need to once they decide to interview, they need to actually find people to do those interviews, which is not easy. They need to many times you have lots of attorneys applying for jobs and and then and then they have to get people to interview, which means they have to have good relationships with the attorneys in the firm to get them to interview.

[00:36:44] Because a lot of times people do not want to take time away from their bill hours and so forth to do interviews especially partners and also associates. And they don't cause it interrupts their day and they have to stay in one place and be there to interview us. They have to make sure that they coordinate that and And that's actually a lot of work [00:37:00] and and they, because they need to find the right people they want to find people that they know are going to say positive things about the firm.

[00:37:05] So they need to have a pulse on the different attorneys, working there to see he was going to say the right things. And and they want to have, they want to select attorneys that they believe are going to be the best people to talk to attorneys therapy. And then after that, of course they need to solicit feedback.

[00:37:18]So they need to talk to the attorneys, you interviewed the applicants, and then they need to take those reviews and they need to make sure that it's summarized and they need to communicate that. And and many times it's difficult for them to get that feedback because people want some feedback right away, they'll be working on other things or something else is more important.

[00:37:37] And so they need to make sure they're constantly working on getting the feedback. And meanwhile, with all this other stuff that they're working on as well, which if you start thinking about this job it's crazy. And then they also need to attend hiring committee meetings and provide input on that.

[00:37:52] They need to know what's going on in the market and how difficult certain people are going to be to hire in the market. And that's not easy, so they [00:38:00] need to talk about that and then and it'd be present there and then and then get feedback on different candidates. They need to be able to rank candidates who need to be able to Figure out who the firm's going to hire and out of those people and figure out who they're going to put on hold.

[00:38:12]And then many times law firms will decide to make an offer to one person and to put other people on hold while they're doing that. And act like they're still making a decision and it's just that there's a lot of work involved. And then the other thing is the, the best recruiting trainers are also constantly doing research.

[00:38:29] So they're they're they're learning, who's the who's, who would be a good fit. So they may learn about partners in the market that are potentially moving and they're gonna get rumors and they're gonna get other information about people and people that are unhappy.

[00:38:42]And so there's a whole rumor mill that they're responsible and able to take advantage of and and making use of all this information that's coming at them. And they may, suddenly see three or four resumes coming in from from a certain law firm in our department and they'll know something's going on there.

[00:38:58] And so they may have an understanding of, [00:39:00] if there's for things that the firm should do. There's a lot of information that those law firms can leverage that's coming in at them. And then and then the other thing is, I just said, it's in the reference checks for new and potential hires.

[00:39:12]Once they decide to hire someone. They do need to do a reference check sometimes. They'll speak with other people that they know other times they'll hire professional companies through their reference checks. But obviously if the wrong person's hired that can reflect negatively on the recruiting coordinator as well.

[00:39:27] And so the recruiting coordinator does need to do quite a bit of work to bring, make sure that the right people are being hired and and that there's not any issues in the background. And usually they're very good at catching that. They're gonna they're not gonna, most of the time there's not really much defined, but if you have a criminal record and that sort of thing there, they're definitely gonna want to know about that.

[00:39:46] And then other things that they do onboarding. So that means and they don't do this in all firms, but that just means that they're going to when you're new, they'll take you around, they'll show you new people in the firm. They'll tell you how the firm functions and and they'll introduce you to [00:40:00] important people.

[00:40:00] They may introduce you to different departments and people that you need to know and so forth and and try to meet and set up lunches for you and new people. So you feel comfortable. And then they'll also work on budgets. So they'll do help recruiting budgets for the hiring of new attorneys.

[00:40:14] So they may have responsibility for that. And the recruiting, the law firm will ask them to. Help set aside the funds for that. And and we'll work with them to make sure that the recruiting work comes in on budget. So that means they may have a budget to hire a certain number of people in a year.

[00:40:30] And sometimes we obviously a lot of hiring many times in like December, because a lot of physical year ends and may end at different points in the year. Some firms physical year ends in September others and and December, but we always see a lot of hiring many times before those budgets and at firms.

[00:40:45] And they helped us set budgets and say the kind of budget they need to do the type of hiring that they need. And then and then they're also given a lot of responsibility, many times for diversity. So that's [00:41:00] a it's an important thing for legal recruiting coordinators because law firms traditionally aren't as diverse as they would like to be, and as the clients need them to be.

[00:41:08] And so they're trying to, they always were trying to work on diversity related initiatives with which means they may do outreach to different schools and In diversity organizations at schools and and try to network with people that can help with, bringing in more diversity.

[00:41:21]They may work with law firms, diversity committee to develop targets. And and then they may work with people that are currently diverse attorneys in the firm to try to identify more diverse attorneys and also policies and so forth for diverse attorneys and then for bringing in diverse attorneys.

[00:41:38] And then they also will many times a lot of them will write articles and give presentations about LIBOR cleaning issues and and internally to the firm. So they will they may help brand the firm in the marketplace. There's all sorts of conferences where there's local conferences and cities there's there's, national conferences, there's all sorts of groups where recruiting coordinators are meeting and and [00:42:00] talking about various issues.

[00:42:01] And so the recruiting coordinators are often very involved in that and there's people that are considered kind of national leaders and there's others that aren't and that, and and so that's another big thing that they do as well. And then they also choose vendors. So there's a recruiting software there's job boards that they use, there's recruiting firms.

[00:42:20]There's all sorts of, there's testing that they can do for others HR support companies or background check companies and all that sort of thing. And and the that's something else that they do. So there's quite a bit of work with that.

[00:42:31]And yeah in, in, in general the most important thing is, you need to understand that the recruiting coordinator really does have quite a bit of discretion in terms of your hiring. And really no one in the process is in many cases as important as them, because of all the different things that they do whether it's reference checks or checking out your background or being able to compare you to other applicants or making sure your resume gets seen and so forth.

[00:42:57] And and the law firms that hire the [00:43:00] best recruiters, recruiting coordinators often are very successful. And the ones that don't are often have quite a few problems and I've watched many of the best law firms always have had the best recruiting coordinators from the top ones and law firms that are having problems often.

[00:43:14]Don't have good ones. Their attitude and their performance is very important and their ability to help the attorneys that work is very important as well. And I think it's probably the most important one of the most important jobs in law firm and definitely the most important non-legal job.

[00:43:30] I It's up there with finance and everything. And and it's important and and it's something. That, as an attorney you really need to understand because it's going to have a big impact on your career. And the best law firms and the best recruiting coordinators, I've, I don't know really how to define the role.

[00:43:48]It's obviously being good at all of these things, you started, things I've told you, but the best ones I think are always know, tend to be very selfless. They're, they, they emphasize the organization over the firm which is also the [00:44:00] characteristic of the best attorneys who work in the firms and they make the job more about the firm.

[00:44:04]And there's just a lot of tasks that they're doing and they're dedicated, self-discipline and out and altruistic the best ones. And so that's really some of the main things I think, I don't know that there's really much more to talk about.

[00:44:15]But it's, it is a professional job. It's no different than being an attorney in terms of its level of professionalism. It's something that most recruiting coordinators do, their entire careers something that you know, that once you understand what they do, you obviously get a lot of respect for it and realize how much power they have in the hiring process.

[00:44:34] And just in terms of a couple points and I'll make these fairly quick but the types of firms that need recruiting coordinators originally this role was done by hiring partners and then was given to secretaries assistants and others, but law firms that use them they're typically larger firms.

[00:44:51]You're going to see them in firms with, many times 50 attorneys firms of bill hourly tend to use them. They typically have partners lots of [00:45:00] business they want the best pedigrees. They use recruiters. They do work for large corporations and and that will allow a lot of legal work to occur.

[00:45:07] They have summer programs and they pay. High market. So those are some of the main characteristics. I'm not going to go too much into this, but it fell off from smaller. Then it, it really many times doesn't have that need because the, a lot of the, it's not just dealing with this much applicants and it's not growing law firms that have them typically are doing a lot of hourly billing.

[00:45:26]And they have high billable rates. They want to protect their attorney's time and they want those attorneys to be able to work on billable matters. And. They typically are interested in attorneys with large book of business that throw off work to associates.

[00:45:38]And and then they hire associates to do the work and they want people with the best pedigrees as many times. So the larger firms typically are most concerned about that. Not always but the role of the recruiting coordinator becomes a little bit more complex when they have to, maintain a certain type of attorney in standard.

[00:45:54] So many times when the very, very largest firms with the most prestigious attorneys working there [00:46:00] that the quality of the attorneys is going to be very important obviously. And they all have critic coordinators. And then most recruiter firms that use recruiting have like a recruiting coroners, almost always use recruiters.

[00:46:11] And and most of those companies will do work for large corporations because they can spend a lot of money. Then most of the firms that have recruiting coordinators have summer associate programs. Most of them also the ones who pay a lot also tend to have recruiting coordinators because that drives a lot of a lot of a lot of work for them and.

[00:46:30] I just have a couple more slides here, but the recruiters and recruiting coordinator in my opinion is extremely important just because the recruiting coordinator is really representing the brand in the market. And and they help the firm with the best talent and and drive that.

[00:46:44] And and they're the best ones are really paid very well. And they're and there's a lot of intangibles that I think I've highlighted but they just do a lot of very small things on a daily basis. And and it's a difficult job. That's pretty much the presentation.

[00:46:57]I'm going to take a short break [00:47:00] and then I'll come back for questions. But the only final thing I just want to say about the recruiting coordinator role is that, it's just a, it's a position that attorneys need to take very seriously. And and is someone that deals with recruiting coordinators all day long.

[00:47:15] In most cases, I can say that they understand a lot more about the hiring and the actual attorneys working in the firm. And and they actually carry a lot more power in many cases than the attorneys working at the firm. And I would say in most cases, and that means in terms of getting your. Resume looked at in terms of getting you promoted, meaning pushing your application through versus other people in terms of pushing your candidacy through once you're interviewed based on other people and their voices is in most firms something that is extremely important and is actually can be determinative of you getting in the door and getting hired.

[00:47:48] They are gatekeepers. And so I think the mistake that a lot of people make is No, they don't nest state. They consider it more of a a lot of attorneys may consider there's, an administrative component to it. And because they're not attorneys, they're not the [00:48:00] same, but that's just not the case.

[00:48:02]In many large firms, they all are attorneys, but that doesn't really matter. The point is that the role that they have in a law firm is determinative of who gets in the door and who doesn't who gets their materials seen and who doesn't. They can they have so much power they can control when your materials are seen.

[00:48:17]That many times there's applications that come in later meaning the firm may start interviewing people and, applications come in later that are not as good. And they may just decide that we're doing this hiring, or we're not going to bring in more people, or we are going to bring them more people and look at more people, they have to have a lot of discretion and they can control what happens and they can do so in a good way.

[00:48:38]And they can do and in a way that that benefits or napkins over and others. And and that's not to say they're doing anything wrong or they're doing anything, there's just, this is just the role they're made. They're making a lot of decisions about what happens in the firm.

[00:48:49] And so they're really the most important people. That you're talking to early in their career, especially when you're trying to get into firms, they have a lot of control that can push people through. [00:49:00] And my advice is to when you're dealing with them is to do everything you can to get them to to like you and to think highly of you to tell your story to them, to the extent that you can in a professional way and make sure that they understand it to be deferential to them and likable to to, listen and not tune out when t