Description
Why Would You Need A Recruiter
[00:00:00] I started last fall 2021 at my firm and plan to lateral to a different market after hitting the one year mark, I'm getting conflicting advice on whether to use a recruiter or not. I don't really anyone in the market I'm trying to move and not sure how I should approach the process.
Do people generally cold email people with similar backgrounds of the largest firm (law school alumni) and ask for a referral? I'm sure they would have an incentive to make the referral for a bonus. Also, I think Laterally.com is down. Are there any other reputable websites for biglaw postings?
So yes, the question in your particular case, I don't know what your practice area is, but there's a couple of different questions and I think part of your question is, just because someone has a big law posting doesn't mean that there's any reason to use them.
Law Crossing is a great source of pretty much every job and you should look at that. That's a good source of postings. You can apply to jobs there on your own. You don't need to use a recruiter to move to another market. I'm a recruiter telling you this. I have every incentive to tell you to [00:01:00] use a recruiter, but you don't need to use a recruiter.
The only really advantage of a recruiter and these are legal placement persons. The big advantage is using someone that not just contacts, but can package you in the right way. Prepare you for interviews and get you out to the entire universe of employers where you would want to work.
The point is that the only reason to use a recruiter is if the person has a specific job that you're interested in. But, if there's one job you're interested in, there may be lots of different jobs you're interested in. And, almost every major law firm has their jobs on their website.
So, that's the same place that Laterally or whatever are getting their jobs from. Everybody has the same big jobs on their website.
What does a recruiter or a placement agency bring to the table?
They bring a lot more firms, regardless of the market. They package you in a certain way or they help you say the things you should be saying and not make mistakes. There's just a million different ways to prepare for interviews. But a lot of that, you could find on the BCG website and different articles [00:02:00] and so forth.
It's not to say that that you need to do that contacting worrying about people making money, whether it's a referral or something. You have to be careful many times when you're contacting people. So a lot of times, if you don't know the status of the associate or whatever, you might be emailing for a referral or if you don't know the status of the person, that person may be on their way out.
Many times law firms don't like to hire through referrals because they know that if the refer it gets down on the firm, then the person that's referred will also get down on it. You just have to be careful with all the stuff. But at the same time, anybody that's doing a job search, if you study this stuff and learn about it, you can do a lot of it on your own.
You don't need a recruiter to move markets. You don't need a recruiter for the openings. You need a recruiter or a legal placement person just to do the types of research and so forth, if that's what you want and it just depends on you. Obviously, I'm biased but I don't like to even talk about this kind of stuff because I am biased. But, I do think working with the right firm can be [00:03:00] helpful but at the same time you have to be careful. if you're a first year I would really recommend waiting. You're going to be most marketable your second or third year, typically.
You can move in your first year, but if you move in your second or third year, you're often going to be much better off then.
