Legal Recruitment News

Legal Recruitment News January 14th 2015

January 14, 2015

Legal Recruitment News – January 14th 2015

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ 2015 Predictions from a Professional Psychic and his results for 2014
▪ Top 4 Queries from Law Firms and Solicitors in the New Year
▪ Over 40? Your brain is shrinking. 5 ways to improve brain power
▪ Our 10% donation to charity – deadline approching

Newsletter
Welcome to the January 2015 edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent).

Job Market Update
Comments on the current market from Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment:
“January is a difficult month to give a job market update for. Basically, from the start of December, most new work drops off as everyone goes christmas shopping, attends parties and slows down. In my 15 years of experience in recruitment I have known so many pre-Christmas job interviews to go ahead but produce absolutely nothing. Partners are not in the right frame of mind to recruit, candidates are not able to make decisions and after Christmas everyone changes their mind and the whole thing falls through! For the first time in 14 years we took a considerable number of vacancies in the first week back in January. This has been exceptional. Usually workloads do not pick up until the end of January and then drop off again as partners and solicitors head to the ski slopes. As a result I predict that the legal job market will stay strong for the foreseeable future.”

We have not included the usual Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment statistics in this newsletter as December is so slow, but key points from the KPMG and REC Job Market survey for December 2014 are as follows:
▪ Stronger growth of permanent placements
▪ Temp billings increase at sharpest rate in three months
▪ Strong pay growth underpinned by tight candidate availability

Commenting on the latest survey results, Bernard Brown, Partner and Head of Business Services at KPMG, said:

“A strong year for the UK jobs market finished with a flourish as temporary roles saw an upswing in popularity. More than 1 in 3 recruiters suggest that employees looking for short-term roles are being increasingly spoilt for choice as organisations search for help in an effort to fulfil customer orders. Good news for candidates also extends into the pay packet. Once again, a shortage of skills in key areas has led to a rise in the starting salaries on offer. It could mean that 2015 becomes the year in which the candidate finally becomes king.”
▪ Permanent placements rise at faster rate… Recruitment consultants signalled a further increase in permanent staff appointments during December. The rate of expansion was strong, having picked up from November’s 18-month low. However, the number of job vacancies available to people seeking permanent roles rose at the slowest pace since July 2013.
▪ Temporary staff billings growth also accelerates Short-term staff appointments increased at a sharper rate in December. The latest rise in temp billings was the strongest in three months.
▪ Pay growth remains marked Average starting salaries awarded to people placed in permanent jobs continued to rise, with the rate of growth little-changed from the strong pace recorded in November. Temp pay meanwhile increased at the sharpest rate in three months.
▪ Candidate availability remains tight The availability of staff to fill permanent job roles continued to fall in December. Although easing to the slowest in eight months, the rate of deterioration remained marked. Temp availability decreased sharply, with the latest reduction faster than that recorded in November.

This review is undertaken by KPMG and the REC (a recruitment agency trade body) who contact 100s of recruitment agencies across the UK to undertake a monthly questionnaire. We are part of the panel and get exclusive access to the report.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or visit one of our websites.

We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

A Psychic’s 2014 New Year Predictions Revisited
Last year we carried an article in our January Newsletter about predictions for 2014 by an expert online psychic, Craig Hamilton-Parker (taken from www.psychics.co.uk). We have also included his 2015 predictions below to see how he does when we revisit in 2015. Mr Hamilton-Parker charges £1.53 per minute for his services via telephone consultations.

Online Psychic Predictions for 2014 – how many did Craig get right?
1. The Dalai Lama will be taken seriously ill (incorrect).
2. Pope Francis will initiate a new spiritual mission to help the mentally ill (incorrect).
3. Syria will be partitioned into Alawite and Sunni provinces. Assad will go into hiding. (incorrect).
4. Gunman rampage in Kansas. Similar attack on the London underground. (incorrect).
5. Strange luminous plankton seen under the sea that cannot be explained by scientists (incorrect).
6. Remains of an ancient civilisation uncovered in Greenland (incorrect).
7. Oprah Winfrey launches new spiritual chat show bringing many world religious leaders to book (incorrect).
8. UK postal strikes backed by other trade unions and transport brought to a standstill. (incorrect).
9. Nick Clegg resigns (incorrect)
10. Massive fire in Mexico City (incorrect).
11. New Orleans flooded again (incorrect)
12. Factory explodes in Southern USA causing a chemical cloud (incorrect).
13. Australia has biggest bush fire ever (incorrect).
14. Japan builds a nuclear bomb (incorrect)
15. US economy soars ahead (correct – US economy grew by 5% in last quarter)
16. Massive riots at the Brazilian World Cup (incorrect).

Score: 1 out of 16.

Craig Hamilton-Parker’s Predictions for 2015
1. Prince Harry will get engaged
2. Major volcanic eruptions in Japan and Hawaii
3. National Health and Police strikes with riots in London
4. Joan Collins dies
5. Royal family death
6. Strange fluctuations in the Earth’s Magnetic Field Detected
7. A Nuclear submarine will get into serious problems.
8. 2015 will be a year with a lot of Maritime problems and there could be a very serious disaster – akin to the sinking of the Titanic.
9. Economically, India will rise faster than China in the coming years
10. Josefina Vázquez Mota will become the first female president of Mexico.
11. There will be a bad earthquake during 2015 in Mexico City.
12. Many countries may see terrorist attacks from loan gunmen. I ‘see’ Berlin, Rome and Paris as targets but a simultaneous London attack with be thwarted.
13. There will be a celebrity kidnapping and an attack on a member of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family
14. The Conservatives will win the UK election by a whisker. Cameron will be ousted just after the election despite his electoral success.
15. During 2015 Jeb Bush will gain popularity and will win the American Election in 2016.

I suspect litigation lawyers may make good psychics – after all they spend a lot of time dealing with client enquiries about the strength of their cases. If you can read the mind of a judge surely you can produce better predictions than a professional psychic?

If you would like to make your own predictions for 2014 please email us or visit our blog (http://www.legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk) and add your comment to this article. We will then revisit all predictions in January 2015.

New Years Resolutions for Lawyers
Every year we get a number of calls and emails from lawyers relating either to a change in practice or job, expansion or contraction, or new year resolutions – both employers and candidates. These are the top 5 queries since December 29th 2014:

1. “I am a partner of a small practice. I’m tired of doing all the work myself and have decided to expand. I am looking for a partner to join me and share the workload. They’ll need their own following and we can agree a profit share arrangement.”
Great. The vacancy from hell! Firstly, why would anyone want to change jobs to hand over their clients and take on half the administration for a firm where the partner is fed up of doing it himself or herself? What is in it for them exactly? Secondly is this really going to assist the partner in the long term? Would he or she not be better off employing a more junior member of staff to deal with the administration or take on another solicitor to handle workload in order to free him/her up to do more business generation work? A PA with fee earning experience can be a low cost option, or alternatively an NQ solicitor. Despite the full page adverts in the back of the Gazette from a fee sharing law firm it remains one of the hardest types of candidate to find. The current market makes it that much harder..

2. “I’ve decided over Christmas that in the New Year I want to stop practising in conveyancing on the high street and start doing shipping law in the city. Can you help?”
So many lawyers see greener grass on the other side of the fence when it comes to their own practice area. Well paid city lawyers envy the perceived easy lifestyle of their high street colleagues. After all you get to go home at 6pm if you work in a high street firm. High street lawyers see Magic Circle lawyers earning mega-bucks and fancy a bit of it themselves. In House lawyers think private practice offers more earning potential – private practice lawyers think in house lawyers have it easy – flexible hours, pension, career stability etc..
Whatever the change is going to be – make it one based on fact. Never change fields of law without experiencing it first. Whenever I have coached lawyers in the past regarding a change, I have always advised taking a week off work and getting some shadowing or work experience under your belt. Then make decisions that may affect the rest of your career, not beforehand. Finally, accept that some aspirations are impossible. If you do conveyancing in a high street law firm and have a 2.2 and low A levels, you are always going to be up against it when trying to break into city firms.

3. “I want to do locum work because I am looking for flexibility in my career.”
Locums are perceived to earn huge amounts of money by their salaried counterparts. Very often because the salaried counterparts see them receiving hourly rates that vastly exceed their own salaried positions. Locums get an easy life – they work for a few weeks, take time off, travel, pursue other interests, do another few weeks here and there when they need a bit more money. What fun! Unfortunately, unless you are a professional locum conveyancer or private client lawyer this couldn’t be further from the truth. It is true that because of the way local authorities and their staff approach recruitment (I suspect considerably more time is spent on sick leave in local authority legal departments than in house or private practice) there are opportunities to earn good money on an ongoing basis out of being a child care lawyer for a local council. However for all other fields of law locums do not tend to be able to pick and choose assignments if they want to work all year round. A lot of professional locums will travel as well – a good number spend every week away from home around the country. Even then, 9 out of 12 months work is considered a good level to be aiming at. Quite a bit of time is spent indicating an interest for posts and pitching an hourly rate to secure it. This can be quite demoralising when you start out.

4. “I’ve decided to get out of law and become an accountant/nails technician/pilot. Can you find me a job please.”
Again, this is a New Year’s resolution that needs to be based on fact. Get work experience, do the maths, think about it very carefully. Think again. Decide based on clear economic and objective grounds backed up with a little bit of subjectivity… Our first advice is always to think carefully as to whether it is the law you hate or your circumstances. Can you change your circumstances? If you are a solicitor who hates your boss, can you find a new boss? If you are a boss who dislikes your surroundings, workforce or lack of profit, can you do something to change these? Drastic decisions are sometimes made for the wrong reasons.

5. “I am a graduate looking for work.”
Unfortunately we get this one quite a bit. I am sure a lot of law firms experience the same thing as well. We have managed to reduce numbers of calls quite drastically in the last two years by applying filters to our website. On our contact page we ask LPC and LLB graduates to follow a link before they call us. On our site we also offer a work experience scheme whereby anyone without experience can sign up. After candidates have registered we notify them automatically that if they are students or graduates we will not be able to help but they can visit our resource centre with advice and articles to read. This has taken about 75% of these types of calls away from our telephone lines.

Over 40? New Study says that your Brain is Shrinking

Research suggests that our brains start slowing down from the age of 42. The ways in which most of us currently work and live actually exacerbates the problem. Obvious triggers include poor diet, a lack of sleep and not doing enough exercise, but there are more insidious factors at play, too. Letting your brain switch to autopilot to deal with repetitive tasks can slowly kill your ability to innovate, while focussing too heavily on memorising information “depletes limited brain resources better used for functions that promote independence throughout life, such as problem-solving, decision-making and critical reasoning,” say the researchers. Higher-performing brains are those that have learned to block out what they don’t need. Attempts to multitask lead to a build up of the stress hormone cortisol, which slowly kills off brain cells, ruins memory and plays havoc with your immune system. Trying to deal with every text and email as it arrives is similarly damaging. Our brains work best when they are encouraged to focus in on a problem and actively engage with it, not when they are subjected to masses of competing stimulus.

Fortunately, there are ways to save your mind from the ravages of time and office politics. The report highlights five major tips for keeping your brain at its best:
1. Step away from the problem. A five minute break from what you are doing, five times a day, can help clear your mind and help you solve problems more effectively.
2. Don’t multitask – this just slows things down. When we’re interrupted, it can take 20 minutes to get back on track, stretching a 25 minute task into several hours
3. Prioritise – pick the two most important things on your to-do list that you must crack today. Then, dedicate uninterrupted time to doing them.
4. Shake yourself out of routine – doing the same things and thinking the same thoughts day after day will send your brain into a living coma.
5. Innovate or die. Your brain needs to keep creating in order to stay young.
University of Texas BrainHealth Centre
Above study quoted in SMEInsider.com – 13th Jan

Our 10% Donation
Every year since 2000 we have committed as a company to donate a percentage of our annual profits to charity. This includes any subsidiary companies and operations. For 14 years our board of directors has agreed to 10% (after all, how on earth could we carry on with our business name?). We have now donated over £66,000 to the Ten-Percent Foundation, a small sum in the general scheme of things, but a lot of money for a company of our size.

The deadline for our trustee meeting approaches. If you have any suggestions to add to those already put forward by our clients, law firms and candidates, please please feel free to email them across to me at cv@ten-percent.co.uk. We look for small charities preferably with interesting projects we can support on an ongoing basis.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed monthly fee or one-off fees depending on the job. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

At present we have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession. Jonathan Fagan is a qualified solicitor and still (reluctantly!) undertakes litigation on behalf of the company when required.

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 years ago. So far over £66,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

Legal Recruitment News is produced by Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – you can view all versions of the e-newsletter at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment was established in 2000 and donates 10% of profits to charity, hence the name.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Monthly News

Legal Recruitment Newsletter – December 2014

December 3, 2014

Legal Recruitment News – December 3rd 2014

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ New Candidate Registrations in last 3 days – click here
▪ Locums available now – click here
▪ Our 10% donation to charity – gIving money to charity is harder than you think!

Welcome to the December edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent).

Job Market Update – December 3rd

For our Job Market Report please visit the main Ten-Percent website – http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-job-market-update-december-3rd-2014

Last 10 Candidate Registrations
02121356 Locum Residential and Commercial Conveyancing Solicitor available to cover in London.
02121111 Locum Commercial Property Solicitor looking around central London.
02121006 Civil Litigation and Employment Solicitor looking for locum work in Hampshire and West Sussex.
02120956 Residential Conveyancing Solicitor looking to return to the profession and work around Bucks and Herts. 5 years PQE. Permanent, part time.
01122213 Practice Manager looking for work around Cheshire and the North West.
01121729 Wills and Probate Solicitor, 2015 qualifier, looking for work in the North West.
01121346 Wills and Probate Solicitor looking for posts in Middlesex. Has a following of clients. Salary or locum equivalent sought.
01121127 Locum Wills and Probate Executive available for work in and around London.
30112119 Crime Duty Solicitor available for work in and around London. Aware deadline missed and happy to look at consultancy arrangements.
28110846 Specialist Pensions Lawyer looking for locum work in and around London.
We have over 10,500 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Visit www.interimlawyers.co.uk

Our 10% Donation – gIving money to charity is harder than you think!
Last week I transferred just over £13,000 from our business current account into the Ten-Percent Foundation charity bank account and I have to say that it really, really hurt.

I know it shouldn’t cause pain, and as a company and a group of people together we ought to be delighted to see our money going towards worthy causes, but I am afraid it does. I get extremely depressed for at least a few days, thinking about all the money and what it could have been spent on if I had taken it as a dividend (I am a shareholder in the business as well), but no, it is going to charitable causes.

I wish the founders of Ten-Percent had not sat in a café in Leicester in 1999 and decided to set up a recruitment agency whereby 10% of our profits would be donated to charity.

I wish I hadn’t got so annoyed by a recruitment consultant working for a national agency loftily informing me that as a newly qualified solicitor I was lucky to get the £20,000 just offered by one of his clients and that he would be taking £4,500 plus VAT in commission.

I wish I had taken time to set up the company, researched the market, looked at profit margins, realised that giving away 10% of profits to charity was definitely not a good idea from a business perspective and gone more corporate with our approach. I am sure I could have learnt to speak business b***ks and I do keep practising (but to no avail).

I also wish I had got so annoyed with the first charity we tried to donate money to that I instantly gave up and didn’t give any money away again. Some charities are an absolute nightmare to donate to – lots of hoops to jump through – for example many years ago Wateraid wanted to charge us a fee to include their logo on our website after we had donated £2,500 to a project in East Africa.

Unfortunately we didn’t do any of this and set up overnight, winged just about everything (I operated the business in the evenings (and into the night) whilst working flat out as a solicitor in a high street firm), spending 6 months getting our first candidate into a role (she managed 2 hours before walking out – at the old Abbey National bank), and working for the following 14 years building Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment into what it is today including its continued commitment to a charitable donation.

Every year since 2000 we have committed as a company to donate a percentage of our annual profits to charity. This includes any subsidiary companies and operations. For 14 years our board of directors has agreed to 10% (after all, how on earth could we carry on with our business name?). We have now donated over £66,000 to the Ten-Percent Foundation, a small sum in the general scheme of things, but a lot of money for a company of our size.

This year (2014) is the first year we have managed to catch up with our charitable donations since 2007. Between 2007 and 2014 our company has been postponing the donation from time to time because of the difficulties in balancing financial survival with the charity commitment, but now job markets appear to be slightly better it has been easier to get the money out.

It feels good for us to be up to date with our 10% donation, and it also feels good to be one of only a tiny minority of companies who have such a commitment; but it still hurts.

Are we philanthropists? I have read around the subject and discovered there is a college in the USA teaching philanthropy (to rich people perhaps?) and a fellowship of philanthropists exists in the UK. I wonder whether this is either astonishingly rich people getting together for a self-appreciating pat on the back from each other for giving away money they have made already, or a similar organisation to the Lions or the Rotary Club of time donation rather than financial support, or simply whether it is elderly folk worrying about easy passage into heaven (if they have religious convictions and are concerned about admission from whichever angel is on duty) and hence coughing up shed loads of cash for good causes.

So now we have a bulging charity bank account for the first time in years, and start the process of avoiding large national charities with CEOs on salaries and packages higher than those of a doctor or headteacher, and keep our eyes open for smaller charities with identifiable projects, particularly those with links to the legal profession.

If you have any ideas, please feel free to email them across to me at cv@ten-percent.co.uk. We look for small charities preferably with interesting projects we can support on an ongoing basis.

How much difference can we make to the world and what do we benefit personally from making donations? I have learned over time that the only benefit really is to your own sense of justice, satisfaction and duty. No commercial or financial gain ever seems to come our way by donating a percentage of our profits to charity. Just a general feeling of depression followed with a warm glow of satisfaction in a few months…

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Monthly News

Legal Recruitment News November 4th 2014

November 7, 2014

Legal Recruitment News – November 4th 2014

Welcome to the November edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent.

Job Market Update – November 4th

For the current job market update please visit

http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/legal-job-market-update-november-7th-2014

Last 10 Candidate Registrations
04111022 Locum Conveyancing Solicitor living on a barge and looking for winter work whilst moored up. Nationwide. 30 years experience but nothing in last 4 years. Reasonable hourly rate.
03112302 Personal Injury Solicitor looking for permanent work around London. 15 years PQE in claimant PI and clinical negligence.
03112352 Immigration and Employment NQ Solicitor looking around London. Permanent.
03111625 Conveyancing locum looking around London. Low hourly rates due to less experience. Available immediately.
03111248 Corporate Commercial Solicitor, 3 years PQE, looking for locum work initially around London. £30 per hour rate. SME background.
03111101 Mackesys demise victim (!) – duty solicitor looking for posts nationwide.
02111748 Locum Conveyancer looking around London. £200 per day.
30101224 Conveyancing locum looking around North and West Yorkshire. Junior level.
30100700 Corporate Commercial Solicitor with pharmaceutical industry background for past 5 years. Bristol and London.
27101045 Company Commercial Solicitor with 2 years PQE looking around London. SME background.

We have over 10,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

5 Ways of Lowering Risk when finding new staff

For this article please visit http://legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/5-ways-to-avoid-recruiting-duff.html

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering the whole of the UK. A large proportion of our vacancies are based in London and the South East, but we do assist firms elsewhere on a very regular basis. Over 10,500 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.
Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.
At present we have three recruitment consultants, Jonathan Fagan, Clare Fagan and Pete Gresty, together with our finance director Pearl McNamara. Together we have over 40 years of experience in the legal profession. Jonathan Fagan is a qualified solicitor and still (reluctantly!) undertakes litigation on behalf of the company when required. He also provides a career coaching service to qualified lawyers and law graduates, although this is on a very selective basis.
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment also owns Interim Lawyers, a specialist locum service. We operate an outsourced UK based typing service as well – www.uk-transcription.co.uk and are preferred suppliers to a number of institutional clients and law firms across the UK and overseas.
The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 years ago. So far over £51,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards
Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Monthly News

September 2014 Candidate Newsletter

September 15, 2014

Legal Recruitment News – September 15th 2014

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ Search Our Vacancies Online – click here
▪ How to cut a better deal with your current firm

Welcome to the September edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update and a guide on improving your value to your employer. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers and Ten-Percent.

Job Market Update – September
Summer 2014 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies up, Commercial Property vacancies up
* Crime vacancies gone, Personal Injury vacancies disappearing
* Employment Law vacancies – non-existent
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few here and there
* Family vacancies – up
* Further increase in proprerty vacancies attracting very few applications. Commercial property solicitors extremely difficult to source. Conveyancers difficult to find.
* Market outlook – still very buoyant. Salaries now rising.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 593
New permanent vacancies added in August 2014: 32
New candidates registering: 91
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in May: 3.8
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: -8%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: -12%

Key points from the KPMG Job Market survey for August 2014:
▪ Stronger growth of permanent and temporary staff appointments
▪ Record decline in availability of permanent candidates
▪ Starting salary growth close to June’s survey-high

Bernard Brown, Partner and Head of Business Services at KPMG, said:
“For the first time in months we are witnessing churn in the labour market. It seems that
employees are finally beginning to wake up to the opportunities available to them, with the
rates of growth of both permanent and temporary placements accelerating simultaneously. Perhaps it’s true that ‘every person has their price’ because the movement in labour is
coinciding with another rise in starting salaries. Just a few months ago employers couldn’t
tempt staff to switch roles, but indications are that employees’ caution over change is being
replaced with hunger for something new.”

This review is undertaken by a market research company who contact 100s of recruitment agencies across the UK to undertake a monthly questionnaire. We are part of the panel and get exclusive access to the report. KPMG report that the Midlands is the place to be for candidates moving and employers paying good money to get them, but this is far from reality for the legal profession – the Midlands is not a prime area for recruitment and never has been!

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment publishes the number of new vacancies, new candidates and indicate the increase or decrease from the previous month. We aim to assist the legal profession by showing the market from our perspective. Traditionally our clients have been high street law firms and smaller niche commercial practices.

How to Cut a Better Deal with your Current Firm and Stay Put

Slightly unusual article for a legal recruitment agency, but then we are slightly unusual!
Working in a solicitors firm you like and at the same time being paid the salary you feel you deserve are very often two separate things.

You probably accepted a salary offered when you first started with the firm some time ago and have seen little movement since. Indeed, our own anecdotal evidence from speaking to candidates is that the vast majority of solicitors firms in the UK have not offered their staff pay increases for a very long time.

Quite often the only way to get a pay increase is to threaten to move firms, be seen to be in the market to move firms, or to actually move firms. However once you go down this route it is usually irreversible – even if you remain with your current practice after handing in your notice or looking for other work it is very likely your relationship with colleagues will have deteriorated.

You will be back looking for alternative employment in no time at all (our recruitment software actually has a category for this type of candidate as it is a recognised industry rule of thumb that you will seek alternative work within 6 months).

So what if you could improve your package with your existing firm and not have to bother with the pantomine of pretending to move firms or the upheaval of actually moving firms?

Tips for Staying Put and Increasing Your Worth
1. Make sure you advertise yourself to your bosses. In my local cricket team one of our players always emails the captain at the end of the season to point out how many runs he has scored (if he has done well). He hopes to keep his batting position for the following year. When was the last time you reminded your boss of your value to the business, whether through mentioning a transaction you have just concluded, or the value of a case that has just been costed?
2. Keep an eye on your billing levels and once you are exceeding any targets start to advertise this to everyone else in the firm. The more people are aware of your ability to generate income, the higher the value of goodwill is in your own personal brand (business speak for ‘you’).
3. Insist on an annual or 6 monthly review of your performance. Don’t waste your time in this. Make sure you attend equipped with plenty of statistics and facts to promote your value to the firm. Do not let your boss take it over with comments about your work – make sure you stick to salary levels etc..
4. Work out how much you actually want to earn and aim to get to this level quickly. So – for example – if you want to be on an income of £45k within 5 years – what do you need to do? You will know yourself what billing levels are currently being achieved – how much extra work will you need to get in to generate the required amount? Is it ever going to be possible or do you need a plan B? Does the plan B include becoming a partner or shareholder in the practice? What level of investment will you need to take?
5. Have a long term plan. So many solicitors spend the middle part of their career stuck in a rut and fall into mediocrity without realising they are there. Retain some of your ambition and keep an eye on the future as it tends to be the past before you know it…

If necessary, make a move, but don’t just do it to show your current firm that you are valued elsewhere. Think very carefully before changing firms and ask yourself if you are making the move for the right reasons. Some candidates seem to move simply to spite their old boss, but in fact really like their current place of employment and then start feeling very unhappy in their new firm.

Cut the Clutter on your Desk and save time

I recently read an article about saving time – with tips including outsourcing everything you possibly can, delegating as much work as possible and avoiding meetings. One of the tips was to reduce the clutter on your desk because looking for documents and items can take up so much of your time.

These are the three things to do with paperwork on your desk:
1. Delegate It
2. File it
3. Bin it

Apparently most of the stuff we file away never gets seen again and in fact it would have been better to bin it from the outset. There is a professor in the USA who tips all his paperwork each month into a desk drawer and at the end of the month he throws the whole lot into the bin. I think this is extremely brave and would never dare to be so bold, but it is certainly one way to get rid of stuff off your desk!

There should be no paperwork on your desk at the end of the day – instead it should be in a filing tray, an action tray or the bin. Stationery should be in a desk tidy or drawer. Go and buy some trays at lunchtime and invest in a desk tidy for your pens. It makes the world of difference turning up to work to find a blank slate rather than piles of papers.

The Easiest and Quickest Way to increase your billing levels

There are 5 ways to increase billing levels – increase customers, get customers to buy more, increase the value of each transaction, increase prices or increase efficiency.

By far the quickest and easiest way, according to expert pricing accountant Peter Hill, is simply
to increase your prices. He issues a challenge to businesses – if you want to increase your profits in one, easy step, increase your prices by 5% immediately.

A quick example would be a conveyancing quote I recently had. We contacted three law firms to get a price on selling a field (sale transaction is less than £20k) and got quotes of £475, £400 and £200.

Thinking about it now – if the £200 quote had been £210 it still would have been the lowest price, and if I had been a bit distrustful of the low quote I would still have gone with the medium quote with a 5% increase at £420.

Applying this to our own business does not really work, because in recruitment most of our business is on a percentage basis and varies according to the salaries being paid, not the work put in. However to an hourly rate firm (ie a solicitors practice) this could make a big difference.

Assuming your firm (limited company) turned over £100k last year with £60k profits and paid corporation tax at 20% on the profits, you would have managed to make £48k after tax. If you increase your prices by 5% you would have turned over £105k, with £65k profits and made £52k after tax. The extra 5% price would have generated you £4k in net profit.

Not bad for just adjusting your prices slightly upwards.

The downside is of course the annoyed customer who wants to know why the price has just gone up. Peter Hill suggests that you should ignore them and concentrate instead on the vast majority of clients who are happy with the service and as a result will pay to stay.

Are you brave enough to try it? We are going to give it a go with one of our non-recruitment businesses. I’ll keep you posted with the results in 12 months time.

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment

We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering the whole of the UK. A large proportion of our vacancies are based in London and the South East, but we do assist firms elsewhere on a very regular basis. Over 10,500 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 years ago. So far over £51,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Monthly News

September 2014 Legal Recruitment News

September 3, 2014

Legal Recruitment News – September 3rd 2014

Newsletter
Welcome to the September edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Job Market Update – September 3rd
Summer 2014 – Summary:
* Permanent vacancies up
* Locum assignments up
* Conveyancing vacancies up, Commercial Property vacancies up
* Crime vacancies gone, Personal Injury vacancies disappearing
* Employment Law vacancies – non-existent
* Commercial and Civil Litigation vacancies – few here and there
* Family vacancies – up
* Further increase in proprerty vacancies attracting very few applications. Commercial property solicitors extremely difficult to source. Conveyancers difficult to find.
* Market outlook – still very buoyant. Salaries now rising.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 593
New permanent vacancies added in August 2014: 32
New candidates registering: 91
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in May: 3.8
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: -8%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: -12%

Key points from the KPMG Job Market survey for August 2014:

▪ Stronger growth of permanent and temporary staff appointments

▪ Record decline in availability of permanent candidates

▪ Starting salary growth close to June’s survey-high

Bernard Brown, Partner and Head of Business Services at KPMG, said:
“For the first time in months we are witnessing churn in the labour market. It seems that employees are finally beginning to wake up to the opportunities available to them, with the
rates of growth of both permanent and temporary placements accelerating simultaneously. Perhaps it’s true that ‘every person has their price’ because the movement in labour is
coinciding with another rise in starting salaries. Just a few months ago employers couldn’t tempt staff to switch roles, but indications are that employees’ caution over change is being
replaced with hunger for something new.”

Traditionally our clients have been high street law firms and smaller niche commercial practices.

The average job strength gives a good indication of the market because:
1. A Poor Job Strength on vacancies indicates a struggling market. When trade is bad, employers seek options for increasing turnover which usually also involves contacting recruitment agencies in the hope that they have candidates with their own following and not looking for a salary.
2. A Strong Job Strength on vacancies indicates a buoyant market, particularly if it is in connection with an increase in numbers of new vacancies.
Vacancies are each graded 1-5, with 5 being a very strong vacancy and 1 being a very weak vacancy.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes for the Ten-Percent website and the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or visit one of our websites.

Candidate Registrations in the last 3 days
28081520 1 year PQE residential and commercial conveyancing solicitor looking in London for a new post. Salary levels around £35-40k min.
27082232 Commercial Property Solicitor, 10+ years PQE, looking in Cumbria. Permanent – salary expectations high.
28081612 Conveyancing Solicitor with 2 years experience looking around East London. Permanent.
03090919 Conveyancing Solicitor, 2 years PQE, experienced working in a HNW environment, looking at central London firms. Permanent, salary £45k +.
02091214 Litigation Solicitor Locum looking in Edinburgh.
02091141 Legal Cashier seeking work in and around Kent and SE London. Permanent.
01091921 Employment Paralegal, 2 years experience, looking in London. Permanent.
01091509 Conveyancing Paralegal looking in Greater London. Permanent.
28081022 Property Solicitor looking for locum or permanent roles. 6 years PQE. London.
We have over 10,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

How to Retain Staff in a Busy Job Market
With over 11,000 solicitors and lawyers on our books, Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment is usually well placed to see when a firm is doing the right things and when it isn’t. It costs a minimum of £4,000 each time a fee earner leaves a firm and joins another one – not just in recruitment costs but also in training, fee earner hours, administration and the like. Quite a lot of job hunting is done because of current salary levels – this is why the top tip is to pay the right amount!
Here are the top 5 ways of ensuring that your key staff do not up sticks and leave whenever the recruitment wave is on the up (key times of the year are September, January and April-June).
1. Pay them the right amount.
This is the biggest bug bear amongst employees. They read the papers, they watch the news. And they know that the markets are on the up. They also know that your firm is very busy, and when a firm is very busy it means profits and turnover are going up. There is rarely any memory retained about the fact that you kept them on during extremely difficult times a few years ago. No doubt there is a vacancy somewhere on the internet offering money that is off the scale for your firm and no doubt your employees are tempted… Keep track of salaries by reading the job adverts in the back of the Gazette – this will give you a good idea of rates. Greater London levels are at the high end – the North West and North East are still pretty low.
2. Make sure you review salaries and pay.
Even if you don’t increase pay, go through the motions of ensuring that you at least consider reviewing it. Annual or 6 monthly reviews go down extremely well – this is often the only chance an employee has to discuss their income with anyone. Listen carefully, don’t judge.
3. Consider flexible working arrangements.
One of the key reasons for staff seeking a move is to try and negotiate flexibility around other interests and family life. There are some firms out there who are notoriously bad at considering altering hours, increasing annual leave or allowing work from home. You are behind the times – this is now becoming the new norm. 9am to 5pm at most small to medium firms is no longer essential. Think carefully – it doesn’t cost you anything and can score highly in the loyalty stakes.
4. Make sure you have a happy working environment.
We recently had a call from a candidate looking to make a move because the partners at their firm shout at each other (not at the staff). This was making the working environment extremely unpleasant. Listen to the way your staff speak to each other – are there obvious problems? Do team bonding – it doesn’t hurt to go for a drink or a meal every now and again on a Friday night – who knows – you may even enjoy it.
5. Make sure your office environment is nice to work in.
Have a look around your offices – are they nice for your staff to sit in for 7-10 hours a day? Do clients feel comfortable? Do you feel comfortable? When was the last time you painted the window frames? Do you need to make a trip to Ikea for some new chairs?
It doesn’t cost much to improve and just a few small and quick adjustments could save you £1000s in retaining staff.

Cut the Clutter on your Desk and save time
I recently read an article about saving time – with tips including outsourcing everything you possibly can, delegating as much work as possible and avoiding meetings. One of the tips was to reduce the clutter on your desk because looking for documents and items can take up so much of your time.
These are the three things to do with paperwork on your desk:
1. Delegate It
2. File it
3. Bin it
Apparently most of the stuff we file away never gets seen again and in fact it would have been better to bin it from the outset. There is a professor in the USA who tips all his paperwork each month into a desk drawer and at the end of the month he throws the whole lot into the bin. I think this is extremely brave and would never dare to be so bold, but it is certainly one way to get rid of stuff off your desk!
There should be no paperwork on your desk at the end of the day – instead it should be in a filing tray, an action tray or the bin. Stationery should be in a desk tidy or drawer. Go and buy some trays at lunchtime and invest in a desk tidy for your pens. It makes the world of difference turning up to work to find a blank slate rather than piles of papers.

The Easiest and Quickest Way to Grow your Business
There are 5 ways to grow your business – increase customers, get customers to buy more, increase the value of each transaction, increase prices or increase efficiency.
By far the quickest and easiest way, according to expert pricing accountant Peter Hill, is simply
to increase your prices. He issues a challenge to businesses – if you want to increase your profits in one, easy step, increase your prices by 5% immediately.
A quick example would be a conveyancing quote I recently had. We contacted three law firms to get a price on selling a field (sale transaction is less than £20k) and got quotes of £475, £400 and £200.
Thinking about it now – if the £200 quote had been £210 it still would have been the lowest price, and if I had been a bit distrustful of the low quote I still would have gone with the medium quote with a 5% increase at £420.
Applying this to our own business does not really work, because in recruitment most of our business is on a percentage basis and varies according to the salaries being paid, not the work put in. However to an hourly rate firm (ie a solicitors practice) this could make a big difference.
Assuming your firm (limited company) turned over £100k last year with £60k profits and paid corporation tax at 20% on the profits, you would have managed to make £48k after tax. If you increase your prices by 5% you would have turned over £105k, with £65k profits and made £52k after tax. The extra 5% price would have generated you £4k in net profit.
Not bad for just adjusting your prices slightly upwards.
The downside is of course the annoyed customer who wants to know why the price has just gone up. Peter Hill suggests that you should ignore them and concentrate instead on the vast majority of clients who are happy with the service and as a result will pay to stay.
Are you brave enough to try it? We are going to give it a go with one of our non-recruitment businesses. I’ll keep you posted with the results in 12 months time.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 years ago. So far over £51,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.
Warm regards
Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan
Legal Recruitment News is produced by Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – you can view all versions of the e-newsletter at www.legal-recruitment.co.uk. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment was established in 2000 and donates 10% of profits to charity, hence the name.

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

Monthly News

June 2014 Legal Recruitment News

June 4, 2014

Legal Recruitment News – June 3rd 2014

Contents
▪ Legal Job Market Report
▪ New Candidate Registrations in last 3 days – click here
▪ Locums available now – click here
▪ Phantom Jobs and Rogue Recruitment Agencies
▪ Register Vacancies
▪ Legal Salary Reviews Online
▪ £60 Unlimited Recruitment

Newsletter
Welcome to the June edition of Legal Recruitment News, including a Legal Job Market Update, phantom jobs and rogue recruitment agents, locum availabiity and new candidates. Legal Recruitment News is written by Jonathan Fagan, MD and non-practising solicitor of the Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment group (Interim Lawyers, Ten-Percent, Ten-Percent Legal Careers and TP Transcriptions).

Job Market Update – June 3rd

May 2014 – summed up in a few sentences:
Permanent vacancies same
Locum vacancies up on April
Conveyancing up, Commercial Property up
Crime down, Personal Injury down
Litigation & Family up
Further increase in vacancies attracting no, poor quality or few applications. Commercial property becoming a desert. Conveyancing not far off. Conveyancing Solicitors now as rare as hens teeth.
Market outlook – still very buoyant. Salaries expected to start rising shortly.

Statistics
Current live vacancies: 588
New permanent vacancies added in May 2014: 39
New candidates registering: 113
Average ‘Job Strength Factor’ for new vacancies in May: 3.5
Increase/Decrease in new vacancies from previous month: -5%
Increase/Decrease in new candidates from previous month: +10%

Key points from the KPMG Job Market survey for May 2014:
• Permanent placements growth accelerates, but temp billings rise at slower pace
• Decline in candidate availability intensifies
• Fastest permanent salary growth since July 2007

Bernard Brown, Partner and Head of Business Services at KPMG, said:
“With starting salaries rising at their fastest rate for almost seven years and temporary placements growth slowing down, people would be forgiven for thinking that the time is right to change jobs. Yet the truth is far different. The number of people putting themselves on the jobs market has dropped at its sharpest rate since 2004. It is this shortage of skilled labour that is forcing employers to tempt talent with improved pay, rather than new-found confidence.”

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and regularly writes the Legal Recruitment blog, an award-winning selection of articles and features on legal recruitment and the legal profession. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or visit one of our websites.

Candidate Registrations in the last 3 days

Member firms get access to full CVs for unlimited vacancies for just £60 per month – full details by email or on our website. Email us to request a CV or register vacancies
▪ 03061410 Conveyancing Executive looking specifically in Guildford and Woking. Permanent or locum.
▪ 03061127 Paralegal with Will drafting experience and some property work – 12 months in total – relocating to London.
▪ 02061646 Personal Injury Locum looking around Cardiff and Bristol for a suitable post.
▪ 02060925 Locum Conveyancing Lawyer available to cover assignments in the North West and the West Midlands. June to September.
▪ 01061306 Conveyancing Solicitor with over 20 years experience looking for long term cover in and around central London.
▪ 03061410 Family Locum looking for assignments in the West Midlands.
▪ 03061239 Conveyancing Fee Earner looking for work in the West Midlands. Over 10 years experience including extensive plot sales and new build exposure. Available immediately.
▪ 03061139 Conveyancing Paralegal looking in Birmingham City Centre for permanent posts.
▪ 03061051 Conveyancing and Commercial Property Locum Solicitor looking around central London for work.
▪ 02061426 Commercial Litigation, Construction and Reinsurance Locum looking around London.
▪ 02061359 NQ Solicitor with general practice background – litigation, employment, probate, costs experience, family, PI. London. Permanent.
▪ 02061248 Commercial Litigation Solicitor – c.1 year PQE looking around London. Permanent.

We have over 10,000 lawyers registered with us. To request CVs for a specific vacancy please register your vacancy – Locum or Permanent

Locums Available Immediately
We have over 700 candidates registered for locum work. Register Vacancies – Locum or Permanent

Phantom Jobs and Rogue Recruitment Agencies
Very recently the Law Society Gazette published an article online about phantom recruitment agents and jobs. The complaint appeared to be that candidates were attending interviews and then not hearing anything back afterwards. Another complaint appeared to be that recruitment agents were not responding to job applications with feedback.

We commented on the article, which can be found here – http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/comment-and-opinion/curse-of-phantom-recruitment-agents/5041219.article, but in relation to phantom jobs and recruitment agencies we have the following points:
1. The problems of phantom recruitment agents tend to be specifically linked to new start ups. After all, what could be easier than setting up a recruitment agency, registering for a free job board as an employer, making up 30 vacancies, sitting back to wait for the CVs to roll in and then use those CVs to promote your agency to firms in order to get vacancies posted and candidates interviews?
2. Candidates often complain that recruitment agents haven’t got back to them and as a result the recruitment agent is useless. That may be true – I am sure at times candidates find me to be pretty useless when I don’t get back to them, but unfortunately recruitment is a sales driven business. If we put a CV in for a candidate and then get no response because of the reasons below, we can only pester the firm for so long before we have to leave the vacancy and move on.
3. Very often the reason vacancies do not get filled is because the firms do not want them to be filled, not because the recruitment consultant has in any way failed in his or her job.
The recruitment agent has possibly bent over backwards to push the candidates through the process, arranged the interview, spent ages getting the firm to agree to go forward, and then the firm bolt down the hatches and refuse to speak to him/her.

Over the years I have been in recruitment we have experienced vacancies being withdrawn at all stages of the process (which is perfectly understandable) and also being altered as the recruitment process has progressed (again understandable – circumstances change).
However we have also experienced firms where partners have been unable to decide whether to recruit even after advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and second interviewing candidates and as a result the vacancy has fallen through months down the line. Firms have set up 6 first interviews and then offered the job to the first person who came along, practice managers have indicated that they have authority to recruit, gone through the motions and then pulled out because in reality there was no vacancy in the first place.

In these circumstances legal recruitment consultants are not the problem. Agencies are very good at pushing the process along – after all most companies only get paid by commission (unlike Ten-Percent Legal who offer unlimited recruitment deals on a monthly basis).
1. One of the complaints in the article was that some vacancies offer the earth and suggesting that the recruitment consultant has made up a salary range or in some way exaggerated the role. I am sure this happens to a certain extent but very often salary ranges are completely wrong because client solicitor firms do not indicate salary ranges to us when posting vacancies. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment insist that our 99 member firms do provide salary ranges, which can make some of our job advert salary levels extremely accurate, but firms using us on a one-off basis tend to just say ‘negotiable’. When posting the vacancy onto a job board such as ChanceryLane.co.uk the agency is required to enter the salary range. This is why vacancies sometimes have such a broad salary range attached to them like £25k to £60k.

Very often I think recruitment consultants are viewed in the same way as estate agents. Recruitment is considered money for old rope – so is estate agency! However both still exist and at the moment I imagine most agencies in the country are extremely busy – be it recruitment or estate.

When we started out in April 2000 it took us 8 months to make our first placement – with the Abbey National bank as it was then. Unfortunately the candidate left after a few days and it was another 2 months after this before we made our first placement and money started to come in to our bank account.

Recruitment is not as easy as you may think…

About Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment
We are a specialist legal recruiter, covering the whole of the UK. A large proportion of our vacancies are based in London and the South East, but we do assist firms elsewhere on a very regular basis. Over 10,500 lawyers are registered with us and we have access to a range of external and internal job boards and websites where we do not have candidates available ourselves. We also assist with recruitment advice and assistance, regularly advising partners and practice managers on suitable salary and package levels.

Our company is unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that we are not shy to publish our fee structure and also donate a chunk of our profits to charity each year. We offer unlimited permanent and locum recruitment for a fixed fee of just £60 per month (terms apply) or 15% one-off fees for permanent and 18% for locum. We donate 10% of our profits annually to charity, hence our name.

The Ten-Percent Group of Legal Recruitment websites gives 10% of annual profits to charity (hence our name). We have carried on with this tradition since we formed the company 14 years ago. So far over £51,000 has been donated to charities in the UK and Africa including LawCare and the CAB.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter and look forward to hearing from you if we can assist further.

Warm regards

Jonathan Fagan
Consultant

Jonathan Fagan is a solicitor, qualified recruitment consultant and Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here – www.linkedin.com/in/jbfagan

Interim Lawyers – www.interimlawyers.co.uk
Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk
Legal Recruitment Newsletter – www.legal-recruitment.co.uk

T: 0207 127 4343
E: jobs@interimlawyers.co.uk
E: jobs@ten-percent.co.uk

Interim Lawyers
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AX

Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited
2nd Floor
145-157 St John Street
London
EC1V 4PY

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