Committing to a Single Legal Recruiter vs. Multiple Legal Recruiters
Interested in transitioning to a new legal position — whether at a Biglaw firm or in-house legal department? Legal recruiters often come to mind, particularly for experienced candidates who may be “out of the loop” with respect to the legal job market.
As you consider the possibility of working with a legal recruiter, you may be wondering about the advantages and disadvantages associated with multiple vs. single legal recruiters. Exclusively working with a legal recruiter has a number of benefits that many attorney-candidates may not be aware of, so it’s worth taking the time to understand the issues before making a decision.
Let’s explore some basic issues.
Multiple Legal Recruiters
Pros
If you work with multiple legal recruiters, you may be able to identify available positions outside of a single legal recruiter’s network. This can be helpful if you are applying to positions in multiple cities/regions, and a recruiter does not have a strong presence in some of the cities/regions that you’re applying to.
Cons
There are two major disadvantages to working with multiple legal recruiters: 1) legal recruiters get paid by the law firm or in-house employer, and so when vying over the candidacy of an individual attorney, will be incentivized to engage in a “rush placement” so as to get paid before the other recruiter has an opportunity to do so; and 2) legal recruiters will typically not be as committed to investing time, attention, and resources into the candidate, as there is a risk of not getting any payout for their time.
With respect to payment, it’s important to understand that legal recruiters are normally subjected to an interesting pay-dynamic that is beneficial to attorney-candidates — the law firm or in-house department pays the legal recruiter for finding a candidate to fill a position. The payment may be refunded, however, if the candidate leaves within a short period of time (six months) or is terminated for cause. Thus, recruiters are incentivized to not only identify the best possible fit for a candidate, but can offer their services “free of charge” to attorney-candidates.
When there are multiple legal recruiters working with a candidate, however, this dynamic is upended. As legal recruiters are not paid by candidates, they rely on a successful placement in order to recover their costs spent on assisting candidates. With multiple legal recruiters involved, whoever gets the “first” placement will be the only recruiter to get paid. This changes the incentive structure so that the recruiters will be pressured into finding any suitable position for the candidate, not necessarily the “best.”
Single Legal Recruiter
Pros
Legal recruiters who know that they can rely on the exclusivity of their arrangement (with a given attorney-candidate) can generally commit more resources towards that candidate. If a candidate is working with multiple legal recruiters, for example, then any one of the legal recruiters may feel that their cost-benefit analysis does not justify the provision of truly client-centric, comprehensive recruitment services.
Simply put: working with a single legal recruiter is likely to guarantee you their “best possible service.” Otherwise, corners might be cut in an effort to balance out the cost of working with a candidate who is also fielding the help of other recruiters.
Cons
Not all legal recruiters are well-qualified and effective at securing “best fit” positions for ambitious attorney-candidates. By choosing to go with a single legal recruiter, you put a great deal of trust in that recruiter to work to the betterment of your career — if the legal recruiter is ineffective, however, then you could be facing some difficult choices. For this reason, if you choose to go with a single legal recruiter, it’s important that you do your research and collaborate with a recruiter who has a consistent track record of success and a longstanding reputation for effective service in California.
We believe that Garb Jaffe & Associates is an exemplar legal recruitment firm on which you can rely to provide exclusive, end-to-end recruitment services. At Garb Jaffe, our team is committed to helping place candidates in positions where they will thrive over the course of their tenure.
Contact Garb Jaffe & Associates for Recruitment Assistance
Here at Garb Jaffe & Associates, our experienced San Francisco Bay Area legal recruiters have decades of experience working with attorney-candidates at every stage of the recruitment process, from identifying and evaluating potential best-fit opportunities to preparing applications for submission. We provide truly comprehensive legal recruitment assistance to attorney-candidates, and over the years, have helped place such candidates in prestigious Biglaw firms and in-house legal departments throughout the state of California.
From a strategic perspective, we believe that the key to success in legal recruitment is not in working with a high-volume of clients, but in the provision of effective, targeted recruitment services. We work closely with attorney-candidates throughout the recruitment process, devoting significant time and attention to their career journey. It is this candidate-centric dynamic that gives us a distinct advantage — we gain further insight into the roles for which attorney-candidates are particularly well-suited (and qualified to take on).
If you’d like to speak to a skilled San Francisco Bay Area legal recruiter at Garb Jaffe about the possibility of transitioning to a new legal position, we encourage you to either call us at 310-207-0727 or complete an intake form through our website.