{"id":132,"date":"2019-02-12T13:25:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.thesrgroup.com\/taylorroot\/?p=132"},"modified":"2023-01-03T11:10:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T11:10:10","slug":"missing-links-or-why-corporations-shouldnt-be-following-a-monolithic-recruitment-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taylorroot.com\/nl\/hiring-advice\/finding-talent\/missing-links-or-why-corporations-shouldnt-be-following-a-monolithic-recruitment-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing links: or why Corporations shouldn\u2019t be following a monolithic recruitment strategy."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it comes to hiring for legal positions, those responsible for talent acquisition strategies should beware of false economies \u2013 especially in high-cost regions such as the Middle East. <\/em>I welcome your thoughts on the below article, please leave your comments here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em> Few members of staff are more expensive to take on than an in-house lawyer in the Middle East.  However, the question must be asked whether it is sensible to look at squeezing out  cost in a world of mounting regulatory pressure and the ever-present threat of unexpected liabilities? There has definitely been in an increase over the past decade of companies taking on in-house counsel in the Middle East, as they try to move away from the expense of external legal support, and begin to appreciate the importance of having a full-time employee who can mitigate and manage the legal risks a business faces daily. However, in a region where margins have shrunk, and a drop in outward investment has led to a more cautious approach in respect to recruitment strategies, the cost of hiring in-house counsel is coming under scrutiny.  The associated costs of sourcing and attracting talent in this space has become the number one reason why many businesses are beginning to adopt risky hiring strategies which seem \u2013 in the short-term \u2013 to be more cost effective, but can have negative long-term implications. More importantly, corporates are not giving themselves the greatest opportunity to source the very best talent for their business by focusing on a smaller, selective pool of candidates. An eye on the bottom line<\/strong> In less-than-buoyant markets, the perception of departments regularly alters and in times like this, legal functions start to be deemed \u2018cost centres\u2019 rather than commercial business enablers.  The recent trends we have noticed coming out of this are not dissimilar to those we saw in 2009 immediately after the global financial crisis.  One example is that roles are not always replaced \u2018like for like\u2019.  For example, a General Counsel position may be downgraded to a Senior Legal Counsel if a business needs to replace someone. Even if there is no change in title, there is a trend towards hiring lower-cost candidates. As a result, we have seen more hiring at the mid-level in the past two years across the Middle Eastern markets as our clients look to extract as much value from their hiring as possible.  This has created a number of interesting dynamics at the start of the year within the legal & compliance talent pool. Firstly, there is a surplus of highly competent, senior lawyers finding it difficult to source new employment as most companies are unable (or unwilling) to match or exceed compensation packages that people now deem \u2018expensive\u2019. Secondly, the mid-market space (lawyers generally in the 6-12 PQE space) has become much more competitive with companies vying for the attentions of a small pool of candidates who match both the technical and cultural competencies they require and at the right level of cost. Another set of risks receives less attention, however. These arise when businesses try to make false economies in the recruitment process itself.  A common pitfall occurs when executives assume that social media can make traditional recruiting channels redundant. Let me be very clear here, as I appreciate how biased an article by a recruiter will come across; social media networks \u2013 especially LinkedIn \u2013 can be an effective and economical tool for hiring. However, it is important to understand the costs and other perils of recruiting solely through channels like this. LinkedIn: the answer to your recruitment questions?<\/strong> LinkedIn has a wide user base in the legal community, especially in the Middle East. On the face of it, recruiting through LinkedIn has been a game-changer, a way of reaching beyond immediate \u201cold-boy networks\u201d at less than the apparent headline cost of traditional targeted recruitment channels. Nowadays, everyone has access to a global database (a still-common selling tool of many recruitment agencies \u2013 for good reason). Amazing, right? But while LinkedIn may have a role in a recruitment strategy, too heavy a reliance has significant perils \u2013 including large hidden costs. According to LinkedIn\u2019s own figures from GCC countries, the network has 72,000 professionals in its legal space. Of that number, nearly 9,000 moved employer in the past 12 months. At any one time almost 1,000 jobs are posted online in this sector. To look at a recent example, one posting of a legal job in Dubai attracted 25,000 impressions in two weeks, leading to 250 applications. Of these, roughly 10% will be of interest to the recruiter. Which begs the question: who is going to weed out the other 90%?  Talent Acquisition functions in-house are overloaded. The TA department can do the basic screening but is unlikely to have the bandwidth to get beyond basic word-matching. Assessing an applicant\u2019s legal professional skills is quite another matter: why should a TA department know very much about what a lawyer does?  The real shortlisting work will have to be passed on to the legal team. Whilst talent pipelining and hiring is certainly part of the job description of a General Counsel, one would assume that a heavy workload would dictate an inability to spend huge portions of time sifting through largely irrelevant and unsuitable CVs.  How much is that costing the business in terms of time and output of the General Counsel? There is a more important point here, and that is an issue with the data-set. Irrespective of the number of applications a job position receives on LinkedIn, TotallyLegal, The Lawyer (and to be clear, we use all of these channels ourselves as recruiters, to varying levels of effectiveness) etc., the applications all share one commonality; these are \u2018active\u2019 candidates.  Active candidates are pro-actively on the lookout for new roles. There is nothing wrong with these individuals at all, but they make up a small percentage of the entire talent pool and relying solely on this subset of candidates results in a number of outcomes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n