Legal support staff performs a wide range of tasks that are essential to smoothly running a legal department and the company it serves. Choosing the right legal support professional to add to your team requires you to sort through candidates with similar skill sets, but different backgrounds, personalities, and goals.
How do you find the staff that is right for you – while keeping time and money expenditures under control? Here are five ways your recruiter can help:
- Control hiring costs. Spending more money on a candidate search doesn’t guarantee a better result – yet many legal departments that are struggling to find high-quality candidates attempt to solve the problem by throwing money at it. Your recruiter can help you keep costs down while still improving the quality of your candidates through better screening, shorter hiring times, and access to quality temporary staff.
- Vet candidates. Hiring managers have several tasks on their plate every day in addition to hiring. By sharing their vision of the “ideal” candidate with their recruiter, they prep the recruiting team to find these top-quality candidates without adding to their own workload. Your recruiter can screen resumes, check references, and “touch base” to ensure qualified candidates are interested, while you focus on your daily work.
- Improve your interview process. Interviewing is a skill, but it’s one that is rarely taught. Instead, most managers learn it on the fly. Staffing firms, however, study the art of interviewing. Your recruiter can provide valuable tips and even sample questions that will help you ensure the candidate you choose is the right fit for your organization.
- Reduce time to hire. The longer the hiring process takes, the more money the company spends and the more likely it is that the best candidates will lose interest – or worse, be hired by a competing practice. Meanwhile, you’re losing the productivity that a new staff member can provide. By taking on screening tasks and helping you streamline the interview process, your recruiter can help you reduce time to hire without sacrificing quality.
- Assist with long-term planning. Strategic staffing plans help legal practices plan for the staff they will need to hire at key points in their growth and development. Recruiting firms excel at strategic staffing because they have the knowledge and experience to take the “long view” of the industries and locations they serve. Your recruiter can help you create a plan that will allow you to hire better with less stress.
At Kent Legal, our recruiters have helped legal practices throughout the greater Toronto area find the legal support staff they need to improve client service and satisfaction. Contact us today to learn more.