Scene: Another BIGLAW boardroom
Now that’s more like it! It was almost too good to be true. Here we were, two headhunters with 90 minutes of unlimited access to a management-level director of lateral hiring with the clearly expressed mandate of getting his firm’s name back in front of the marketplace via the efforts of a half-dozen selected recruiters. What did this firm do right?
- Substantive, detailed information – candidly shared. Minimal fluff. No clichés. No glossy marketing materials to throw away afterwards!
- Real face time/real commitment – an exceptionally detailed and forthright 60 minute presentation of the firm’s history, recent developments and future plans – with another 30 minutes for discussion. Repeated in its entirety 5-6 times with other groups of recruiters. Hard work! But did he get our attention? You bet!!
- Facing the Music – How about talking about the firm’s negatives up front? Addressed candidly and with appropriate response points? We almost fell off our chairs!
What could have been done better? Most worryingly -we noticed a clear and obvious disconnect between the director and the manager. Information conveyed one way at the meeting was thereafter summarized incoherently and inaccurately by the manager with the result being confusion as to the firm’s needs and criteria. What a waste of an opportunity! What a recipe for recruiting disaster!
Bottom Line – Are we going to recruit for these folks? How could we not?
