Pity the Cravath Associate

Pity the life of a recruitment coordinator (RC). Pity the life of a Cravath associate. Huh?

THE PROBLEM: The Broken Telephone

Let's talk about the way RCs, Cravath associates, and the Lawcruiter community all suffer when our clients fail to adequately communicate the details of their lateral hiring needs.

Lets start with the RC. Charged with the responsibility of managing the process of recruiting, interviewing and hiring lateral attorneys – this individual (or, increasingly, team of individuals) needs to translate the sometimes inconsistent, all-too-briefly stated needs of his/her partner-masters, to the information-hungry (and usually information deprived) Lawcruiter community. In response, the Lawcruiter community - knowing that that the information provided is often incomplete or incoherent, will do one of three things:

1. Send reams of tangentially relevant candidates - to the great frustration of the RC and the hiring partners - in the hope that at least one of them will meet – however unintentionally - the “real” objective of the search;

2. In the hopes of increasing the odds of a successful placement – send very few tangentially relevant resumes, but only resumes of associates from “Top 10” firms. Here, the Lawcruiter community plays upon the time-old recruiter’s maxim that “No one ever got fired for recruiting someone from Cravath” – but essentially achieves the same result, i.e., a sub-optimal placement rate and the continuing frustration of the RC and hiring partners. Here, we can also think about the frustration those poor Cravath associates who are deluged with inappropriate recruitment calls - and who are really no different from their more neglected colleagues at the “lesser firms” insofar as all they really want is for one recruiter to call with information about the “right” job for them

3. Finally – some Lawcruiters try to optimize their recruiting efforts by speaking directly to the hiring partners (and bypassing the RC) in the hopes of getting more detailed hiring criteria, and quicker feedback on pending candidates – especially where there are “shifting” criteria for the ideal candidate. Well – imagine what he RC thinks about that!

THE SOLUTION: Better Communication!

Ultimately, our clients could save themselves and the Lawcruiter community an enormous amount of time and energy by working harder at improving the information and feedback loop that helps us all do our jobs better. (We can also save those poor Cravath associates a torrent of inappropriate recruiting calls!) Herewith two few specific suggestions:

1. Spend more time and effort writing clear and complete job description – detailing specific expectations as to the successful candidate(s) qualifications, technical skill set, and experience level. The description should describe the role that the partner is trying to fill, and set out – in detail – what kind of things the candidate would be doing on the job. In the case of difficult searches, the hiring partner might want to include specific details about how broadly the qualification specifications would be relaxed, e.g., industry expertise, technical training, etc. In these cases, merely saying that “stong corporate candidates will be considered” is substantially useless and simply encourages recruiters who devote themselves to pestering the same group of Cravath associates to the detriment of other candidates who would be more appropriate.

2. Designate a search-specific feedback contact: i.e. either hire recruitment coordinators who are intimately aware of the nuances and fluctuations in a group’s hiring needs or (better) designate a partner or senior associate whose job is to actively manage the search by providing instant feedback to RCs as to the actual current parameters of the search – and ensuring that these updates are pushed out to the recruiting community by way of e-mails, telephone calls, etc. A few of our clients are already doing this…

I guarantee that the more these two tactics are used – the fewer inappropriate resumes will be submitted, mostly because – in the face of all this clarity – very few Lawcruiters will want to be embarrassed by submitting anyone not clearly on point. As long as the vagueness and inadequate communication persists – so will the deluge of inappropriate resumes; so will the pointless recruiting calls to those poor Cravath associates; so will attempts by the Lawcruiter community to bypass the RCs – so will all of us continue to waste time and energy that can be more efficiently spent in making more placements.