Career Clinic: Does my experience count for nothing?

Hi, I can relate to your frustration with agencies. How many agencies have you actually applied to? Are you going hell for leather? My experience shows that in the current market with a surfeit of excellent candidates, agencies will not spend time on someone that doesn't tick all the boxes. Very few consultants are going to go out on a limb for you.

There may be the rare exception, but only if you tailor your cv specifically to the job.

Your best strategy is to apply directly to companies, as they would rather find candidates themselves than pay agency fees.

Good luck!

Anon -22 Jun 2009 | 11:32

Agree with the previous poster.

Agencies are hopeless. Anyone that falls outside the 'norm' is deemed to much hard work for them. If you stick with the agency root, try to to get to know one or two and sell yourself as an individual. Only if they know you, rather than a name on their database, will they lift a finger for you.

Direct application is the way to go and using your contacts. Be prepared to be grilled about why you left the profession, and though your commercial experience is valuable you need to have strong legal skills.

Anonymous -22 Jun 2009 | 19:32

I agree with the previous two posters.

Recruitment agencies, whilst they can assist you, are only in it to receive huge commissions.

But, in the interests of being balanced, if they get 1,000 CVs of quality candidates, they can only spend so much time getting to know each candidate. So, they may exclude you from their books.

My advice - email/phone a partner of a firm you are interested, say you are interested in the area of practice they work in and ask for career advice whilst briefly highlighting your strengths. Be clever about it.

For the interview, prepare using the Reservoir Dogs way of thinking - whatever your story is, make sure you know it inside out. By this, make sure you have great answers for your career choices.

Good luck!

Metallica -23 Jun 2009 | 10:58

A few more of those Agency phrases we just love:

1. 'Yeah, send me your CV! We'll put it on file 'cos we get lots of the sort of jobs you're looking for, just not right now...'

2. 'Oh, the job you applied for the other day? Sorry, it's on hold due to the recruitment freeze.. No, I didn't know before you came for the interview' [a day after the recruitment freeze was announced].

3. 'So which other jobs are you going for? What was the name of the firm you had the interview with?'

ad nauseum

Anon -23 Jun 2009 | 11:54

It's irritating reading comments that criticise the recruitment profession for your problems. The fact that any agents have given you the time of day in this market, when they should be dealing with people they can actually place and finding new clients they can work with, is testament to the fact that not all recruiters are money-driven mercenaries out to make a quick buck. Believe me, if they were, you wouldn't make it past the switchboard when you called them. Take their free advice but don't expect them to work magic for you, or to work all day calling their clients for you either. We recruiters can only place the candidates our clients want to hire and the last time I was asked to find a candidate with a background as varied as your was, well... never to be honest. An honest consultant would tell you that in the current market your chances of securing work in the legal sector are slim. Very slim. There are perfectly good career lawyers being made redundant everyday, so ask yourself the following question: What do you offer that you think a firm actually wants? PS "A commercial outlook" isn't the right answer by the way, sorry. My advice: Start calling the heads of departments direct, avoid HR at all costs and get ready for some very difficult calls.

Luke -23 Jun 2009 | 17:49

Luke, the problems with recruiters existed before the recession. This is the modus operandi of most agencies.

There is a nice little game going on here: Law firms basically outsourcing the drudge of going through CVs (labour intensive) to agencies who create the illusion that they offer some 'consultancy' service. Far better for the agencies to bear the burden of fobbing candidates off (because they are too old, gender etc.) than the agency.

And what about those agencies that ask you in for an interview which could have easily have taken place over the phone. It couldn't have had anything to do with that 'targets for interviews' page could it?

Anon -23 Jun 2009 | 20:18

Why do you want to go back to the law? Being a business consultant sounds much more interesting...

Anonymous -23 Jun 2009 | 22:22

This may be a typically risk-averse lawyer's response but here are my few thoughts.

1. Firstly, the comment made by the recruiter about the harsh realities of the market are pretty fair. There are jobs out there, but to be honest, there are a lot of lawyers with more relevant experience who are looking to fill them.

2. Secondly, you talk about having "commercial experience" - employers are not necessarily interested in that. They are interested in "legal experience" that you can apply in a commercial manner. You do not, by your own admission, have that experience.

3. My suggestion would be to do your best to get any form of general commercial law experience, preferably in private practice so that you have a couple of years of that experience under your belt. Ideally, you will manage to get that experience at a firm that does media-type work as well so that you can keep within that area of work.

4. How you would do that is to take the advice that has been given above. The key thing that could swing it for you is if you have proper contacts who might be inclined to either instruct you yourself or instruct the firm that was hiring you. That is the experience that will give you the edge over someone, not something more bland and generic. Do you have that?

Bottom line is good luck in your searches, but you have to be aware that the competition will be pretty fierce at the moment.

Anonymous -24 Jun 2009 | 10:09

Anon, I understand your frustration with the recruitment industry. I would be being disingenuous if I tried to claim that sort of activity doesn’t happen within some recruitment firms, it clearly does, but having only ever worked for one agency I'm not qualified to criticise the entire industry. Just like there are bad lawyers there are bad recruiters, but we're really not all the same. Where I work the only target we have is billing and believe me you can't bill a penny unless the candidate wants to take the job, and candidates will not take a new job unless they want to because it improves their situation somehow. It's that simple. In my book that's called a win-win situation. Sorry if you've been working with cowboys.

Luke -24 Jun 2009 | 13:38

It may be the agencies that you are approaching that are only capable of pushing an easy sell. Before sending a CV in it is worth speaking to them and establishing a rapport with them. Do some research on the agency and the people that you are going to speak to there and talk to them about them initially, because they will appreciate that and then be more receptive to listening to you. Try speaking to Ben Haider at QC Legal on 0161 880 0118, he is a good guy who will give you an honest appraisal of whether what you are looking for is realistic.

Tone -24 Jun 2009 | 17:03

Luke - please tell me who you work for, that has been far from my experience (pre-recession, now very happy in a job I went out and got myself).
With regard to the initial question - I agree with the comments above; avoid HR, contact heads of department directly if at all possible but be prepared for lots of short shrift. This is an employer's market (at least as far as employment itself is concerned) and they can afford to be picky. You may have commercial experience, but there are lots of people who have both commercial and legal experience. If you persevere you should find an employer who will listen, but you will need to put the effort in and consider what's important to you.
In short: bad time to want to come back to the fold.

Anonymous -24 Jun 2009 | 17:12

Ex-paralegal

What you're saying is true, albeit I am not qualified. Recruiters pigeonhole. Also recruiters don't see past problems on CVs. Also, lots of lawyers only ever get a smidgeon of experience when they do their four seats for articles in other areas of law, they choose their seat and the door closes on every other department. In the current climate it could be useful for people to switch departments to areas that they really wanted to do as a seat but never got the opportunity or try out other department areas.

ANON -24 Jun 2009 | 17:21

Ex legal temp

Agencies are useless. They slow the recruitment process and overcharge the law firm whilst underpaying the candidate. They should be avoided at all cost. The annoyance is that so may firms use them it is difficult to find a way around. I would try to contact partners/HR directly and push them directly - this will also give you the opportunity to sell yourself (additional commercial awareness etc) directly to the people who count.

anon -29 Jun 2009 | 16:32

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions, and the side rant on recruitment agencies. Along with approaching firms/companies directly as many of you have suggested, I am definitely going to give Metallica's suggestion (to contact a partner for careers advice) very helpful.

Anonymous -02 Jul 2009 | 11:44

Agencies are great if you have a traditional CV, but do not know the market well enough to assess the value of an unusual CV.

So your best bet is to use your contacts and to approach heads of departments directly.

Anon -09 Feb 2010 | 21:40