“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein
The facts are that the recruitment market is currently hard work across many industries, however recruitment in conveyancing is proving particularly difficult.
The commercial reality is that the transactions in the housing market will diminish and generally the biggest overhead is staff… so we are caught between the balancing act of sustainable recruitment and retention today to match need, with an eye on tomorrow when volumes of instructions could drop. Another consideration is that although we may want to offer complete flexible working, part time hours, maximum salary, gym membership, nights out, pets at work – we have a business to run and a service to provide!
So what’s the answer…….
Well, we would suggest that the initial act of recruitment is basically a sales function… to be able to market and communicate the opportunity to potential candidates of working for you rather than someone else. The firm has to recognise firstly what candidates that you would like to recruit, and check that they are there in the first place. Then ask yourself, why would they want to work with you?
Below is the trend for the search term ‘Conveyancing Jobs’ over the last year showing that from the 1st of January this year there has been a general increase in searches on Google.
So we have an active market place… which creates opportunity. We would now suggest you focus on three main areas, what are your competitors offering? What are you offering and is it aligned to your target audience and how do you tell people?
In our experience, with most job adverts, firms will start with the fact that because their business is growing, completing thousands of transactions a year they now require additional support… the candidate they are looking for is……. then will go into career opportunities, dynamic, tec driven, well established, with somewhere the words ‘family feel’ creeping in, then back it all up with all the perks and top it all off with a well-produced corporate video, with soft lighting and some music playing in the background. BUT at no point demonstrate any kind of material difference between their law firm and others.. answering the candidates question ‘what’s in it for me?’ Which then basically means that it all becomes about money!
So we urge you to be brave, stand out from the crowd, inwardly look at your firm, engage with your staff, carry out staff surveys and then with the board, focus on what makes your firm the best place for your preferred new member of staff to work for…. Then work out the best way to communicate this to your target audience, set expectations for ROI and test and trial with regular reviews to see if it’s working.
We understand that this is easy to say and much more difficult to do… but would also suggest that time in preparation now to get this right will benefit the firm significantly going forward.
Regardless if you agree with the above or not, if you are struggling to recruit, in a ever changing market place by doing the same thing every time…. Albert Einstein would claim it an act of insanity!
If you would like our view we are always happy to talk, contact us and we would be delighted to come and meet with you.
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hello@keveral-holdings.co.uk