UK firms remain wary despite elevated recruitment figures
April 23, 2010 by Damian
The title of this post is the title of an article from the latest edition of the UK’s The Lawyer magazine which you can read here – http://www.thelawyer.com/1004112.article.
The tenor of this article sums up for me exactly the uncertainty in the recruitment market at present and the influence that the press has on people’s perception of the state of that market.
What I mean by this is that the first sentence of this article states:
“The UK’s top 25 firms are back in recruitment mode, with an estimated 2,133 people having been brought on board to UK offices in 2009-10 alone.”
I am sure that everyone reading this would think – ‘brilliant – now it’s time to dust off the CV because I’m outta here’.
Well ‘no’ I’m afraid. The next sentence states:
‘However, the total number of hires is still exceeded by the 2,370 people firms made redundant during the downturn, suggesting management caution has far from subsided.”
The article goes on to state that :
‘The highest numbers of hires were made by two firms with large volume businesses, Irwin Mitchell and Eversheds, which recruited 414 and 293 people respectively’. This sounds positive for your chances at Irwin Mitchell and Eversheds – yes? Well ‘no’, the next sentence states:
“Since late 2007 Irwin Mitchell has laid off 16, while Eversheds parted company with 735.’
So the question remains – are firms back in recruitment mode or not?
This article does not answer the question and shies away from coming to a conclusion, finishing off instead with a very bland non sequitur from the Chief Executive of DLA Piper, (incidentally a firm who made more redundancies than most). So what was the point of the article? To be honest, I am not sure as it seems to give hope to people but then tempers it with caveat upon caveat.
What this article highlights to me is that no-one knows what will happen in the coming months, not even the esteemed journos at The Lawyer. The market is still going through a lot of uncertainty and how long it will take for this uncertainty to be removed, is anyone’s guess.
As for whether I, sitting down here in NZ, am going to come to a conclusion as to the state of the recruitment market in London, well if the journos at The Lawyer aren’t going to, then neither will I!
However, if you are thinking about making the move to London or elsewhere, please get in touch with us. We would love to have a chat to you about your background and what we can do to help you over there.
Around The World (In Just Over 1100 Words)
April 14, 2010 by Damian
Sorry for the delay since my last post but sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and we have to deal with more important things than legal recruitment. However, I am back on board now and think that it is a good time to give an overview of what is happening in the recruitment markets worldwide at present.
I have seen one of my competitors advertising that London law firms are now receptive to approaches by NZ lawyers. After speaking to my colleagues over in London last week, my view is that this is not quite the whole truth. It is the case that more jobs are coming on to the market in London. As a consequence of this, firms will not quite have the same pick of top quality candidates that they have had in the last 12-18 months and as such, they may have to reconsider who may or may not be suitable for their particular roles. As the locally qualified talent pool becomes more diluted, employers will have no choice but to look at overseas qualifieds to fill the gaps.
However, what is outlined above is not the reality just yet. Sure, I have heard anecdotal evidence that NZ lawyers in London are securing interviews. The caveat to that is that they are probably being interviewed along with 6, 8 or even 10 other people. In the candidate v law firm power struggle, the firms still hold all the power. Firms are still being very discerning about who they employ and they are willing to take their time to find the right person. As I write this in April, it is still going to be a rare occurance that that ‘right person’ will be an overseas qualified lawyer.
Don’t get me wrong – the market over there is improving. There is a general consensus that the worst is gone and that it is now time to look at and plan for the future. This forward planning, however, will be cautious and gradual but as it continues to take shape, opportunities for top quality overseas lawyers will come about. It is fair to say that those who are in the UK with their visa status secured will be at the vanguard of this trend. It is also fair to say that the most attractive prospects will be those with 3+ years experience. Candidates with less than that will struggle due to the enormous amounts of locally qualified junior lawyers who have fallen victim to the GFC over the last 12-18 months.
Looking further afield, the bottom has dropped out of the offshore markets completely. A search this morning on Seek for jobs in the Cayman Islands turned up one job and there is not one job being advertised for the Channel Islands. Compared to 2 years ago, this is an astonishing drop off in demand. Judging by what I have heard, it will take a very long time indeed for these markets to pick up from a recruitment point of view. The current economic crisis has fundamentally affected these economies and until these jurisdictions work out what place they now occupy in the economic world, opportunities in these island paradises will be very scarce.
The Middle East seems to be at an interesting juncture at present. It had the most spectacular fall from grace of all as dozens and dozens of lawyers were retrenched or made redundant. The simple fact is that the whole region was massively overlawyered and when the work dried up, there was very little for anyone to do. It is very doubtful that the Middle East region will ever be quite so attractive as it was a few years ago but it is showing some signs of recovery.
Some of the larger firms in the region have started undertaking some major projects and have consequently started to look for staff again. The catch is that they are being absolutely inundated with quality applications. However, if the big firms continue to be busy, it is likely that activity among other firms will start to pick up, thus increasing opportunities for lawyers to come back again. How long this takes is anyone’s guess but I would suggest that we are at least 6-12 months away from there being many options for NZ lawyers in the Middle East.
Which leads us on to Asia – the shining light, it seems. My colleagues in Hong Kong say that the place has gone ‘gangbusters’. A lot of this activity has been in the insolvency/restructuring area but they are starting to receive instructions from firms on the look out for corporate and finance lawyers as well. China is obviously behind a lot of this activity and opportunities are opening up in China and surrounding regions as well as in HK.
With every bit of positive news comes the sobering news. Yes, there are positions in Asia but employers are now looking foremost at people with language skills or some ties to the region. It is not to say that it is impossible without either of these but it does make life a lot harder if you don’t speak the lingo or have a particular reason to want to move there.
Finally, to our good friends across the Tasman. The media has painted the picture that Australia is in great shape and is back to normal. Having spoken to people over there, it seems, again, that this is not quite the case. The economy is improving but this has not translated into large numbers of new jobs yet. Yes, firms are starting to recruit again but as in the UK, they are being overwhelmed by the amount of quality applications and are in no rush at all to fill the roles. Locally qualified lawyers are still the most attractive so, even though NZ lawyers can practice over there, Australian employers will still favour Australian lawyers if given the choice.
So, where does all of that leave the NZ lawyer desperate to head offshore? Well in summary, the legal recruitment world is in better shape than it has been since mid 2008. Confidence in the future is up and firms are generally making positive noises about increasing headcount in the coming months. However, at present, competition is fierce, employers are still in control and locally qualifieds still are the most attractive option.
If you can hang on for another 4-6 months, I think that you probably should. However, if you can’t stand it any more and you just have to move, then my advice is to be flexible as to what you will look at, be patient as the process will take a long time and when given the opportunity to attend interviews, make sure that you perform to the best of your ability.
I look forward to looking back (if you know what I mean) at this post at the end of 2010 and comparing how things are like then to what they are like now. It will be an interesting comparison!!!
Where It’s At
March 2, 2010 by Damian
‘Where it’s at’ is not just one of my favourite songs (by Beck incidentally) but is also a variation of a question that I get asked at least once a day. Everyone wants to know what the job market is looking like now and what it will be looking like over the coming weeks and months. So here is my two cents (or 50 cents to continue the musical theme) worth on where it’s at.
A very unscientific analysis of last week’s activity on the various job sites indicates that there are a lot more vacancies around at the moment than there have been for at least the last 12 months. From Monday 22nd – Friday 26th, there were 125 jobs added to Seek. Obviously, quite a number of these are duplicates and others are for vacancies that have been around for a while but it does contain a significant number of new vacancies across private practice, public sector and to a lesser extent, in-house. For the first time in a long time, the roles also traverse a wide range of practice areas including corporate, finance, litigation, RM, employment, family and so on.
So it should be easy to get a job now? No. Easier? Yes. Even though there are now more vacancies around, employers are not going to drop their standards and take someone for the sake of it. The advantage for the job seeker now is that there is not as much competition around so their CV will be more closely scrutinised than it was previously but if your background is not good enough, you will not make it across the line.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, the great unknown in the debate is when the overseas markets will return to some degree of normality. It is a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’ and when it happens, we will see even more vacancies here with even fewer candidates applying. The majority of these vacancies will be in the traditional 2-5 year bracket but I suspect that we will also see a number of senior lawyers leaving to either return to the UK or there are some who will be going for the first time. Either way, employers should be bracing themselves for some serious going away parties over the next 6-9 months.
So where is it at? In summary, my view is that the outlook is definitely improving (from a job seekers point of view) and will continue to gradually improve throughout the rest of the year. However, I would refer to the point that I make earlier that even though there may be more opportunities does not mean that it will be easy to get a job. It is never easy to secure a new position and nor should it ever be. You still need to have a good CV, good grades and present well at interview. If you can manage that, then you can be confident that something suitable will come along in 2010.
It’s Not All Good News
February 18, 2010 by Damian
2010 has started off with a sense of renewed confidence in the legal recruitment market. There is ‘cautious optimism’ that this year will see an increase in the amount of vacancies around which will bring a sigh of relief to numerous jobseekers who are keen (and have been for a while) to move on from their current roles.
I concur with this optimistic view of what 2010 will bring but the news that has come from the South Island this week – see link below - is a reminder that the market is by no means stable and there will continue to be some bumps along the road before we can safely say that we are ‘back to normal’ (whatever that is).
http://au.legalbusinessonline.com/news/breaking-news/40320
The message that I have taken from this unfortunate development is that we should not just have blind faith in the recovery and we must realise that any optimism for the year ahead should indeed be ‘cautious’.
An important caveat to this article is that a final decision has not been made by Anderson Lloyd so it is not certain that there will in fact be redundancies made. However, the message of caution for the rest of us still stands.
Biggest News of the Year So Far!!
February 9, 2010 by Damian
By far the biggest news story of the year so far in the legal recruitment world has just broken with the news that UK Magic Circle giant Allen & Overy is opening in Australia -
http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/blogs/top_stories/archive/2010/02/07/allen-amp-overy-to-open-shop-in-australia.aspx.
This is a huge story. There have been murmurings for years about UK firms either setting up in Australia or merging with an established Australian firm (which recently just happened with the Norton Rose/Deacons merger) but the naysayers consistently said that the rewards would not justify the potential risk and that the referral arrangements that already exist between UK and Australian firms work perfectly well, thank you very much.
However, A&O obviously think differently and are jumping straight into the top tier in their chosen areas. This will make them an extremely attractive choice for UK lawyers wanting to spend some time in Australia as well as giving local lawyers the opportunity to get a Magic Circle law firm on their CV without even leaving the country. However, it does not take into account that a lot of people want to experience a different culture at the same time as furthering their career so it may not necessarily be the chosen route for many who may prefer to work for A&O in London, rather than A&O in Sydney or Perth. There is no doubt that they will be able to attract the very best graduate lawyers but time will tell whether they will be able to offer enough to keep the very best intermediate lawyers in Australia, rather than losing them offshore.
What this means for New Zealand law firms and New Zealand lawyers is a very interesting question. I would imagine that the lure of working for A&O in Australia would be very attractive to NZ lawyers but as is the case in London, only the very best will stand a chance of securing a role there.
Also, it does raise the question whether any international firms think that doing a similar thing in NZ would be a good idea. Obviously the quality of lawyer is good enough here but are the deals (and the fees) big enough? It would seem that because of the total lack of any speculation of this kind whatsoever that the answer to this question is ‘no’. The firms who have a referral relationship with A&O will be rubbing their hands. Other firms may be a little afraid!