Are We At A Crossroads?
June 17, 2010 by Damian
One phrase that keeps cropping up when I am talking to clients and candidates at the moment is that it is an ‘interesting time’ in the legal recruitment market. What is happening in the recruitment markets is always ‘interesting’ because it is a good barometer as to the overall health of the economy. In other words, if employers are looking for staff, things must be going pretty well.
Over the vast majority of the 8 years that I have been in recruitment, it is been reasonably easy to discern trends and subsequently give informed and accurate advice and information on what the status of the current job market is. What makes it especially ‘interesting’ at the moment is that no real trends are emerging.
The very general perception is that the market is improving and that is undoubtedly true, thank goodness, but we have to remember that we are coming off the historically low base of the last 18 months or so.
So, are there more jobs around? Yes there are but if you look a little closer, there are still not that many. In private practice, the majority of the ‘big firms’ are still recruiting very selectively, the mid-tier firms do not seem to be recruiting much either and the small firms are mostly still trying to keep the doors open as opposed to taking on new staff. Some firms have a ‘watching brief’ for suitable candidates (which is a good sign) but when it is a ‘watching brief’, the candidates need to be really, really good to be hired.
However, if one took a look at the amount of roles in the public sector, you would be surprised with the amount of opportunities available. Similarly, the number of in-house vacancies has definitely increased in the last 4-6 months. Why this is when the general talk is of cost cutting in the public sector and headcount freezes in the corporate world is an article all of its own so I will dwell no further here apart from to say that for candidates looking for a new role, it would be foolish to rule out the public and in-house sectors at this stage.
So, if we can take it that there are still not a huge amount of roles around, can we take it that there are hundreds of hungry job seekers going after every role? Again, for some roles, ‘yes’ and for others ‘no’. To give an example, a very well known public sector legal team advertised and got nearly 100 applicants for the role. (That is what you get when the job spec can apply to nearly everyone who has a commercial background). However, a very reputable financial institution have been looking for an intermediate solicitor for a number of months now and have not been able to fill the role despite advertising very heavily. Similarly there is a property role in Auckland that the client just cannot fill, despite the perception that there would be loads of property lawyers desperate to get out of their current roles due to lack of work.
So are people going overseas now? Again, yes and no. Some people who have put their OE off for 12-18 months have just decided to pack it all in and take their chances offshore. However, it seems like there is a large group of lawyers who have decided not to move offshore at the moment and are looking to progress their career here and travel offshore during extended holidays or have put it off until a lot later in their career. As such, the trend that, for years, nearly all Kiwi lawyers with 2 years experience will leave to go offshore is just not apparent at the moment.
Clients are also displaying some very interesting behaviour from a recruitment standpoint. Some clients, who historically shied away from using recruitment agencies, are now happy to avail of our services. These clients have taken the view that even though there may be a lot of candidates around, those good candidates are still really hard to find. Others have made the call to keep all of their recruitment in-house, presumably in order to save agency fees, as opposed to ensuring that they get the best candidate around. (Don’t they realise that some of the best candidates are too busy to check job-boards and look at legal magazines and enrol with people like us to do that for them?) What these employers will do when the market inevitably tightens up further will be very, very interesting.
So, all in all, the only trend that I can see is that there is no real trend around. The recruitment market is in a real state of flux with an obvious disconnect between the perception and the reality of its health. Hopefully very soon a trend will emerge where good candidates will find good jobs – that is the sign of a healthy and ‘normal’ recruitment market. I, for one, will be happy to leave these ‘interesting’ times behind.
Interesting NZ Law Firm News!
May 25, 2010 by Damian
The New Zealand legal landscape is not known for providing a huge amount of exciting news but in the last week or so, I have seen a couple of very interesting articles that are definitely worth a read.
The first one concerns the standing of DLA Phillips Fox in NZ and whether the firm is going to split off from DLA Phillips Fox Australia
http://au.legalbusinessonline.com/news/breaking-news/45796.
It also mentions a very juicy bit of gossip about where the NZ arm of the firm may end up.
That story is all speculation but a very interesting factual development has just been announced by Minter Ellison Rudd Watts –
http://lawyersweekly.com.au/blogs/top_stories/archive/2010/05/24/minters-nz-taking-on-uk-work.aspx
Minters in NZ “has uncovered a new revenue stream working with UK-based law firms and clients to assist with their legal work at around half the price of UK-based lawyer rates”.
My first thought was that this was quite a strange move for a leading NZ law firm, given the concerns there are about outsourcing, but on reading the article, the work accounts for less than 1% of the firm’s total revenue and is not in the firm’s core areas. So on reflection, I think that it is a very innovative idea for a NZ law firm, taking advantage of the expertise of the its lawyers and the time difference between NZ and the UK.
I suspect that this will not be the last time that this sort of arrangement happens!
The final article of interest concerns Kensington Swan –
http://au.legalbusinessonline.com/law-firms/new-equity-structure-ruffles-feathers-at-kensington-swan/1001/45857.
These sorts of things happen all the time in the UK, US etc so are hardly news at all over there. However, over here, they create a little more of a ripple.
Sometimes, when talking to people about the legal market in NZ, comments are made about how nothing ever seems to change. Judging by these 3 articles, it seems like there is going to be a bit of a shake up down here. AT LAST!
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.
It’s A Funny Old Time
November 2, 2009 by Damian
It’s a funny old time in the world of recruitment at the moment. There is definitely more of a sense of optimism around and for the first time in quite a while, there have even been a number of options for junior lawyers. I have recently met quite a few younger lawyers who, after sticking things out for the annus horribilus that has been 2009, have said ‘stuff this, I’m off to London’.
Whether it is the onset of summer, the prospect of a new year which will hopefully bring a new beginning or just people being fed up with being pessimistic about things, it seems that the tide has turned and to borrow a phrase from one of Ireland’s most over-rated performers D:REAM – “things can only get better.”
So with this in mind, I opened up the latest edition of (the very good) NZ Lawyer magazine to see who was advertising, only to find a total of 3 job advertisements in the whole edition. Back in the heady days of 2006 and 2007, there probably would have been 20-30 and it seemed as if the whole publication was one big recruitment fest with some articles thrown in to break up the ads.
Historically, Seek would have 300-400 legal jobs. As I sit here now, it has 223 legal jobs in NZ, quite a number of which are different agencies advertising the same job. (Yes, we do do that!)
So where is the truth? Is it getting better or worse?
My opinion, which I’ve outlined in earlier posts, is that the worst is behind us. I believe that people will start moving jobs, if only because they are sick, sore and tired of what they are currently doing. This will create some fluidity in the market which will result in the current stagnant market unraveling somewhat. Hopefully in conjunction with this, the law firms will feel confident enough to start making some positive hiring decisions and will be considering how they should be staffing up in anticipation of the wave of people who will leave these shores when the overseas markets pick up.
However, it will be a slow process. Employers will (and should) exercise caution for the foreseeable future and it will take a long time until the NZ Lawyer carries 20/30 job ads and Seek carries 400 jobs. The reality of the situation is that it will be the candidates from the larger firms or those with the broadest experience or best academic records who will secure the first number of jobs that come on to the market. It is only when these people are comfortably ensconced in new roles, should the the rest of the profession be confident of finding something new.
The first 3 months of 2010 will probably still be pretty quiet. The second quarter, I feel, will set the tone for the rest of the year, one way or the other.
It is a funny old time indeed!
Taking A Risk
August 25, 2009 by Damian
The other day I met up with a senior lawyer who I placed last year into a top tier firm here in Wellington.
This candidate is a born, bred and committed Aucklander who, at the time, had just bought a property near the Harbour, having just returned from the UK, and was initially only looking for roles in Auckland.
For a variety of reasons, none of the approaches to Auckland firms were successful so he took a risk and turned his attention to Wellington (where he knew only a handful of people) and was quickly snapped up by a firm who obviously saw some real long term potential in him. Unbeknownst to them, his thought at the time was to use his time in Wellington as a stepping stone to getting back to Auckland to live in his beautiful house near his family and friends.
However, as time has gone on, he has done exceptionally well in Wellington, he has a growing client base, a burgeoning reputation and a flat near Wellington harbour. He told me at the weekend that although nothing is certain, partnership is a real possibility now and as such, he has decided to sell his place in Auckland and settle in Wellington to pursue his personal and professional life down here.
Now the point here is not that Wellington is better than Auckland or vice versa but that this person took a risk in a difficult market and it has paid off in spades for him. He could have stayed in his comfort zone in Auckland and possibly picked something up in time but instead, he took the more difficult route of relocating and starting afresh and as it looks like he could be sitting at the partnership table soon, he deserves everything that is coming to him.
I realise that for a variety of reasons, some people cannot relocate to get a position. For others though, moving out of their comfort zone and striking out on one’s own in a new location, although admittedly daunting, could be the making of them, both from a personal and professional perspective.
As the famous ice hockey player Wayne Gretsky said: ‘You will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’. In other words, if you are in the position to do so, take the chance to try something new. It could be the best decision you will ever make.
UK/NZ Law Firm Mergers
June 30, 2009 by Damian
The big news this week in the legal world is the merger between UK heavyweights Norton Rose and the mid-tier Australian firm, Deacons – http://www.thelawyer.com/norton-rose-signs-tie-up-with-australias-deacons/1001147.article.
It is the first merger between a major UK law firm and a significant player in the Australian market and has provoked a lot of intense debate on websites such as The Lawyer and Legal Week, some of which has been very insightful, some of it being just downright xenophobic.
The rationale behind the merger seems to be a desire to shore up both firm’s practices in the Asian market. Only time will tell if it is successful or not but as more than one contributor to the debate has pointed out, it will definitely increase the amount of top quality Australian lawyers wanting to join Deacons as people see the inevitable secondment opportunities that the merger will bring to lawyers within the firm.
The merger has got me thinking about the possibility of a UK/NZ merger. I have never heard any talk of it, probably because the UK firms cannot see any upside to it but if it did happen, how about these potential merger partners?
If Slaughter & May merged with Russell McVeagh, the firm could be called Slaughter & McVeagh.
If Simmons & Simmons merged with Simpson Grierson, the firm could easily be called Simpson & Simmons.
Similarly, Olswang and Kensington Swan could be Olswan and AJ Park and SJ Berwin could be AJ Berwin.
It is doubtful that any of these fanciful mergers will ever happen but I am sure that the leading lights in the NZ firms, as well as the Australian firms, will be looking at the Norton Rose/Deacons merger to see how successful or not it turns out to be.