How Do Legal Recruitment Agencies Work?

Recruitment agencies have made the HR professionals in the firms a bit easy. If you are an HR professional or have been in that role then you might realize how managing the management and employees connect can be a tough task when you have to perform the listing, finding, and testing for recruitment. Since we are exploring the legal industry here (as you have read the title) our focus obviously would be those legal recruitment agencies that bring the best of the legal professionals for the respected clients. If you are eyeing something similar then we have a list of service providers who manage professional legal staffing in San Diego, New York, California, Washington D.C, etc. You can check that and get quick help. 

However, as you have landed here and are interested in knowing the mechanism of how these recruitment agencies work we won’t let you down. Before going to reach out to the recruitment agencies to get the hirings done for you it’s important that you understand how they work and how your needs are processed by them. This would come in handy for you to make a choice about which agency to choose and what to expect from the legal recruitment agencies. 

Without much deviation now let’s head straight to the topic

Recruitment Agencies 

Be it legal or any other kind of recruitment agency the main role is to act as an intermediary service provider. These agencies work both ways, that is helping firms get the right talent as well as supporting the candidates to get desired jobs based on their qualifications. Thus they serve two clientele under one operation and make sure that the needs of both are met to the best of their abilities. 

The basic mechanism of working for the recruitment agencies involves building a network of potential candidates and reaching out to the firms having vacancies in the particular niche. Recruitment agencies like the legal recruitment agencies that have a particular niche to work upon have a database of candidates with legal education backgrounds and they connect with law firms to deliver to their manpower demands on time. 

Having understood the basics let’s take a deeper look at the working of these agencies with a special focus on the legal ones: 

Contracts 

These recruitment agencies as we discussed work both ways with clients that are the firms and the candidates. Legal recruitment agencies generally ask the firms to sign a contract or agreement whereby they agree to manage their manpower needs for a certain duration. These contracts can be of 1 year, 2 years or short-term like 6-months. 

In the context of the candidates, these agencies provide services like soft skill training, skill enhancement, personality development, placement support, etc. For this, they charge students a fixed monthly or annual fee. This way these agencies have a network of candidates and firms ensuring that demand-supply and commitments to both the parties are met. 

Assessment 

Assessment is the main function that defines the suitability of the candidate for the respective job profile. The recruitment agencies perform this task efficiently and sophisticatedly. Keep in the client for which the hiring is done in the loop they perform the various stages of assessment. This may include a test for basic aptitude to the test for specialized skill or knowledge that is required for the job role. Say for example in legal hirings the legal aptitude and knowledge of basic laws are tested to ensure that the candidate is good to go. 

In case the clients want to conduct certain rounds of assessment themselves the recruitment agencies in that case conduct preliminary tests and shortlist the candidates. These shortlisted candidates are sent to the firm. The firm post-assessment sends the list of finally selected candidates to the recruitment agency who then performs the functions related to onboarding and orientation.

Background Checks 

The task of the recruitment agencies doesn’t end at the hiring and assessment stage. Yes, the responsibility of the recruitment is till the onboarding of the candidate. This includes the background and document check for the selected candidates. Proper verification and authentication of the candidate’s background are done before handing in the joining letter. Further, the recruitment agencies also provide the initial job training or job-related skills that are required by the selected candidates for the efficient performance of their duties. 

Reserves And Replacements 

What if some of the selected candidates refuse to join or back out citing specific reasons? The recruitment agencies make sure that these problems don’t hamper the supply of manpower the agencies maintain a reserve list of candidates. These are mostly candidates who made it to the final round of assessment or performed decently during the process. In case any selected candidate backs out then these firms keep such reserve candidates in back up who later on are on board if the situation demands. 

Keeping A Record 

As we saw that these agencies maintain a reserve list they ensure that the candidates are not left behind. Since the candidates are their clients as well these firms keep on tracking vacancies for multiple firms and when they perform assessments they make sure that they are assessing the candidates for similar vacancies floated by multiple clients and not the one firm. This way the candidates are also assured that even if they can’t make the cut in one firm they have others to look for. Similarly, firms also get the best out of the available talent pool as many candidates apply simultaneously for the assessment process. 

Conclusion 

So, that is how the entire cycle of recruitment is done when you opt for the recruitment agencies. From selection to onboarding these agencies make sure that the process goes seamlessly and the clients and the candidates get the best of what they want. If you have manpower requirements then going by the recruitment agencies can be a good idea. Not only saves time and energy but makes sure you get the best out of the available talent pool. Going by self can be good to save some bucks but the in-depth assessment and selection of candidates would not be possible.