We recently came across an article in The Law Society Gazette with the survey results from law firms about their greatest three challenges for the coming year.

The top three challenges/concerns were:

1. Finding and retaining top staff
2. Cashflow
3. With joint third to Brexit and Profitability

The survey was run by Andrew Otterburn of the Law Consultancy Network, who said:

“’It is interesting to see that once again the big issue is recruitment and retention of staff – the key issue for most firms over the last two or three years. Cashflow and profitability is also a major issue and many firms are vulnerable to any slowdown in property, which has boosted income in recent years. It is important that firms build a reasonably strong cash position now, in advance of any potential slowdown.”

Recruitment costs easily running into the tens of thousands of pounds, if you work with a contingency based recruitment agency for top staff.

For law firms wanting to reduce their recruitment costs, there is a good opportunity for them to work with fixed and flat fee recruitment agencies, with different services offered at different price points, ranging from just placing the job advert online through to providing an outsourced recruitment service, which would include services such as:

• Placing the job advert
• Researching for actively-looking candidates online
• Approaching actively-looking candidates online
• Organising video interviews
• Conducting telephone interviews
• Interview appointment setting

Visit our interviews hub for employers.

Taking even a junior role, the amount that could be saved on your recruitment cost is significant, as shown in this example:

• Salary: £20,000.
• Commission to a recruitment agency @15% £3,000.
• Working with a fixed cost recruiter on an end-to-end basis: £799.
• Total savings: £2,201.

The savings could be further increased by only placing a job advert online (for £199) and running the rest of the recruitment strategy and process completely in-house.