compete when it comes to salary, and clearly offer substantial opportunities to engage in the training and development, promotional and management-track schemes which are already offered by the best international businesses. Put simply, professionally trained lawyers don’t any longer have to work from dawn until dusk, they are looked after as people, and they have a career rather than a ‘track’.
So what does all is mean? Super salaries to employ in-house attorneys, super salaries for law firms to retain their best talent (which most largely fail to do)? Yes possibly. But maybe there is another solution:
Think before you hire.
In a recent survey conducted by the Antal International group, over 68% of hiring-managers admitted that they did not work closely enough with their professional HR departments when hiring new managers, and a further 72% admitted that they had, in the last 3 years, made hiring decisions too quickly to ‘fill a gap’ or solve an immediate problem without making a considered, strategic hiring decision. The results of our survey also highlighted the following as problems in their hiring processes:
l Lack of a clear & transparent hiring process
l Lack of access to a professional hiring consultancy
l ‘Interviewing on the hoof’ rather than considering a specific, well researched shortlist of candidates
l Lack of user of psychometric testing in the hiring process
l Lack of alignment with corporate and personal goals
l Dishonest resumes where time had not been taken to verify the accuracy of information
l Delegation of hiring process to admin-support staff
l Lack of advice of external consultants
Antal International
Antal International is mid-senior level executive search & selection business. We have been in mainland China for 10 years, and employ over 120 specialist professional recruitment consultants in Beijing and Shanghai. Our legal practice has over 10 consultants recruiting both private-practice and in-house lawyers. Our consultants are ex-lawyers themselves, have been thoroughly trained in best-practice recruitment, selection, and assessment.
I have attached two profiles of in-house lawyers to this bulletin. If you wish to discuss these profiles, or your hiring needs in the legal recruitment discipline, don’t hesitate to contact me via chinaconsulting@antal.com or via +86 10 6410 8866.
Yours sincerely
Gareth Edwards
Division Manager, Legal Practice
Email: gedwards@antal.com.cn
Direct: +86 10 8440 0992