Graduate Recruitment Manager
I’m the graduate recruitment manager. I’m based in Leeds but I handle graduate recruitment for all of the firm’s UK offices. To be honest, I never really saw myself working in a law firm. Pinsent Masons persuaded me to change my mind over the course of three quite intensive interviews, during which I progressively found out more about what they wanted to do. It was clearly a firm that was looking to develop its position in the legal market. Making changes and improvements is what I think I’m best at, so I felt there was a really good match. They seemed open-minded about trying new things, rather than just imitating other people.
There are probably more stakeholders here than in most other organisations, and that can be challenging. All the Partners can get hold of me on the phone if they want to, and they’re all part-owners of the business. The benefit is that they all have a very strong vested interest in making sure that the people we bring in are the very best.
The recruitment marketplace is changing a lot, particularly in its uses of online channels and social media. There are now more and more different ways of reaching people, but the budgets aren’t growing to reflect that. So you have to pick and choose, which is definitely one of today’s big challenges.
If I had to sum up what we’re looking for in a graduate trainee, I’d say it would be somebody who is good enough to work in the Magic Circle, but has legitimate reasons why they don’t want to. That choice is about what the individual considers to be personally important. It’s certainly not that the work’s any less demanding here. Every choice has pluses and minuses – there is no ‘best firm’. But there’s a very different feel between being one of 40 trainees in an office and being one of 250. Different firms suit different people, and you need to find out which is best for you.
One of the most rewarding things about what I do here is selecting candidates who you know might have been overlooked by other firms. If you take the time to look beyond the application form, get to know them and build a relationship, then it’s really satisfying to watch them come through. This is why we are now focussing more of our time and energy on campus activity than in recent years.
Law is quite unusual, in that you can be applying for a role years before you’d ever first set foot in the office as a trainee. That’s why we focus much less on experience than we do on character traits like communication skills, attention to detail and personal organisation – the innate qualities that need to come to the fore when people are under pressure.
The other thing we look for is general motivation and attitude – so often this is the differentiating factor in a successful applicant. Enthusiasm for our clients and what they do isn’t something you can fake. There’s a certain type of person who really relishes advising on a business’s financial problems and opportunities. If you’re interested in the business world, you’ll naturally enjoy that element of it. If you’re not, you can’t make yourself like it.
Ultimately, the best advice I can give any graduate is to make sure you start your career at the right firm. Write a short list of all your non-negotiables – that is, the things that would still get you out of bed in the morning, even if you’ve been working beyond midnight for the past week. Then make sure you judge every firm you consider against those key qualities – because they’re the ones that are absolutely relevant to you.