Related Posts
MSFT or AWS? As Tech Pre Sales and why?
Visual Storyteller
What will be the inhand salary at tcs on 10 lpa
Any hot leads on Workers Compensation roles?
More Posts
Bowl Leader
Conversation Starter
Happy short month
Chief
Additional Posts in Law Exit Opportunities
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
As a former recruiter, I can tell you that you need to enjoy doing sales to like being a recruiter and be good at sales to do well in recruiting. So many lawyers jump into it without realizing that and they jump out pretty quickly. By sales I don’t mean being a pushy jackass. At the end of the day, sales is all about helping people and getting people to see that you can help them. The more you know your local market and the intricacies of the different departments you are recruiting for, the more useful you can be and the better you can do. Compensation is very much based on results. If you close a lot of placements, you can make a lot of money. Some search firms might pay you a base of $40-80,000 so that even if things aren’t working out, you won’t starve. Like selling Real Estate, at the end of the day luck is important. Your candidate can be the perfect fit for a job, get the offer, and then decide they want to move to Thailand to become a peanut farmer. Or your candidate is the perfect fit and it comes down to two people and the other person gets it. It is an all or nothing game so if your candidate does not get hired you don’t get paid anything...other than your base. Usually the base is a draw so that you don’t earn commission on your placements until you have recouped your base. But some places don’t do the draw. There are people who never hit six figures and there are people who make seven figures. Like any sales oriented job, the range is huge. The nice part is that you have decent control over your destiny...based on your hustle. But if you don’t like sales, being persistent, following up, doing lots of coffee meetings, and taking on the risk that comes with commission-oriented work, then it is not for you. You are selling a candidate on working with you and you are selling them on opportunities that fit them. You would think if the opportunity fits them that they would not need to be sold, but you are dealing with a risk-averse population. Then you are selling to the client that your candidate or candidates are a good fit. it helps a lot to be interested in people and their careers. After all, every conversation day after day is with people about their careers. If you are doing it just to chase some quick cash, probably not the right fit. Although I did meet some who did well for decades and they were just pushy sales people who would throw as many resumes at clients as possible to see what sticks. No one on either side particularly liked working with people like that but they carved out a good living for themselves. I considered the job part sales and part career counselor or career coach. It’s a very Social job and kind of like sitting in a roller coaster. Knowing your market, caring about people, developing relationships, being persistent, communicating fits clearly, being detail oriented, and having a stomach for the roller coaster all would serve you well. Breaking in whether you are a practicing attorney or not would consist of meeting with people at search firms and convincing them that you are strong in these areas. Great great advantage of being a practicing attorney is the relationships you have with Practicing Lawyers can help you either have potential candidates to move to new jobs or have insiders who can consider your future candidates, give you information, and help you sidestep the HR recruited by going straight to the source.