Motus Recruitment Insights

It’s surprisingly easy to appoint the wrong person.

How often has the recruitment process run smoothly, the ‘perfect’ candidate been offered the job, and everyone told how the new appointee will be the bee’s knees?

Then, within 6-18 months it becomes clear that the wrong person was appointed and now has to be ‘managed out’. Sound familiar?

Sadly, this scenario is surprisingly common, including at partner level. In fact, the retention rate of lateral partner hires can be alarming at some law firms.

This is not good for the firm or the candidate: wasted recruitment costs and management time; discredited brand messaging; personal and family upset; and significant disruption to the team and the firm are common occurrences.

So why is this? 

In our experience, the failure often lies in the employer’s lack of preparation and careful consideration early in the recruitment process. The real recruitment needs of the business have not been accurately identified and the necessary expertise, management skills and/or cultural fit required of the candidate have not been properly considered. 

Put simply, the role has not been properly scoped out: What are the real requirements of the role? Is there a better way of achieving the end goal? What is the right level of candidate? Is the employer being realistic about attracting such an individual or team? 

So, as an employer make sure you fully understand what you are really seeking to achieve. Do the groundwork and, where appropriate, bring in the experts to properly help you to scope out the role.

Knowing what you don’t know is just as important.

Clearly sometimes things just don’t work out but doing all you can to ensure that you have minimised the risk of making the wrong key hire has to make commercial business sense.