08 Nov Hiring and Retention – Part 1
Larger law practices invest heavily in recruiting new solicitors and associates—only to find that they leave the firm within a few years, before they are truly productive. Corporations often have greater success in retaining the employees they hire. Their secret? What can your practice learn from the corporate world about how to select, integrate and develop good employees?
BROADEN THE SELECTION CRITERIA
Too many law firms decide whom to hire based on the applicant’s grade point average or the people they know. Clearly, nothing is wrong with hiring a lawyer who has good grades. But law firms need to reflect on whether the hire criteria they use predict how good a lawyer someone will become or how well he or she will do at their firm.
Law firms might be forgiven for giving so much weight to the educational achievements when hiring a new graduate, but applying this criteria as the gold standard when considering hiring an experienced lawyer as a senior associate or even, possibly, a partner, makes little sense. The farther from one’s legal education, the more important it is to give relatively greater weight to on-the-job performance and personality factors over academic credentials.
Prospective applicants are sometimes told that they are “just not partnership material” or “don’t fit in this firm.” The reason for these decisions is rarely academic smarts or intelligence but has more to do with factors such as style, judgment, interpersonal and communication skills, and relationship issues.
Law firms can spend a large amount of time and money recruiting prospective applicants. Why, then, do they not expand their thinking to incorporate a broader range of selection criteria into the hiring process?
Businesses understand far better than law firms the most powerful predictor of success—and it is not academic pedigree. Corporations understand that “emotional intelligence” is a much greater predictor of success than grades, IQ or test scores. Enlightened firms increasingly base admission decisions on a broader set of criteria, including an applicant’s life experiences, hobbies and avocations, and work experience. Law firms can also improve their selection success by incorporating emotional intelligence and related criteria.