Why law firms are struggling to hire right now
Law firms are busier than they’ve been in years. Business is good. And they can’t find people to handle the work. This isn’t a new problem, but it’s getting worse. We talk to managing partners every week who are frustrated. They have the clients. They have the revenue. They don’t have the attorneys and paralegals to service the work. So work gets delayed, clients get frustrated, and partners burn out trying to pick up the slack. The question isn’t whether there are attorneys out there. There are. The question is why firms can’t find them. The talent pool is smaller than it looks Law school enrollment peaked about ten years ago. The number of new attorneys entering the market has been declining ever since. That means the experienced talent pool isn’t growing the way it used to. At the same time, more attorneys are leaving the practice entirely. Some go in-house. Some leave law altogether. Some work remotely or part-time. The traditional law firm attorney is becoming less common. For firms still trying to fill seats, this is a supply problem. There’s less supply, more demand, and the supply that exists is more selective about where it goes. The best people aren’t advertising themselves If you’re a good attorney, you’re not browsing job postings on LinkedIn. You’re busy. Your firm probably treats you well or you’d have already left. If you do move, someone needs to come find you. Most law firms don’t have the resources to do that. They post a job, they hope someone applies, and when nothing happens after two months, they’re stuck. In places like Florida, the challenge is even more acute because there’s a lot of demand and limited supply. Getting the best candidates requires actively recruiting, not passive job posting. Compensation isn’t keeping up Law firm salaries, especially for associates, haven’t kept pace with what in-house positions pay. The hours are often worse. The culture can be more traditional and rigid. The growth opportunities might be limited. An attorney with four years of experience can go in-house, make more money, have better hours, have a clearer path to advancement, and not have to worry about eating what they kill with their billable hours. Why would they stay at a firm that offers less? Some firms are starting to address this. But many are moving slowly on compensation because it means margins go down. Remote work changed everything Ten years ago, if you wanted to live in a small town, you had to work as a solo practitioner. Now, you can live anywhere and work for a firm anywhere. This is great for talent flexibility. It’s terrible for local hiring. A firm in Miami now competes for talent against firms in New York, San Francisco, and Austin. And often, the firm in Austin is offering more money and better hours. The in-house move is accelerating More corporations are building out legal departments and hiring attorneys directly instead of outsourcing to firms. These in-house roles tend to offer better hours, clearer advancement, and better work-life balance. For a junior or mid-level attorney, an in-house corporate role is often more attractive than staying at a firm. This has pulled talented people out of the firm world, and that trend is continuing. Onboarding is slower now When you do find someone, getting them productive takes longer. New attorneys need training on your systems, your processes, your clients. They need mentorship. If they’re remote, all of that is harder. Firms used to assume six months to full productivity. Now it’s often a year or more. That means you’re paying full salary for someone who isn’t generating full revenue for longer, which reduces the ROI on the hire. Firms are more selective Because hiring is harder and costlier, firms are more selective about who they bring on. That’s rational, but it also means more candidate rejections, longer interview processes, and more cases where a firm passes on someone who’s “good enough” waiting for someone who’s perfect. The perfect candidate rarely appears. So seats stay empty. What firms can do about it Slow down the hiring process. When you find someone good, move fast. Don’t wait for perfect. The cost of the empty seat is usually higher than the cost of getting it slightly wrong. Invest in recruiting. Whether that’s hiring an in-house recruiter or working with an external search firm, actively recruiting costs money. But it’s usually cheaper than the alternative—leaving seats empty or making bad hires because you were desperate. Be honest about what the job is. If your firm culture is brutal, don’t pretend it’s great. If the hours are long, don’t sugar-coat it. The attorneys who thrive in your environment will self-select in. The ones who don’t will take themselves out, and you won’t waste time with bad fits. Offer flexibility where you can. Remote days, flexible schedules, part-time options. This dramatically expands your talent pool and appeals to attorneys who might not have considered your firm before. Pay what you need to pay. If you want the best talent, you have to compete on salary. This squeezes margins, but empty seats and overworked partners squeeze them more. This isn’t going to get easier The supply of attorneys isn’t going to grow in the next five years. The preference for in-house and alternative work arrangements isn’t going away. Remote work is here to stay. The competition for talent is only going to intensify. Firms that recruit effectively now will have an advantage. The ones that keep relying on job postings and hoping people apply will keep struggling. If you need help finding the right people for your firm, that’s what we do. We understand the legal market and know how to find candidates who actually want to be there. For a practical guide on what to expect from the process, read about what to expect when working with a legal recruiter in Florida. And to understand things from the candidate perspective, check out what working with
When Does It Make Sense To Hire A Headhunter?
Not every hire needs a headhunter. If you’re filling an entry-level role and you’ve got a stack of applications, you can probably handle that on your own. But there are situations where going it alone ends up costing more than getting help. We see it all the time. Niche Roles Some jobs don’t get filled from a job board. Senior sales positions, attorneys, C-suite executives. The best people for these roles are already employed. They’re not browsing job postings on their lunch break. Finding them takes a different approach. You have to know where to look and how to start a conversation that gets their attention. That’s what our team spends most of the day doing. Stuck Searches We get a lot of calls from companies that have had a role open for two or three months with nothing to show for it. The posting is up, they’ve done some interviews, but nothing clicked. At that point, something in the process is off. Maybe the job post isn’t reaching the right people. Maybe the comp is wrong. Maybe the screening needs to be tighter. Whatever the reason, every week that seat stays empty is costing you money. We’ve taken searches that were stalled for months and closed them in a few weeks. No Time This is probably the most common reason people call us. Running a business and running the hiring process at the same time is a lot to handle. Every resume you review, every phone screen you schedule, every reference call you make is time away from the actual business. If your plate is already full, hand the search off. You’ll get better candidates and your business won’t suffer while you’re distracted. High-stakes Hires There’s a difference between hiring someone for a support role and hiring the salesperson who’s going to carry your revenue next quarter. When a role has a direct line to money, the cost of getting it wrong goes up fast. We wrote about what bad hires actually cost, and the number is always worse than people expect. When the stakes are high, having someone screen candidates before they ever get to your desk is worth the investment. Quiet Searches Sometimes you need to replace someone and they don’t know it yet. Or you’re expanding into a new market and you’d prefer your competitors not find out by seeing your job posting on LinkedIn. We handle confidential searches regularly. Our team knows how to run a search without making it public. Reaching Passive Candidates This is really the core of what a headhunter does. Job postings reach people who are looking. Headhunting reaches people who aren’t looking but would consider the right opportunity. In our experience, those tend to be the strongest candidates. They’re employed, performing well, and selective about where they go next. They’re not going to come to you. Someone has to go to them. The process is straightforward. You tell us what you need. The role, the skills, the personality, the budget. We go find the people who match. We talk to them, screen them, and bring you the ones worth meeting. You do the final interviews and make the call. That’s how we’ve always done it at SalesBountyHunter. If any of this sounds familiar, we’d love to have a conversation. And if you’re reading this as someone looking for work rather than someone hiring, check out our Find Your Dream Job page.
10 Sales Interview Questions That Reveal The Real Candidate
Our team sits in on a lot of sales interviews. Most of them follow the same script. The hiring manager asks predictable questions, the candidate gives rehearsed answers, and everyone walks away feeling good about it. Then the hire doesn’t work out. The problem is that good salespeople are good at interviews. They know what you want to hear. The trick is asking things they haven’t prepared for. Here are ten questions we use that actually tell you something. 1. Walk me through your last deal. Not the highlights. Start to finish. How they found the lead, what their approach was, where it stalled, and how they closed. A strong rep can walk you through this like they’re telling a story. If the answer is vague or they skip straight to the close, they’re leaving out the parts that didn’t go well. 2. What did you close last quarter? We’re not asking this to hear a big number. We’re asking because real salespeople know their numbers without looking them up. If someone says “I’d have to check,” that tells you everything you need to know. 3. Tell me about a deal you lost. Everyone loses deals. We want to know what they did after. Did they follow up to find out why? Did they adjust their approach? Or do they blame the prospect, the product, the timing? How someone handles a loss says a lot about how they’ll perform long term. 4. A prospect goes silent. What do you do? This happens constantly in sales. The good reps have a system. They’ll tell you how many follow-ups they send, through what channels, on what timeline, and when they decide to move on. The ones who just say “I’m persistent” don’t usually have a plan behind it. 5. What’s your least favorite part of sales? This one catches people off guard. There’s no wrong answer, but there are dishonest ones. If someone says they love everything about sales, they’re performing. If they say cold calling is tough but they still do it every day, that’s someone who pushes through discomfort. That’s who you want on your team. 6. What are your go-to deal questions? A variant on the old “sell me this pen” angle. But we use this version because it works. Most candidates grab the pen and start listing features. The good ones ask questions first. What do you use a pen for? What are you using now? What’s wrong with it? This exercise uncovers thoughtful questions and the reasoning behind them. 7. What would you do in your first 30 days? This tells us whether the candidate has thought about the job beyond getting the offer. The ones we want to place will ask about the pipeline, the CRM, the team, what’s working and what isn’t. The ones who give a speech about “making an impact” haven’t thought past the interview. 8. How do you research a prospect? We want to hear specifics. Checking the company website, finding the decision maker on LinkedIn, reading recent news about the business. If their answer is “I just call and figure it out,” they’re going to waste a lot of leads before they close anything. 9. Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager. This is a coachability question. Did they raise the issue respectfully? Did they listen to the other perspective? Or did they just do things their own way? Both types of people exist in sales. Only one of them is manageable. 10. Why are you leaving your current job? Simple question. Listen for two things. First, do they trash their current employer? If they do, they’ll do the same to you eventually. Second, is there real hunger behind the move? The best answer is usually that they’ve hit a ceiling and want more. That kind of motivation is hard to fake. Put it all together No single question tells you everything. But ten honest answers give you a much clearer picture than any resume. If you need help finding the right candidates to sit across from, that’s what we do at SalesBountyHunter. Let us know what role you’re filling and we’ll go from there.
What To Look For When Hiring A Salesperson
We talk to business owners every week who are frustrated with their sales hires. They posted the job, picked the person with the most experience, and it didn’t work out. Now they’re starting over. After years of placing sales professionals, we’ve learned that the things most people look for in a salesperson are not the things that actually matter. Ignore Resumes This sounds strange coming from a recruiting firm. But a resume tells you where someone worked and for how long. It does not tell you if they can sell. Some of the best reps we’ve placed had resumes that wouldn’t impress anyone. Some of the worst had polished ones with big company names all over them. What we do instead is ask candidates to walk us through a deal they closed. Start to finish. How they got the lead, what they said, where it stalled, how they got it across the finish line. If they can’t tell that story clearly, that’s a red flag. Ask for Numbers A good salesperson knows their numbers. Making quota, close rate, average deal size. They know because they live by them. When we ask a candidate what they closed last quarter, we’re not just checking the number. We’re checking if they know it without looking it up. If someone hesitates, they probably weren’t tracking it. And if they weren’t tracking it, they probably weren’t hitting it. For junior candidates who don’t have a sales track record yet, we look for competition. Former athletes, restaurant workers, anyone who’s had to perform under pressure and came back for more. Watch for Coachability This is one of the biggest things we screen for. You can teach someone your product, your process, your CRM. You cannot teach someone to take feedback well. We ask candidates about a time their manager corrected them. The answer itself matters less than how they talk about it. If they get defensive in the interview, they’ll get defensive on your sales floor. Test for Grit Sales is a grind. The person you hire needs to be comfortable hearing no all day and still making the next call. We’ve found that the best way to test this is to ask about the hardest stretch they’ve had in their career. What happened? How long did it last? What did they do? The good ones get specific. The ones who give you a vague answer about staying positive are usually the ones who quit when it got difficult. Don’t Skip Culture We’ve seen great closers get hired and then make the entire office miserable. They hit their numbers, but nobody wants to work with them. That creates a different kind of problem. Before you bring someone on, think about your team. How do they communicate? What’s the energy like? Will this person add to it or disrupt it? Final Thoughts Hiring takes time. Doing it well takes even more time. If you’re running a business and trying to recruit at the same time, one of those things is going to suffer. That’s what we do at SalesBountyHunter. We find the right people so you can focus on running your company. If you’re looking to fill a sales role, reach out to us. We’d be happy to talk through what you need.