Thinking of working with a staffing agency but not sure how it works? I’ll cover all the details on how it works, from A-Z below.

Before diving in, I think it’s important to know how you can benefit from using a recruiter or legal staffing agency for your attorney opening. There are many benefits, some of which I’ve written about here, so I won’t go into too much detail. Instead, I’ll just gloss over a few.

Hire faster by leveraging our network

As attorney headhunters in South Florida, we spend all day, every day adding attorneys from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton to our network, whether through cold-calling, advertising, referrals, inquiries, or any of the other many technologies and tools we use.

This is a huge shortcut. To use an analogy, using a job board is like rush hour on I-95 (slow and frustrating where you feel like you’re getting nowhere), whereas using a legal recruitment agency like Holtz & Bernard is like taking a helicopter (super fast!).

Tap into the passive candidate market

By posting a job online, you’re missing out on 73% of the job market. These are passive candidates who are open to confidentially hearing about new opportunities but won’t by applying online.

These candidates rely on recruiters to keep them informed when a new opening presents itself that aligns with their interests.

You’ll save a ton of time and headaches

Whether you're a firm owner, managing partner, partner, HR, or office manager, you have a lot of day-to-day-tasks that require your attention and effort. Recruiting is likely a burden that’s in your way, including job descriptions, postings, reviewing unqualified resumes, interviewing unqualified candidates, etc.

Save time by passing this on to us. Recruiting is not just an additional task for us staffing firms, it’s our one and only task!

Okay, now that you know some of the benefits, let’s dive into how search firms like Holtz & Bernard work.

Agreement

First things first, we need to make sure we’re a fit for one another. A good recruiter would start by seeking to understand your needs, answer all your questions, and ensure you are okay with the terms of the agreement.

Terms vary from agency to agency but overall are all quite similar. The main differences are fees, which can range between 15-30% of the candidate's annual salary, type of guarantee and length, and payment terms.

Holtz & Bernard's terms are simple, competitive, and fair.Time to explore

Time to explore

Before beginning a search, we need to know what we’re searching for. At Holtz & Bernard, we like to spend about 30-60 minutes diving into the details. A good recruiter will spend time asking questions to better understand your firm, culture, position, your requirements, and more.

We need to know enough to get candidates excited about your opportunity, answer questions, and qualify candidates to make sure they meet your criteria.

Once we have a good grasp on the above, it’s time for us to get started!

Sourcing

Now that we know what we’re looking for, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work on sourcing candidates.

At this step, we’re doing a ton behind the scenes. At Holtz & Bernard, this begins with us reaching out to targeted attorneys in our network, cold-calling every single targeted attorney outside of our network in a 30-mile radius from your firm, advertising, scouring through tons and tons of resumes, interviewing, qualifying, following up, and more.

It’s a process, but we have it down to a science.

Presentation

The second we have a mutual match where the candidate meets your requirements and they have an interest, we send over a presentation.

This means we’ll send you an email with their resume and writing samples attached, along with brief bullet points on why we believe they are a fit.

Interview

After reviewing the candidate's profile, assuming there is an interest, it’s time to schedule an interview. We’ll help coordinate all interviews.

Being that we only send candidates who meet all the requirements we discussed in step one, you’ll want to meet with them 99% of the time.

Feedback

The second the candidate exits the building, we are on the phone with them, gauging their level of interest and gaining feedback.

As soon as we hang up with them, we’re calling you to share the candidate's feedback and to get feedback from you to share with the candidate as well.

Next steps

We’ll help facilitate the next steps, whether that’s a second interview, references, or an offer letter.

Reference & background checks

If you have an interest in making an offer, it’s time to do a little due diligence on the candidate. A good motto to go by is “trust, but verify.”. If it was good enough for Ronald Reagan, it’s good enough for us. We’ll help by getting this done for you.

Offer

So the interviews went great, reference checks checked out, and there’s an interest on both sides. It’s time to present an offer in writing. If you don’t have a formal offer letter, we’ll help with that too.That pretty much wraps it up. Hopefully, they’ve accepted your offer and you have a great new addition to your team!

That pretty much wraps it up. Hopefully, they’ve accepted your offer and you have a great new addition to your team!

If you have further questions or would like us to help you with your search, feel free to reach out.