When you’ve made the decision to change firms, you’ll be thinking of a question that commonly enters an associate’s head: should I use a head hunter or not? Because there are so many misconceptions and erroneous information floating in the virtual ether, AssociateSpeak has decided to set the record straight.
Myth #1: Using a head hunter will decrease your chances of getting an offer because firms are leery of paying a quarter to a third of your salary as a “headhunting bounty.”
BUSTED. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The fee that law firms pay to headhunters are standard in the industry. Firms are used to paying those fees, as exorbitant as they may seem, because they want to attract the best lateral talent. I’m not saying that firms don’t want to save money when they can; they do, and usually offer their own associates a smaller (but still sizable) bonus for recommending friends and colleagues for lateral positions. But the reality is that retaining a head hunter to represent you actually increases your stock despite the fact that you are now more “expensive” to hire. Think of it like really expensive wines — sometimes, raising the price tag makes people think the product itself is superior.
Myth #2: I’ve heard horror stories of associates using head hunters who divulge their confidential information, causing word to travel back to the their current firms of their plans to bail.
BUSTED. The vast majority of head hunters know to keep your plans and your resume strictly confidential. Their reputations and careers are dependent on their ability to be trusted, so any halfway decent head hunter will be very careful to protect any information you provide to them. That’s not to say that there aren’t unsavory characters in any job, and I have heard of head hunters who circulate resumes without the express permission of their clients. Again, your information should be safe with any decent head hunter, and any confidential leak traveling back to the ears of a partner at your firm is usually caused by a loose-lipped lawyer interviewing you at the other firm, not by your head hunter.
Myth #3: I’m better off making informed decisions on my own about other firms because head hunters have a vested interest in trying to “sell” me a job position at any firm in order to get paid.
BUSTED. Any good head hunter is going to have a vast repository of experience and knowledge about the firms in your target geographical area that you won’t have access to. Head hunters spend a lot of time talking to, and developing personal relationships with, recruiting personnel at Biglaw. They go to recruiting events, schmooze with partners and associates at these firms, and talk to numerous associates on the phone every single day. They have a “feel” for a firm’s culture and environment based on these daily phone calls. You, on the other hand, are in your shell barely coming up for air on whatever fire drill a partner has you tasked on. Do you really think that you have a chance of knowing which firms are actively seeking employment, which ones have positions open in your area of expertise or interest, whether the firm is on the “up and up” or starting to implode, or whether the firm is a good “fit” for you?
From these myth busters, you may conclude that I think that using a head hunter is definitely the way to go all the time. It’s not that simple. If you are seeking to find a job in the government or at a very small firm, you may find that a head hunter is useless. Solo practitioners and very small firms won’t have the ability to pay the head hunter’s commission, and they may very well be outside the scope of what a head hunter is able to do. If, on the other hand, you are seeking to lateral from one Biglaw firm to another, my recommendation is to find a good head hunter. An unethical head hunter may very well send out personal information without your permission or try to land you a job and convince you that it’s your dream opportunity when in fact it’s the opposite. While rare, these head hunters do exist, so it’s important to go with someone you trust.
Stay tuned for the next post, where we discuss how to find a good, capable head hunter.
