Worryingly, across the top 100 firms, 825 lawyer jobs have no LinkedIn applications
(4th of February 2022, London) Concerns over the talent pipeline for the nation’s top-quality law firms has been highlighted following research from Flare Insight and TBD, two leading law firm marketing agencies.
In its analysis of the current vacancies available at law firms, the research found that:
- among the Magic Circle law firms, 27.92% of their roles had zero applicants
- lawyers jobs are the most commonly listed on LinkedIn by law firms
- And yet, on average, the top 100 law firms only had 1.34 applicants per lawyer role compared to an average of 5.21 applications for vacancies within Learning & Development.
As part of its research, TBD looked into factors such as the total number of employees each firm has, the volume of jobs each firm has on both their website and LinkedIn, and which of these have been advertised or have an option to easily apply via LinkedIn.
It found that whilst global firm DWF had the most roles advertised on LinkedIn – but over half of their jobs (53.1%) had no applicants.
Lewis Silkin’s jobs received the most applicants, with an average of 6.5 applicants per role.
The research also highlighted that out of all top 100 firms, Watson Farley & Williams and Lewis Silkin were the only two firms who shared five or more jobs and had at least one applicant for every role.
Out of the Magic Circle law firms, Slaughter and May had the most applications per role, but it only had one job advertised on LinkedIn: which was for a recruiter. Fellow Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance came second in the most applicants per role, with an average of 3.65 applications per advertised role.
The research also found that Ince Gordon Dadds, which ranks eighth on average for applications, was the only firm using LinkedIn’s easy apply tool for all its job vacancies.
Founder of TBD, Simon Marshall, said: “It’s a hot market for law firm talent and law firms are struggling to attract the right applicants right now. Before conducting the research, we didn’t expect to see quite so few applicants per role. In previous years, our experience tells us that each of these roles would’ve had maybe 30 or 40 applicants each.
“What’s clear is that recruitment teams need to try some new approaches. Our view is that recruitment teams should be working with their marketing and communications teams to ensure that these job descriptions are going to attract the talent that the firm needs.
“Two years ago, perhaps remote working or flexible working made you stand out in the market. But today? No. We’ve all been working remotely since 2020 and firms haven’t yet communicated what they stand for as of today that is proving attractive enough to candidates to want to move.”
Catriona Collier, founder of Flare Insight, who worked on the report said:
“People are going to spend on average at least five to six years working at your law firm, so it’s incredibly important that make sure that your job descriptions are tailored to the specific role and really details what that person’s going to be doing, who they will be working for, and what might be expected of them.
“It’s clear from the results in the report that we need to see a change in how people are using content marketing methods to attract the very best talent. We hope that a lot of firms are going to consider their position in relation to advertising and promoting these job roles until they’ve nailed the kind of language that attracts people to roles in 2022.”
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Notes to editors
TBD is an agency that advises marketing, recruitment and management teams on how to better position law firms in the UK market and beyond. If you have any queries please get in touch: simon.marshall@tbdmarketing.co.uk
Flare Insight is a research and strategy consultancy helping firms understand their markets and seize opportunities. For any queries please contact info@flareinsight.co.uk
