Balance Recruitment Ltd

How does your salary compare with industry average? We've recently released our 2024 Legal Accounts Salary Survey for London. A huge thanks to everyone from our network and the members of the ILFM (The Institute of Legal Finance & Management) for contributing the all important data. Congrats go to CLAIRE MCDAID at Brown Rudnick LLP who's name was pulled out from the draw, winning an Amazon Giftcard and nominating @Breast Cancer Now for a charity donation. To download your copy of the survey, please click on the link in comments below 👇

Do you like to keep abreast of hiring trends within the #legalfinance niche? In our latest Market Update, we share our perspective on what we've been seeing lately. What challenges firms are facing and what they can do to gain competitive advantage. Plus much more. To download your copy, see the link in comments below.

Are you happy to work 4 days a week in the office?

Some job titles carry completely different responsibilities from one firm to another. Take ‘Finance Manager’ as an example. In one firm they’ll be focused on preparing consolidated accounts, cashflow, annual budgets and reporting. In another they won’t touch any of that and instead be hands-on overseeing day to day financial operations, managing a team, developing processes and ensuring compliance. Whereas in some Finance Manager roles you’ll do all of the above… And it just so happens I’m recruiting for one of them right now (who saw that one coming?) . It requires someone who enjoys having that degree of variety in their role. If you’re also looking for a long-term move that will provide you with plenty of ongoing challenge and opportunities to learn, look no further. You’ll be joining a growing firm in which you’ll be well supported by a talented team around you. You’ll have a small team to manage and will need to be a ‘doer’, happy to remain close to the transactional finance responsibilities, but primarily focused on financial management and ensuring the smooth running of the function. You may already be a Finance Manager within the legal sector and looking for something new. Or this could be a step up opportunity if you have the relevant experience, attributes and a desire to move in to management. Qualified and QBE applicants will be considered – we’re just looking for someone with wide-ranging legal finance experience (ideally multi-currency), who’s ready for a new challenge. Location: City of London Salary: £70-85k + bonus + comprehensive bens The firm are on the flexible end of the spectrum, with hybrid working and an appreciation that some of us have school runs to juggle. This is a Balance Recruitment Ltd exclusive search for a firm we know very well. If you’d like to find out more and to discuss if your experience could be suitable, please get in touch for an informal call. #legalfinance #financemanager

If you’ve followed me on here for a while, you’ll have heard me piping on about working exclusively with our clients. So why am I so focused on it? What’s in it for me and Balance Recruitment Ltd? To make easier money? To gain market share? To get ahead of competition? No. The #1 reason I’m transitioning towards fully exclusive work is because it’s the only way for employers to reliably achieve the best possible result when hiring. It’s the only way that applicants can experience an efficient hiring process in which they know exactly where they stand throughout. It’s the only way any recruitment business can execute the necessary work involved when you are committed to filling a vacancy, no matter how difficult the brief. We won’t necessarily gain market share working this way - we’re actually working with fewer firms but we’re working harder for them. We’re not trying to muscle competition out either. Quite the opposite - we’re stepping aside from more processes than we’re entering.   It doesn’t make the job easier too. It’s harder, but you don’t waste your time on processes for which you don’t get paid, which makes it endlessly more fulfilling. You have to invest a lot more time and rigour in to your searches and put more sophistication and creativity in to the attraction and qualification of potential applicants, but that’s a far more interesting and rewarding challenge than just trying to be the first to get hold of people. That's why. #recruitment #talentacquisition #hiringstrategy

The anatomy of a job search... I was approached by a US law firm a few months back who were introducing a new supervisory position within their Cashiers & AP team. They didn’t want a flood of hastily assembled CV’s. It was a key hire in their team. They wanted a thorough search process to be carried out so they instructed me exclusively (having done so previously). 🔎 The role required specific technical skills, experience and personal attributes which we discussed at length. We also discussed what this move would offer to the successful applicant: what’s in it for them? The search and selection stage took 10 calendar days. Here’s what happened in that period: First up the creation of a compelling job advert. Specifically written to catch the attention of, and provoke desire from, the target audience. I don’t rush this stage and will have taken an hour or more. Contrary to popular belief, job adverts do work, but not without some effort. Then the creation, and ongoing tweaking, of an advanced Boolean search string to execute a comprehensive sourcing process. Finding the people who aren't so easy to find. We have some great tech to help with this. With the longlist established, I directly approached each and every potential applicant to discuss whether this might genuinely appeal and assess their suitability for the role if so (this stage conducted through multiple channels: phone calls/Zooms/LinkedIn/email/text/whatsapp). Alongside this, two separate LinkedIn posts to create more visibility: 👉 A video post, which drew 2,300 impressions. 62% of which London-based, with the Top 10 ‘most viewed from’ employers all being Top 20 UK Law firms or US firms of equivalent size. 🎯 👉 📸 An image & text post, which went viral (by my standards at least) with 105,000+ impressions 😲 I received around 60 applications from across a few different sites, all of which got a response. After 10 days, and daily deep-focus search activity sessions, a shortlist of 5 applications were presented. ⤵ 4 first stage interviews were scheduled. ⤵ Followed by 2 final stage interviews. ⤵ The first choice applicant was then offered and accepted the role, starting last month. Everyone else received individual feedback on their applications. No loose ends. A positive employer reputation maintained. -----------------------  I'm Richard Hooper My job is to provide my clients with their best possible opportunity to hire the best attainable talent If you’d like Balance Recruitment Ltd to manage a hiring process for the #legalfinance team at your firm, get in touch.