Despite reports that candidates for certain types of roles are in short supply, firms are holding off hiring lawyers that aren’t fulfilling 100% of the selection criteria,  warns one recruiter. According to Hays Singapore general manager, Chris Mead, firms are choosing to leave a role vacant instead of taking on a candidate they have to ‘upskill’, unless in exceptional cases. Exceptional cases includes where they might risk breach of compliance or legal obligations. “Unless the needs are exceptionally demanding, generally clients will not compromise on finding the right candidate,” said Mead. 

One way lawyers can get ahead is to show that they have a genuine interest in expanding their skills base to include cross-border negotiation and cultural sensitivity, which will transfer to an advertised role. This is particularly important when so many roles advertised call for five or more very specific, niche, types of experience. “For example, we might say to a client that [a candidate] may not have experience doing business in Indonesia, but they have got business experience in Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam,” said Mead. Mead said his job then is to tell the client what is genuinely available in the market for their price point, and they then make the decision based on what’s available. “The question is how important is it to fill that role? Is it worthwhile to leave it vacant for the foreseeable future? There definitely are challenges for candidates if someone doesn’t have that exact, regional Asian experience they have to be very good at the other requirements,” added Mead.

Lawyers generally develop their ‘customer facing skills’ by the time they reach senior associate or partner level at a firm, according to Mead, and when applying for a role that requires a number of years experience candidates need to convince potential employers they are willing to put time and effort into developing those lacking skills. Attendance of external general courses and continued legal education can help with this, according to Mead.

There are signs that firms are willing to invest in the ‘soft’ skills of the lawyers they have chosen to take on according to Mead. “Clients are willing to conduct internal courses and skills workshops using internal training or utilising external vendors to help candidates improved their soft skills,” he said. The issue for lawyers is convincing them that they are worthy of that sort of extra help.