Practicing due diligence is crucial when making hiring decisions, but especially so for evaluating candidates in the legal industry. Legal positions are entrusted with critical responsibilities and highly sensitive information; therefore, a comprehensive screening process, including background, references, assessments, and strategic interview questions, is non-negotiable.
Learn more about the importance of a thorough hiring process in legal:
Verifying Education and Professional Credentials
At the most fundamental level, it is absolutely vital that you know that legal candidates truly hold the qualifications they claim on their resumes. Conducting a background check to verify the education and professional credentials of candidates will ensure that they not only meet the requirements to do the job but also possess integrity and are not padding their resumes in any way.
Checking With References for Key Skills
Among the most accurate predictors of a legal candidate’s success if hired is how they have performed in the past. Taking the time to speak with the references who have worked with them or interacted in a professional capacity in the past can provide you valuable insight into their soft skills and work ethic to ensure they are able to utilize their technical expertise to become a valuable overall contributor.
Ensuring the Right Fit for the Role
Being deliberate in your hiring process may slow down your timeline a bit at the beginning, but it will pay off by making your final decision more likely to be a long-term successful hire. Whatever type of qualifications you are screening for, such as expertise or personality traits, it will make you more confident that you are able to objectively choose the candidate who is the right fit for the role.
Streamlining the Decision-Making Process
Having a clearly defined plan in place for screening and evaluating legal candidates will make it easier to come to a final choice. It can streamline the decision-making process by filtering out unsuitable candidates at the very start, as well as preventing subjective judgment calls from slowing things down and leading to a bad hire.
Protecting Your Company’s Reputation
Hiring the wrong people, whether it’s due to a lack of key qualifications, negative interpersonal issues, or low work ethic or productivity, can ultimately cause major issues for your company. A subpar legal employee can harm your company’s reputation, such as by giving poor service to clients or even causing potential compliance problems if they adhere to regulations.
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