Links hauls in 21 associates in Oz recruitment spree
In one of the biggest recruitment coups of recent times Linklaters has hired 21 associates from Australia and New Zealand, just two years after it cut more than 200 jobs in London.
Four Linklaters partners travelled to Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland in March to interview some 50 lawyers at leading firms including Allens Arthur Robinson, Blake Dawson, Freehills and Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Australia, and Russell McVeagh in New Zealand.
They picked up 16 recruits from Australia and five from New Zealand. Of these, 13 are for the banking, capital markets and projects practices, seven for corporate and one for litigation.
The recruitment drive was focused on lawyers with the regional equivalent of between one and three years’ post-qualification experience.
Readers' comments (7)
Anonymous | 14-Jun-2011 10:08 am
'Here for a good time.....not for a long time.......'
It's crazy how the magic circle turnover staff like underwear, but still have a ready supply of robots (I means candidates) to take off the production line.
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julkian paulley | 14-Jun-2011 1:23 pm
Another way of looking at it is that the Antipodeans have more commercial awareness and better real world training than their home grown associates,
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Anonymous | 14-Jun-2011 1:49 pm
why would links hire aussies and kiwis in a market where there are still people who had been made redundant from firms during the credit crunch who have found other poistions and would like to move back to more high profile firms? It is insane. Once you have been made redundant, you can almost never climb back.
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Anonymous | 14-Jun-2011 2:02 pm
see the legal week article on the lost generation- Links is turning in the knife. This is bad publicity for them having contributed to mass redundancy and doing the dirty on junior associates and then going to australia and new zealand when there are so many people either out of work or looking to move up!
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Anonymous | 14-Jun-2011 4:39 pm
No doubt that the partners who decide to hire from Oz/NZ will in the same breath be lamenting the fact that their UK taxes are being used to pay for unemployed people's benefits. Some of those people include lawyers - yes, they are entitled to claim Job Seekers' Allowance. Will the partners put two and two together?
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former recruiter | 14-Jun-2011 5:03 pm
Not really news. Aussies and Kiwis have always made up a good proportion of the head count at the City firms (MC in particular). And they are always hired when things start to pick up - what the HR lot call a flexible resource. They have good experience, bring enthusiasm, are willing to move and there is a good pool to choose those at the right level for what the firms want. It has always been like this and this is no different. Given the cost of recruiting abroad and the restrictions on visas, etc, if there were enough good enough candidates in London in the right practices at the right level, it's fair to assume the firms would pick them up first (and may have done so). They may have been ruthless when it comes to the lay offs, but they're not stupid: if they could get better staff more easily and cheaply on their door step, they wouldn't be trawling the world.
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Anonymous | 14-Jun-2011 6:52 pm
Everyone knows there are plenty of good candidates in London (and other cities in the UK) at the right level who have experience and enthusiam.
Let's be clear: the only reasons that law firms such as Linklaters are not after them are: (1) some of those candidates were made redundant and are wrongly viewed as incompetent by recruiters/law firms; and (2) UK candidates are more expensive than Aussies. But when Aussies decide to go home right in the middle of an upsurge of client activity because their European experience consists of being overworked in exchange for empty promises (higher pay, promotion etc.), firms are usually not so happy about this "flexible" workforce.
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