The generalizations in your answer and the confidence with which you seem to propogate advice with your half-baked knowledge of the role of how law-firm recruitments work, is striking. Perhaps you may not have had a good experience. That isn't however reflective of how the process really is. Not everyone is as privileged as OP to have received a PPO, or graduate from top-tier law law school (I'm presuming), or start their careers in a Tier-1 firm. To that end:
1) Your presumption that most recruiters don't engage with the hiring partners is flawed. As someone who has seen both sides of the process (as a professional looking for a new role, and a partner who recently hired for her team) I can tell you that a large part of what you have mentioned in your comment is inaccurate. Yes, it's true that the firm's HR team is also involved in the process but the relationships that most recruiters tend to build, are those with the hiring partner. The role of the HR in the process is that of execution - to assist the partner in interviewing professionals and on-boarding them once an offer is accepted.
2) To your point that recruiters tend to mislead and lie to candidates, I'd agree to the limited extent that yes - there are some bad apples in the bush, and yes I have had my share of bad experiences. Does that mean all recruiters are the same? Absolutely not. You can distinguish the good from the bad, right away. Choose not to engage with the ones that you know are full of shit. From my experience, the good recruiters - and I'm not speaking about companies here - but recruiters as individuals, tend to engage and build relationships with professionals on a human level - to the extent that a certain recruiter from one of the firms that's been mentioned in this thread, took the time and effort to actually understand my goals and aspirations before specifically pitching my candidature to the hiring partner in the firm - as opposed to certain other recruiters who just forward resumes en-masse to firms.
3) To your point about "dilly-dallying": it's not in a recruiter's interest to waste time. From what I understand they get paid by commissions, and therefore they are incentivized to close positions quickly.
4) Yes, sending resumes directly to someone mid-level or higher may work better than going through a recruiter - but that holds true for those who have alumni networks to rely on. I reiterate, what about someone who doesn't have these networks to rely on?
Lastly, let's just try to be nice when you speak about folks in other professions? At the end of the day everyone's trying to earn a living and I'd like to believe that all of us, whether as lawyers, HR's, or recruiters,, try to do so by doing an honest day's work. Calling someone 'utterly useless' or a 'loon' speaks more to your character and the myopic nature of your personality, than anything else.
For context, yes, I am a partner in a Tier-1 firm.
It's interesting that you choose to believe that I am misrepresenting myself, when all I'm doing is presenting a different view on the subject at hand. Just because you don't seem to agree with my views (and I believe I have tried to be balanced in my earlier comment) does not necessarily make them biased, as you seem to indicate. Nor does it amount to misbranding someone's advice. Since you seem to quite concerned with the apparent lack of thought in my comment, I'd like to return the unsolicited advice and encourage you to think twice before articulating your opinion in regards to what constitutes a biased opinion.
Perhaps I should have been clearer, my comment was not directed towards the specific set of Tier-1 professionals who graduate from Tier-1 law schools, since there's nothing in OP's question to indicate they are from a Tier-1 law school. My comment was directed towards the legal fraternity as a whole, while includes the Tier-1 law firm professionals as a subset. To that end, the underlying opinion in my comment is that if one doesn't have any networks to rely on, and chooses to engage with recruiters, they should engage with those who have their best interests in mind while they look out for your new role. As to such recruiters being in an underwhelming majority, you would agree that this is not necessarily factually accurate. Your opinions (and even mine for that matter) are merely subjective and contextual to our personal experiences, since I don't believe either of us has really conducted an objective study on the matter at hand.
I'm not going to engage with you on the benefits and pitfalls of engaging with recruiters. As you have rightly indicated, we are all entitled to our opinions, and I respect all opinions on this thread, even though some of them have been branded as "facts". However, choosing to be vitriolic in the manner we describe individuals in a profession is not really "calling a spade a spade". If recruiters were in fact "utterly useless" or "loons", I wonder why the industry (and this includes Tier-1 law firms) chooses to routinely engage with them in the first place? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean we need to prioritise niceties over being pragmatic in our advice, but surely there's a better way to do without being disparaging of a profession?
1) Your presumption that most recruiters don't engage with the hiring partners is flawed. As someone who has seen both sides of the process (as a professional looking for a new role, and a partner who recently hired for her team) I can tell you that a large part of what you have mentioned in your comment is inaccurate. Yes, it's true that the firm's HR team is also involved in the process but the relationships that most recruiters tend to build, are those with the hiring partner. The role of the HR in the process is that of execution - to assist the partner in interviewing professionals and on-boarding them once an offer is accepted.
2) To your point that recruiters tend to mislead and lie to candidates, I'd agree to the limited extent that yes - there are some bad apples in the bush, and yes I have had my share of bad experiences. Does that mean all recruiters are the same? Absolutely not. You can distinguish the good from the bad, right away. Choose not to engage with the ones that you know are full of shit. From my experience, the good recruiters - and I'm not speaking about companies here - but recruiters as individuals, tend to engage and build relationships with professionals on a human level - to the extent that a certain recruiter from one of the firms that's been mentioned in this thread, took the time and effort to actually understand my goals and aspirations before specifically pitching my candidature to the hiring partner in the firm - as opposed to certain other recruiters who just forward resumes en-masse to firms.
3) To your point about "dilly-dallying": it's not in a recruiter's interest to waste time. From what I understand they get paid by commissions, and therefore they are incentivized to close positions quickly.
4) Yes, sending resumes directly to someone mid-level or higher may work better than going through a recruiter - but that holds true for those who have alumni networks to rely on. I reiterate, what about someone who doesn't have these networks to rely on?
Lastly, let's just try to be nice when you speak about folks in other professions? At the end of the day everyone's trying to earn a living and I'd like to believe that all of us, whether as lawyers, HR's, or recruiters,, try to do so by doing an honest day's work. Calling someone 'utterly useless' or a 'loon' speaks more to your character and the myopic nature of your personality, than anything else.
Peace.
For context, yes, I am a partner in a Tier-1 firm.
It's interesting that you choose to believe that I am misrepresenting myself, when all I'm doing is presenting a different view on the subject at hand. Just because you don't seem to agree with my views (and I believe I have tried to be balanced in my earlier comment) does not necessarily make them biased, as you seem to indicate. Nor does it amount to misbranding someone's advice. Since you seem to quite concerned with the apparent lack of thought in my comment, I'd like to return the unsolicited advice and encourage you to think twice before articulating your opinion in regards to what constitutes a biased opinion.
Perhaps I should have been clearer, my comment was not directed towards the specific set of Tier-1 professionals who graduate from Tier-1 law schools, since there's nothing in OP's question to indicate they are from a Tier-1 law school. My comment was directed towards the legal fraternity as a whole, while includes the Tier-1 law firm professionals as a subset. To that end, the underlying opinion in my comment is that if one doesn't have any networks to rely on, and chooses to engage with recruiters, they should engage with those who have their best interests in mind while they look out for your new role. As to such recruiters being in an underwhelming majority, you would agree that this is not necessarily factually accurate. Your opinions (and even mine for that matter) are merely subjective and contextual to our personal experiences, since I don't believe either of us has really conducted an objective study on the matter at hand.
I'm not going to engage with you on the benefits and pitfalls of engaging with recruiters. As you have rightly indicated, we are all entitled to our opinions, and I respect all opinions on this thread, even though some of them have been branded as "facts". However, choosing to be vitriolic in the manner we describe individuals in a profession is not really "calling a spade a spade". If recruiters were in fact "utterly useless" or "loons", I wonder why the industry (and this includes Tier-1 law firms) chooses to routinely engage with them in the first place? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean we need to prioritise niceties over being pragmatic in our advice, but surely there's a better way to do without being disparaging of a profession?
Thank you.