Case Study - Successful Placements Made Virtually

The Clients

Multiple Fortune-listed companies including a global pharmaceutical company, an American technology company, a private research university and medical technology company

Roles Hiring

Range from Corporate Counsel to Vice President, Assistant Corporate Secretary and Associate General Counsel

The Challenge

Due to the global outbreak of COVID-19, organizations have been forced to conduct business from their homes and adjust their normal processes to a virtual world. Many of our clients were in the midst of hiring immediate needs for their legal teams when stay-at-home orders were put in place and did not want to stop the momentum of their searches. However, without the ability to meet their top candidates face to face, clients would have to rely on virtual interviewing options and potentially make a hire without meeting their top choices in person.

The Solution

Working closely with their Major, Lindsey & Africa In-House Counsel Recruiting search consultants, a number of our clients are continuing their interview processes 100 percent over the phone or via video conference. Each one has felt a sense of urgency in filling their open role—either to combat the current surging workload or prepare for the future business. Though one client thus far has had experience with running an entirely virtual process due to the mostly remote nature of the legal team, the majority of other clients have never hired a candidate without meeting them in-person first. However, their trust in Major, Lindsey & Africa and our abilities to identify talent with the desired professional and cultural fit has given them the confidence to keep moving forward and trust the process.

Our clients also took comfort in knowing the caliber of candidates we present and the thoroughness of our process. They were confident in our understanding of their organizations’ cultures and knew we would be able to share insights into each candidate with a lens toward each client’s specific needs.

The Results

Throughout the hiring process, our search consultants provide guidance to our clients in order to facilitate smooth video conferences for all rounds of interviews, walking through technology options and best practices. They will suggest extra interview steps that can be taken to help solidify an opinion, such as:

• Having top candidates take a personality assessment like the Hogan Assessment, Myers-Briggs, DISC or something similar to gather a sense of the candidate’s working style, leadership skills, strengths and more.
• Adding additional rounds of interviews to relieve any doubts in your mind, ask all the lingering questions whether more behavioral types of questions or more personal ones.
• Carefully checking references.

The top candidates who have been extended offers in the middle of this crisis have been the one who were able to impress our clients and truly showcase their personalities and knowledge over video. These candidates stood out for a variety of reasons, including:

• Possessed a skill set that was lacking on the team and was a necessity to add to keep the team moving forward.
• Had experience that almost identically matched what client was looking for.
• Demonstrated high levels of emotional intelligence.

Our clients appreciate our diligence in providing behavioral interview assessments and write-ups on our experiences with

the candidates as well as reference checks. Due to our search consultants’ thoroughness, our clients have been comfortable extending offers virtually without ever meeting these candidates in person, especially to those candidates who were actively interviewing and fielding multiple offers. The candidates’ flexibility and agreeability has also made the offer processes smooth and added to the clients’ confidence in their decisions to move forward. 

Key Takeaways

• Working with a recruiter you know and trust is crucial to making a new hire through a virtual hiring process.
• Virtual hiring is not for everyone and much of that decision relies on the client’s level of risk tolerance.
• Candidates are still interviewing, and other companies are still hiring—and onboarding virtually. Trying something new may be the best way to not miss out on a terrific candidate.
• As clients become more comfortable with technology, video conferencing will likely become a regular part of the hiring process.