Business Support Recruitment Manager

A leading UK law firm with a network of offices from the South Coast to Scotland, working together as one national team. An innovative practice and the first top 100 law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm. The lack of barriers between departments, a real lack of hierarchy, zero tolerance for arrogance and pomposity makes Shoosmiths a fantastic place to work.

Our Recruitment Team are dedicated to finding the best talent for a variety of business areas including both legal and head office support roles.  

As part of this team, you will be creative and driven, with interpersonal savvy that allows you to develop lasting relationships with internal clients, candidates, and external suppliers helping to guide them through our hiring process and connecting them to the world of working at Shoosmiths.

To provide a recruitment service to the firm which is effective, efficient and internal client centred, using innovation and creativity to ensure the recruitment strategy of the firm is best in class and incorporates best practice across all functions.

To deliver the resource requirements in the business plan across the business support vacancies, enabling the business to meet its objectives.

• Overall management of all UK business support recruitment.
• Line management and leadership of business support recruitment through Recruitment Officer based in Northampton.
• Ensuring excellent service is delivered at all times to internal clients, candidates, and intermediaries.
• The provision of professional support and advice (direct and through the team) to all hiring managers on recruitment best practice and selection including:
• Support with personnel specifications, job advertisements, how and where jobs will be advertised, design application forms, and preparation of other recruitment material;
• Providing creative solutions to recruitment;
• Building and maintaining appropriate talent pools;
• Screening and selecting application forms, short listing applicants;
• Devise and implement selection processes, conduct interviews, psychometric tests and personality questionnaires where applicable;
• External salary benchmarking and competitor analysis; and
• Train staff in sourcing and interviewing techniques.
• Management of own national recruitment vacancies, including travel to other office locations to discuss hiring strategy or interview candidates.
• Ensures the most cost effective indirect channels to market are in place and regularly reviewed.
• Business support PSL management (direct and through the team); managing third party supplier relationships with agencies, head hunters and other organisations.
• Creates, designs and implements approaches to attracting the best and most relevant talent across all business areas.
• Outplacement support for any appropriate group of employees.

We are looking to speak to candidates with previous experience of managing direct recruitment from end to end and direct sourcing a high volume of vacancies with skills including:

• Confident candidate sourcing; adept in both search and contingent methods.
• Previous interview experience.
• Proven experience to effectively communicate and collaborate with a diverse range of people and job functions.
• In addition to being organised and analytical, we require strong business judgement and negotiation skills.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; time management skills, detail oriented, and the ability to handle multiple priorities.
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office, specifically Word, Excel and Outlook.
• Knowledge and interest in social media platforms and employer branding across (for example) Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
• Expectation of complete confidentiality on all business matters.
• The ability to work as part of a team, but also able to be self-motivated and able to work on own initiative.
• Previous professional services sector experience and an existing network in the legal recruitment sector would be advantageous.

This is a national position and will require travel across our network of offices and on occasion flexible hours to meet business needs.  

Shoosmiths is a committed Equal Opportunities employer promoting equality of opportunity. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.