2010 is turning out to be a relatively positive year for our strong clients. Many of our clients finally saw the unstable legal market turn the corner for the better in early 2010. We have started to see delineation between the firms that have been able to rise above market challenges and those that have faltered.

The absolutely spectacular news is that we are now seeing that the clients that have done well are beginning to hire and grow! It has been a while since we have been able to make a statement like this with confidence and we are excited.

We predict that a nice spike in hiring in the legal market will happen about a year from now, in mid-2011. With this demand for new jobs, we also expect to slowly see compensation increasing and leveling out.  We anticipate that for successful, strong companies, salary cuts and hiring freezes will start to disappear much more rapidly in early 2011.

Research reports that despite the market, 70% of candidates are still passive and cannot be recruited without the assistance of a strong recruiting company or strong recruiting and human resources professionals within an organization.  Moreover, active candidates comprise 20-30% of the job market, but the problem is that many of these are simply C-level, average at best candidates. They can often be found on job boards, but we believe job boards will soon be a thing of the past as a resource for top companies because the candidates that post on these sites are generally C-level.  Candidates at the A-level are almost always passive candidates.

With the market turning upwards, companies need to make investments in hiring and retaining top-notch recruiters, as well as training and hiring the best in-house HR and recruiting professionals. 

An extra tip: Facebook and Twitter are great ways to get the word out about new positions!