Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager

Where you'll work

The firm's graduate recruitment and development team is based in London and forms part of a larger national and international HR department. The team is made up of three individuals – a Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager, a Graduate Recruitment & Development Officer and a Graduate Recruitment & Development Administrator.

The primary purpose of this role is to play an integral part in attracting and recruiting high-calibre trainee solicitors to the firm and assisting with the effective management of the two-year training and development programme.

What you'll be doing

Recruitment

• Managing end-to-end recruitment of 27+ trainees and 50 summer students into the London, Exeter, Manchester and Birmingham offices with the support of the Graduate Recruitment & Development Officer and Graduate Recruitment & Development Administrator.   
• Responsible for screening applications, interviewing candidates, and promoting best practice across the firm.
• Regularly reviewing the recruitment process to ensure it enables to firm to recruit the best and most diverse talent.
• Overall responsibility for the firm's national Summer Vacation Scheme.
• Working closely with the Training Principal, Graduate Recruitment Partners and key stakeholders on hiring decisions.
• Overall responsibility for candidate experience, ensuring applicants have a positive interaction with the firm and decisions are communicated in a timely manner.  
• Ensure recruitment activities support and are aligned to the firms Diversity Strategy.

Attraction

• Design and implement the firm's attraction strategy.
• Overall responsibility for building relationships with key external stakeholders, such as advertisers, universities and diversity organisations.
• Responsibility for the schedule of marketing events – creating and attending (this will involve UK travel during busy periods).  
• Overseeing social media strategy and content creation across LinkedIn and Instagram.
• Build upon our existing strengths in the arena of diversity and social mobility at graduate recruitment level.

Development

• Providing HR generalist support to national trainee population and working closely with the Training Principal to monitor trainee performance.
• Management of the twice-yearly trainee seat-rotation process nationally and internationally, which will see the successful candidate interacting closely with all departments and trainee solicitors.
• Managing the trainees' mid-seat and end-of-seat appraisal process, reviewing all finalised documentation to have an overview of the development of each trainee.
• Effective management of the firm's qualification process every six months, working closely with the Training Principal.
• Ensuring compliance with SRA regulations and processes.  
• Overseeing the circulation by the Graduate Recruitment & Development Assistant of key information relating to our Professional Skills Courses (both compulsories and electives) and ensuring attendance of our trainee solicitors to these events.

Other duties

• Ad hoc graduate recruitment related projects as required.
• Responsibility for the Graduate Recruitment budget.
• Working closely with the Diversity & Inclusion Manager on a number of initiatives.
• Continuing the firm's strategic SQE project.
• Day to day management of the Graduate Recruitment Team.
• Being a key member of the Trainee Solicitors Committee and facilitating four meetings a year to keep the Partners informed of developments on the function's part.
• Overseeing certain CSR initiatives facilitated by the Graduate Recruitment & Development Team.  

What you'll need

• Great attention to detail, including good use of grammar and numeracy
• Strong communication skills, both oral and written
• Excellent time-management and organisational skills
• A strong team leader and player
• Commitment and flexibility
• An ability to operate autonomously and / or with minimum supervision
• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise work effectively and meet deadlines
• Strength of character and robustness
• Ability to gain credibility and raise profile (internally and externally)
• Personable and approachable style in order to build relationships at all levels
• The ability to multi-task and be effective under pressure
• Proven ability to deal with confidential matters with discretion
• Effective advisory and counselling skills
• Demonstrable good working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

Experience

• Strong experience of working in a client-facing, professional services environment
• Effective knowledge of the graduate marketplace / higher education landscape
• Previous solid graduate recruitment and trainee development experience