Hiring Fundamentals

by Ben Crawford

I recently worked on a search for a law firm that needed to hire an experienced attorney in a highly specialized area of law. Although the position was in a large metro area, the candidate pool was very small. Even with the challenge, we presented three excellent candidates with specialized experience. After many stops and starts in the interview process, weeks passing, and multiple rounds of interviews with each candidate, the firm elected not to hire anyone. On the other hand, we recently introduced one candidate to a firm which wasn’t actively hiring, and the candidate received an offer within 24 hours of their first meeting with the firm. Months later, the firm reached out and asked us to find another candidate like “Andy.”

Drawn-out analysis of potential hires shouldn’t necessarily be a red flag, and a lightning-quick hiring process is not necessarily the gold standard of “how to hire.” There is no one “right way to hire” but certainly many wrong ways. However, creating and committing to a standardized interview and hiring process will create quicker and more consistent talent outcomes.

A well-designed hiring process can seem unimportant in the face of other business matters. However, hiring processes are an extension of your brand and firm identity, and commitment to creating great experiences can lead not only to consistently great hires but also a competitive edge in the marketplace. 88% of professionals who accepted a new position, from a 2023 study by Gallup, rated their candidate experience prior to joining a new company as “good,” “very good,” or “exceptional.” Instructively, only 12% of professionals who joined a new company rated the candidate experience as “acceptable” or “poor.” In other words, organizations that intentionally create great candidate experiences attract more and likely better talent.

Excluding compensation, professionals report the following factors as having the most impact on their decision to join an organization:

• 44% cite interview interactions
• 25% cite the amount of time between their application and receiving an offer
• 21% cite insight into the organization’s culture
• 9% cite ample information on benefits

Source: Gallup, The Lasting Impact of Exceptional Candidate Experiences, Andy Kemp, October 16, 2024.

Even more interesting to learn is that post-hire, professionals who report an “exceptional” candidate experience are “twice as likely to (later) strongly agree that their job responsibilities are consistent with what was promised during recruitment and 2.7 times as likely to say that their job is “as good as” or “better than” they expected it would be. This also holds true in the long term. Even five years later, professionals who had an “exceptional” candidate experience are “3.2 times as likely to strongly agree they are connected to their organization’s culture and three times as likely to be extremely satisfied with their work.” Committing to a great candidate experience does not just attract your ideal candidate; it retains them.

Potentially having this level of employee satisfaction should be reason enough to implement a hiring system, but this type of employee engagement also has potential business effects. Clients might report better service, peers might report on a more collegial working environment, and the firm might notice fewer management issues.

Below are five hiring considerations which can give you a strong standardized hiring process:

Define the Person and the Role

Think about the type of credentials, experiences, qualities, and skills the organization would benefit from, as well as a list of specific tasks the person in the role would frequently undertake.

For example, we recently exclusively partnered with a well-established company which, in addition to other job-specific qualifications and responsibilities, provided some intangible qualities they wanted us to screen for with potential candidates. This clarity, from the start of the search, saved the company precious time in their hiring process and, in part, contributed to a successful placement.

Some questions you should ask to gain clarity on both the person and the role are:

• What type of person will be successful in this role and in our organization?
• What qualification (credentials, amount of prior relevant experience, culture fit) is the most important, non-negotiable for this position, and what qualifications are less important?
• What percentage of time will the candidate focus on one aspect of a role versus another?
• What is a realistic estimate of the hours the firm expects a candidate to work on a weekly or annual basis?
• Can the role be remote or hybrid?
• How much travel would the role require?
• Who else in the firm or company should provide input on the role and also be involved in the hiring process?

When engaging with a recruiting agency, provide this information.

Prepare Compensation and Benefit Information

In some jurisdictions (including New York), it is illegal for businesses with four or more employees to market a position without including a salary range. Beyond legality, sharing a salary range, potential bonus compensation, and benefit information saves both employers and candidates time and demonstrates transparency.

Prior to going to the market, determine a salary range. If your firm’s compensation structure is not competitive with the market, be willing to adjust your expectations around prior work experience (this is a topic that merits another article), and to invest time in training for candidates who show promise or prior academic performance. Also, consider offering other benefits which could offset lower compensation, like reasonable hours or a hybrid work schedule. If the right salary range is unclear, an experienced recruiter can help you determine what is competitive.

Providing clarity on bonus compensation and benefits is also ideal. In my experience, I frequently need to share this information with candidates as it is rarely addressed by employers prior to receiving an offer. Candidates also tend to perceive requesting the information pre-offer as inappropriate (rightly or wrongly), but, in the end, still need to know. Proactively providing this information (via a brochure or a brief discussion during an interview) to a viable candidate can differentiate your firm in their eyes.

Source: New York State Department of Labor, Pay Transparency, accessed December 24, 2025.

Make Everyone Available

We recently had a candidate provide references to a client, and the client didn’t call the references for a couple of weeks. By the time the client called the references and sent an offer, the candidate had received another offer, which was more interesting to them, and they ultimately rejected our client’s offer.

There is nothing quite like a significant delay for altering a candidate’s perception of your firm. Your team should be available for interviews, reference checks, and drafting offers. Don’t let days and weeks pass with no progress because everyone is “busy.” If someone who otherwise participates in the interview process is going to be on vacation, think about letting them join in the process when they return or having them forego the particular hiring cycle.

Hiring is a Sprint, not a Marathon

Operating a successful firm is a marathon, but running a successful search is a sprint. The most important thing to create and maintain throughout hiring is momentum. Strong candidates are on the market for a limited amount of time, and if your organization likes them, there is a high likelihood of others liking them as well. Before your firm starts to receive candidate submissions, ensure the team members needed to make hiring decisions are available for interviews. As your firm receives candidate submissions, engage with as many viable candidates as possible, as soon as possible. If the team thinks two, three, or four candidates could be a good fit, start discussions with all of them simultaneously. Schedule follow-up interviews quickly. On the other hand, if you receive a submission or interview a candidate who doesn’t seem like a good fit, let your recruiter know and even explain why.

I recently worked on a search where three very strong candidates were submitted for a position. However, the client focused their time on one exceptional candidate and forewent speaking with the other two very strong candidates. After about a two-week interview process, the candidate considered their offer for about another week (one to two weeks to consider an offer is a standard courtesy), only to choose a different position. This likely resulted in “hiring fatigue” where the firm inevitably felt like they invested time without a result. The firm was not wrong to set their sights on this candidate, but their overall hiring strategy was faulty. They had not taken the time to speak with the other two strong candidates. Whereas, if they had shouldered a slightly more intense schedule to engage each candidate to the same degree they had engaged with their first choice, they could have been able to make an offer to another candidate when, unfortunately, the first candidate rejected their offer.

There are very few professional roles that are objectively irresistible to candidates. Moreover, even if your firm is objectively the best at what it does, works on highly interesting matters, or pays the market rate, candidates may still reject offers for a variety of reasons you might not foresee. Ideally, if you are ready to make an offer to one candidate, you should also already know who your next offer would go to. Embracing this short-term sprint of making your team readily available for interviews, when they could be focused on billable work, is the shortest path to the desired result and will give your organization a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Connect

Every new hire will have a unique background and respond differently to different leadership styles. Your organization’s hiring process will create a first impression, even if, to a candidate, it is one from the outside looking in. Now that they are on the inside, finding time to connect with a new hire on a personal level can go a long way in establishing a strong working relationship. Yes, they were hired to produce work. Yes, you need them to perform at a high level. Yes, it is natural to assume that they don’t need too much guidance along the way. However, going out of your way to take an interest in someone, providing them with the tools and incentives to succeed, and reaching a mutual understanding regarding expectations can go a long way toward making them feel confident enough to take on new challenges, shoulder calculated risks, and outperform expectations.