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About us

Linklaters is a global law firm, providing legal services in 20 countries and through 30 offices. Linklaters is a people business. Being best in class in the eyes of our clients means that our people must be exceptional. We look not only for brilliant minds, but for people who will thrive in our environment: people who love working collaboratively and demonstrate the innovative, efficient, agile, entrepreneurial, and responsible mind-set we aim to bring to every interaction.

Ours is an environment of outperformance. We achieve this not with targets and incentives, but by fostering a positive, supportive, fair, and open atmosphere. We respect and value difference but insist on inclusivity. We celebrate all aspects of diversity and challenge any form of bias. This is vital to our ability to work as one team, with a common goal.

The team

The Talent Acquisition and Talent Management team sits within the broader People function and is responsible for attracting, developing and retaining the firm's talent at every stage of the career journey, from early careers entrants through to senior leaders. The team takes a joined-up approach to talent, ensuring that attraction, development and succession strategies are integrated and aligned with the firm's long-term strategic ambitions. The team works in close partnership with HR Managers, Centres of Excellence and business leaders.

The Lateral Legal talent team is a dynamic team that collaborates with Linklaters’ London fee-earning practice groups, and the firm’s in-house legal teams, to recruit the very best talent in the market. 

We provide valued expertise to practice hiring partners and HR business partners by:

• Market mapping using online tools, refined with detailed research to seek out and persuade inactive candidates to apply;
• Building trusted relationships with candidates to bring them into the candidate pool, retaining them through to joining;
• Using knowledge of London and other UK regional and international markets to both search for candidates and share context for stakeholders and hiring partners;
• Building strong relationships with the firm’s preferred supplier agencies both to drive value and gain knowledge and expertise of the market and deep candidate background;
• Driving transformational change of the talent acquisition methodology to eliminate bias and enable diversity-confident hiring.

Your role

Working closely with the talent manager and the broader talent acquisition and people functions, the principle role focus will be the direct sourcing, attraction and assessment of suitable candidates for identified hiring needs and skill sets, whilst carefully balancing stakeholder relationships and ensuring applicants receive the highest quality candidate experience, providing them with a seamless interview and onboarding process.

Your role is critical to ensuring recruitment best practice and diversity awareness and involves actively promoting Linklaters’ inclusion initiatives, networks, benefits and culture.

Being part of a regulated entity, you will also play a key role in ensuring Linklaters’ regulatory obligations, recruitment best practice and due processes are strictly adhered to, including by internal stakeholders and third-party providers.

This opportunity also involves conducting screenings and/or HR interviews with prospective candidates, providing you and Linklaters with a unique opportunity to understand candidate motivations, influence candidate and stakeholder outcomes, and promote Linklaters’ culture.

You will also be expected to become a superuser of Workday (our applicant tracking system) and any AI tools available to the recruitment function, promoting their use to stakeholders where required for internal compliance and recruitment best practice.

From time to time, the role will also involve supporting recruitment for other groups, local offices and functions, reporting and analysis of recruitment data, managing of internal and online recruitment campaigns including the creation of fresh online content, regular review and updates to our role description templates, attending relevant recruitment network events and other ad hoc duties.

Your experience & skills

• You currently operate confidently at advisor level and have a strong background in recruitment and talent sourcing within professional services. You demonstrate a proven ability to identify and engage exceptional talent through sophisticated direct sourcing techniques, combining market intelligence, research and relationship-building to access candidate pools beyond traditional recruitment channels.
• You bring sound judgement and commercial awareness to recruitment decisions, balancing business priorities, market realities and risk considerations while providing pragmatic advice to stakeholders.
• You communicate confidently and demonstrate high emotional intelligence, adapting your approach to different stakeholders, candidates and working styles. You are able to influence constructively, build credibility quickly and support robust hiring decisions through thoughtful challenge and effective communication. You are equally committed to delivering an exceptional candidate experience that reflects the firm's values and enhances its reputation in the market.
• Detail-oriented and highly organised, you effectively manage competing priorities and expectations whilst delivering work to a high standard and within agreed timeframes. You balance operational excellence with discretion and professionalism, navigating complex, sensitive or confidential situations whilst maintaining a consistently high-quality service.
• You are a collaborative and relationship-oriented professional who works effectively across teams, functions and levels of seniority. You build strong partnerships with colleagues, stakeholders and business leaders, contributing positively to team objectives, and are equally comfortable working independently, taking ownership of priorities and delivering results in a fast-paced environment.

This role is full time, based in our London office with a hybrid working model available.

Joining Team Linklaters will see you qualify for a range of benefits designed to reward the vital contribution you'll be making to our success. These include:

Health & Wellbeing

• Private Medical Insurance
• Free in-house fitness centre and subsidised health club memberships
• Free onsite GP service and periodic health assessments

Finance

• Pension and flexible savings options
• Income protection and life assurance
• Mortgage advice and will-writing services.

Family & Lifestyle

• Electric car and cycle to work schemes.
• Emergency family care
• Additional holiday/birthday leave.
• Maternity/paternity/shared parental leave.
• Travel insurance and season ticket loan
• Option to join sports and social clubs, as well as our employee networks groups (such as our Gender Equality, With Pride, or Social Mobility Networks)

Technical Skills

This list of duties and responsibilities above is not exhaustive.  It is intended to describe the general content of, and requirements for, the performance of this job. As such, the role may also include the undertaking of additional tasks as required.

Application Policy

Applications and CVs (direct or via agency) are only accepted online via the portal. Queries related to our roles must be directed to the relevant recruitment team and not the partners, practices or stakeholders (lateralrecruitment@linklaters.com for legal roles or ukbtrecruitment@linklaters.com for business team roles).