Hire people who fit your culture
When searching for new players for your team, you need to find people who will fit your culture. At Duane Morris, the cultural fit is the most important fit for a newly recruited lawyer.
“If the cultural fit is there, then we’ll delve into the economic issues of how that lawyer joining us would affect his or her practice,” Soroko says. “We certainly won’t sacrifice the cultural fit in pursuit of a business fit.”
Finding the right cultural fit for your business can take some time, particularly when hiring for the management level. You need to formulate a hiring process in which multiple people in your company get to know a job candidate over the course of a series of interviews.
Soroko has potential new attorneys at Duane Morris interview with executives both in the markets they will serve and at the headquarters in Philadelphia.
“We have a process where if we’re talking about hiring for an office outside of Philadelphia, a potential candidate will be reviewed by a partner or the head of the office in that market, then come back and meet with a hiring committee within that market,” Soroko says. “Ultimately, that person will come to Philadelphia for a day of interviews and all of our reactions to that person will be carefully considered.
“At the end of the day, you’re getting a reaction from an awful lot of people involved in the day-to-day operations, and the track record in evaluating the candidates is usually pretty good. It’s something in which we’ve done very well.”
At Duane Morris, the firm’s leaders are looking for lawyers and staffers who are, above all, client-focused, open to collaboration and teamwork, and against the creation of internal territories and fiefdoms.
Culturally, you need to know what you want in a job candidate. But you also need to know what candidates want from the culture of their workplace.
Soroko says that one of the most important aspects of a work environment from an employee standpoint is the knowledge that he or she can speak up, voice concerns and share his or her ideas.
