And very important - all the interviewers must be conveying the same messages. To assure this, the recruiting and marketing professionals must have a significant role in the process. Too often we find that the lawyers in any one firm are not giving out the same messages about the firm and its practices. In the long run, the credibility of the firm depends on broadcasting consistent messages for both marketing and recruiting. The trend toward hiring lawyers, not firms, is then reinforced.
Consistent messages are crucial for internal morale.
Lawyers and staff need to know what to say about the firm, what to believe and what to expect. They need to be treated the way they were led to expect they would be. One of the key reasons people leave a firm is that they were told various things about what their life would be like in the firm and find important parts of the expectations created not to be true. Poor morale results from erroneous expectations, non-communication and miscommunication. The messages the firm wants to convey determine the implementation of marketing and recruiting plans as well as what media to use - not vice versa.