Early Talent Officer - Johannesburg at Pinsent Masons

Main duties and responsibilities

• Working with Pinsent Masons' Early Talent team and our Johannesburg based HR Business Partner, to deliver a graduate attraction and recruitment campaign for the Johannesburg Candidate Attorney and Legal Internship Programmes The role will also involve supporting the Candidate Attorneys and Interns throughout their training.
• The remit includes researching, developing and implementing the graduate attraction campaign and recruitment and selection processes for vacation placements, internships and Candidate Attorney training contracts. Once recruited, you will also oversee the on-going development and pastoral care of our legal interns and candidate attorneys supported by the Johannesburg HR Business Partner and the UK-based Early Talent team.

Specific responsibilities and duties include:

• working with the Johannesburg HR Business Partner to research the local graduate markets and explore best practice in the delivery of our vacation placement, internship and Candidate Attorney legal training contract programmes.
• creation and delivery of vacation placement, internship and Candidate Attorney legal training programmes ensuring that the South African jurisdictional regulations and Purpose-led goals of the various programmes are met.
• recruitment contact and liaison for law faculty contacts, career services and student societies etc. re events, placement schemes, recruitment timetable and raising brand awareness.
• screening and shortlisting of candidates for assessment centres for all Early Talent programmes delivered in the Johannesburg office i.e. vacation placements, Internships and Candidate Attorney roles.
• building and maintaining relationships with senior stakeholders of the South Africa business in relation to Graduate Recruitment, our strategy and the recruitment process.
• building and maintaining relationships with a range of candidates throughout the recruitment process and throughout their respective programmes.
• developing and maintaining attraction material i.e. brochure, webpage, induction booklets, social media etc. suitable for each international jurisdiction.
• providing verbal feedback to both successful and unsuccessful candidates.
• using social media in the attraction, recruitment and continued engagement of candidates.
• managing candidates via the firm's application tracking system.
• managing the interface between fee earners and legal interns / candidate attorneys to support the on-going professional and personal development of candidates.
• supervising interns, allocating work and assisting with workload management.
• Undertaking appraisal and one to one meetings with interns and Candidate Attorneys.

Assisting in identifying training needs of interns on an ongoing basis and arranging/developing appropriate training programme. 

Person Specification 

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level standard.

Relevant Experience

• Experience of working in a professional service environment (desirable).

Key Skills

• Recruitment and managing people experience;
• Experience of dealing with all levels of staff, including senior stakeholders, in a persuasive and credible manner;
• Ability to interact with candidates at marketing events and assessments and build relationships;
• Comfortable making presentations to candidate groups;
• Excellent listening and problem solving skills;
• Solid understanding and experience of using social media in marketing, recruitment and selection;
• Highly organised and skilled in prioritising.

Personal Qualities / Behaviours

• Professional, approachable, calm, robust;
• A self-starter who can work effectively with minimal supervision delivering results from a standing-start, but also enjoys being part of a high-performing team;
• Committed to high standards;
• Committed to the development of others;
• Excellent attention to detail;
• First rate communication skills(written and oral);
• Able to deal with different cultures and perspectives;
• Ability to work flexibly as required by the job role.