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Nadeen Weybrecht is a recruiter at BCG Attorney Search who focuses her energy on the Southern portion of the country. She is responsible for 11 states in the South, including Texas, and joined the company after working in private practice.
Weybrecht said that the level of screening BCG does early on in deciding which candidates and which law firms with which to work is one factor that drew her to the company.
“I like the fact that on the recruiting side, we do a great deal of screening. The high level of filtering we do narrows the pool of candidates to the ones who have the qualifications that the firms need and allows us to focus our time and energy on ensuring that the attorneys most qualified for positions are the ones who are presented to our law firm clients. The diligence we conduct early on makes the search process more efficient for everybody. The company’s high level of ethics and candidness with attorneys and law firms also drew me. We seek to learn the full story of what the candidate wants, what the candidate’s qualifications are, what a firm’s exact needs are, and how the two can be a fit.”
Weybrecht earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2005 after earning a Bachelor’s Degree with a major in English and a minor in Spanish from Duke University in 2002.
Weybrecht switched careers from practicing law to recruiting lawyers for positions at firms across the country because she wanted to help fellow attorneys in a meaningful and personal way. As one who had decided to become a lawyer at the age of seven, Nadeen understands that for many attorneys, the decision to go into the legal profession is not one that is made casually but, rather one that involves years of planning and a great investment – both monetarily and mentally. It can be devastating if, after attending law school and passing the Bar, an attorney is less than satisfied with the firm s/he joins and/or with the type of practice and work one is doing, because so very much has gone into arriving at that very point. Helping attorneys dig out of the mental pit they may have fallen into is where Nadeen begins.
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“Working together, we discover what it is that is really making one unhappy and we ask where it may be better. When I can find a new professional ‘home’ for an attorney at which s/he is more satisfied and fulfilled, and at which the attorney can see herself progressing and producing for the long term, this is when I can feel satisfied knowing that I have helped make someone’s life better.”
“When practicing corporate law at Baker Botts in Houston, I would receive calls from recruiters. When meeting with them they appeared to be happy and enjoy what they were doing. It is a career that is very personal. It is a tangible way to help people. You can affect lives on an immediate, everyday basis by finding them a situation where they can be happy.”
All of this goes along with what motivates Weybrecht when performing her daily duties.
“It is a passion to help people. I really want to find a situation for them that’s better than the one they are in now. When they look me in the face and say, ‘Thank you. This is what I was looking for. It is a place I will stay at for the long-term,’ then I know I am doing my job right. I want where they are lateraling to be their next and last employment home,” Weybrecht explained.
Since Weybrecht has dealt with hundreds of candidates over the years, we had to ask her what she thought makes the perfect candidate in today’s market. Her answer was very intriguing.
“A great candidate takes the time to ask him or herself what s/he wants, what s/he thinks is wrong in the current situation and what is motivating the desire to make a move. Nadeen said she finds the strongest candidates are the ones who investigate the situation on their own at first. They must also realize that it is fine if they don’t have all of the answers – they just have to start asking themselves the questions that identify the pain points. “This is where we can begin to find answers for their problematic situations,” Nadeen said. “Candidates must be honest with themselves first and then honest with me. By doing so, we can seek out a position with a firm that will truly be a better match for the attorney, rather than placing them into a situation that will be all too familiar and similar to the one in which they are now.”
When asked about the future of the recruiting industry, Weybrecht said, “I believe it will continue to be a strong asset to both attorneys and law firms. We work to not only discover new possibilities that will be a good match for attorneys, but we also advocate on their behalf in order to ensure that one’s skill set, qualifications and unique ‘selling points’ find an interested audience in the firms to which they would add value. We work side-by-side with our candidates through communications and the interview process, and at the offer stage, we handle any issues that may have arisen and quite importantly, we negotiate the terms of an offer for our candidates. We filter through voluminous inquiries and stacks of resumes for the firms and present them with only what either meets or exceeds what they have communicated as their needs, giving them the opportunity to focus solely on candidates that have the requisite background and experience. In a busy world where practitioners and law firm professionals scarcely have time to check their voicemail, we are advocates who specialize in quality control and efficiency.”
Weybrecht belongs to the Texas Bar Association, the Houston Bar Association, the Texas Young Lawyers Association and the Houston Young Lawyers Association.
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