If you take a look at our new job postings at www.kinneyrecruiting.com, you will see numerous immediate opportunities in the major Texas markets. Hiring in Texas has increased tremendously in ‘11 and we are now seeing multiple-offer situations for our candidates, and firms and in-house departments are making hiring decisions at a pre-recession pace. It is a far cry from the doldrums of mid-2008 and all signs point towards this hiring trend continuing into the third and fourth quarter. Along with a hot market, though, comes increased competition and with that competition comes an even sharper need for caveat emptor.

On the candidate side we are talking to numerous out-of-market candidates from all corners of the globe who are interested in lateraling to the Texas market for a variety of reasons (family ties, low cost-of-living, connections to the energy, tech., medical industry, affinity for milder climes, etc.). These candidates, if qualified, are getting great looks from Texas firms and companies who show a strong preference for Wall Street, Chicago, West Coast and International experience.

On the recruiting side, unsurprisingly, many players are also trying to break into the Texas market. Just as dozens of our competitors closed their doors in ’08 and ’09, new competitors are attempting to penetrate the Texas legal recruiting market. A quick anecdote: I am working with a mid-level IP associate candidate currently practicing in Silicon Valley who is eager to move back to his hometown of Houston. The candidate informed me that he had let a California-based recruiter submit his credentials to a handful of firms in Houston. It was now a few weeks later and the candidate had not received any feedback from his recruiter. I asked the candidate if this recruiter knew various IP partners at each of the shops he had been submitted to and the candidate replied that he did not think so. One of the target firms does not even have an IP group in its Houston office. This silence is disappointing because the candidate is extremely qualified, but his resume is likely lodged in the middle of a very large stack. Hopefully, it will rise to the top and the candidate will land an interview, but he had ultimately let a recruiter represent him who had no connections to the Houston market.

Good recruiters actively represent you. They call partners, leverage relationships, buy lunches, dinners, coffees and beers, make the rounds in their markets, and most importantly, build relationships and trust so that when they present you to a client, your candidacy is strongly considered. And that is just the beginning of the process. We do this in Texas and so do some of our peers, but no recruiter can know every market and if a candidate places their future in the hands of a recruiter who is not deeply familiar with (and ideally resident in) a particular market, that candidate should probably get used to the idea of staying put for a while.

In closing, things look very promising on the Texas hiring front. We have not quite rebounded to 2007 levels yet, but the gap is closing and cautious optimism abounds. Our four Texas-based recruiters are working hard every day to effectively represent their candidates, and we are having great success assisting our candidates land great opportunities through our connections and relationships. This is what motivates us and we are happy to discuss the market with anyone willing to listen.