Electronics Patent
Attorneys No Longer Grow On Trees But They Might Be Hiding In Giant Haystacks.
In a follow-up to his
article ‘Do Electronics Patent Attorneys Really Grow On Trees?’ published in
February 2010, Pete Fellows reports that a pre-recessionary state of affairs
has apparently re-emerged.
Towards the end of 2009 and through the beginning of last
year, I noticed a very unfamiliar trend.
That was, for the first time in a very long time, there were more Patent
Attorneys with a technical background in electronics looking for work than
there were jobs.
That was short-lived.
In an absolute reverse of where we stood in February 2010,
there are now many more jobs than there are people for them. The options for electronics Patent Attorneys
are myriad and there is certainly no shortage of firms clambering over each
other to find a new a recruit in this area.
However the picture is not necessarily as simple as it might
sound. There do remain some difficulties
for this now coveted category of Patent Attorney.
Industry Is Not Where
It’s At
It might be easy to move private practices but getting a job
in industry is still extremely difficult – we’re not up there with winning the
lottery but perhaps at least Stoke FC thrashing Manchester City 3-0 away sort
of odds. The problem is that there are
quite a lot of Attorneys who do fancy moving but are not particularly
interested in another private practice.
These are the people that seem to appear from nowhere when an industry
position arises. Salaries for industry
positions are nowhere near what they were (and getting a bonus of any size can
be arbitrary at best; as difficult as mowing the lawn with nail clippers at
worst) and hence added to the tough competition for in-house positions is a need
to compromise on earning potential far more than many are prepared to stomach.
Being a Partner – An
Achievable Goal?
It’s also not necessarily easy for Attorneys who either are,
or nearly are Partners and wish to move to a competing firm. There has been an apparent and brutally quick
upturn in work across the electronics sector but practices themselves are in
many cases still suffering from at least two years of economic
uncertainty. This has a few implications:
1) Equity Partners are less interested in reducing their own share of the pot;
2) Firms are less interested therefore in hiring attorneys that might be
banging down the door for partnership; 3) This has meant that the surge in
demand is really only at part qualified, newly qualified and recently qualified
levels. Having a client following does
help circumvent the politics to some extent, although as getting work in
electronics is not really the problem for many firms it is far less attractive
than one might think.
So how does one take
advantage of these new developments?
If you’re part qualified and not satisfied with your current
firm or remuneration, now is the time to move.
Contrary to popular belief there are radical differences between private
practices, and one should certainly not assume that any job in private practice
will be similar to the last. You might
improve the range of work you get exposed to; the environment you work within
and the fit with the people you work with.
Despite the issues of long term progression indicated above, for many
firms there are shortages of people at part qualified level which does provide
the hope that, by the time you were eligible, achieving partnership might be a
great deal easier than it is now. The
same could be said of newly or recently qualified candidates but one should be as
certain as possible of the career prospects you might be switching to – moving
to a bigger salary is attractive of course but if your peers in the firm you
have left achieve partnership much earlier you might regret the decision in a
few years’ time. Getting an independent
view of a firm from a friend from another firm might be useful (as would
speaking to a recruiter of course!) as practices may make assurances they
intend to keep but turn out to be practically more difficult than
imagined. No firm will give cast iron
assurances of Partnership to newly recruited Associates so one should look
beyond the partial promises to the economic performance of the firm and its
staff make up (Are partners retiring? Have they expanded their operations? Have
they won new business?).
What does this mean
for firms?
For firms of Patent Attorneys, unless you have an unlikely
slice of luck you will have to be more creative in candidate incentive
strategies. I appreciate that very often
the inclination in candidate-short climates is perhaps first to advertise
directly, and then when that proves fruitless to contact every recruitment
consultancy one can think of on the off chance they have a candidate. There are some merits to this approach; some
candidates are loyal to one consultancy over another and – in theory at least –
you will have access to more candidates if you approach more
consultancies. The disadvantages are
less obvious but actually quite crucial.
As a recruiter, if we had an attorney with a marketable background who
wished to work for a specific firm we would approach them irrespective of
whether we were aware of a vacancy. I
appreciate that you might get bombarded with inappropriate CVs from some of the
less ethical recruiters but I would hope that the more professional amongst us
would only approach a firm with candidates that at least would fit the typical
profile of an attorney with your firm. So
access to good CVs might not be hampered by not contacting every possible supplier
right away. A key disadvantage of this
strategy for a firm of patent attorneys is one of priority for a recruiter. Naturally, we prioritise firms which we as
recruiters understand better – that’s because we can more accurately sell the
opportunities to candidates and indeed make promises on behalf of a client
because we are given latitude to do so and work within the capabilities of the
firm to keep the candidate interested.
We would also prioritise firms that give us opportunities first or indeed
exclusively (and this could include a more aggressive strategy for attracting
candidates on behalf of a specific firm, such as utilising social media or the
occasional headhunt call). We can also
partner with firms to develop a marketing strategy beyond the norm – video,
multiplatform advertising, press releases, etc.
It is crucial that firms consider the levels of remuneration
they can afford and the career progression they can offer. For the most part, attorneys are not moving
for a bigger salary but clarity on this can increase the prospects of a hire. Protracted negotiations can send an attorney
into the welcome arms of a competitor with a more straight forward
offering. Most Attorneys want to achieve
an increase on what they’re earning but the more common driving factor is
undoubtedly the longer term prospects of a role (as well as secondary
considerations such as the mix of direct/indirect work, the range of clients
and technologies, exposure to more complex work such as oppositions, etc.); the
more a firm can be explicit about this the more likely they are to be
successful in recruiting new talent.
Summary:
- You’re an electronics Patent Attorney? Woo-hoo!
You have loads of options – just be careful to examine them carefully and keep
an open mind. Oh and if you want to work
in-house prepare for a fight. - You’re a firm of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys?
Time to get creative and be realistic about your expectations – be as flexible
as possible, be prepared to pay more than is ideal and be prepared to wait.
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