We were lucky to catch up with Erica Moore-Burton, Esq. recently and have shared our conversation below.

Erica , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

Thanks for having me again.  That’s a great question, Round Hill Search (RHS) didn’t have employees from the beginning, it was me, myself and I! I have been in the legal recruiting industry for over 20 years now, but at the time when I started Round Hill Search, I had just exited a partnership and was at a crossroads as to what I was going to do next.  I love the recruiting industry, so made the decision to start a firm and it started with me! At the time, I had worked with 3 other recruiting firms and had interviewed with countless others, and there had always been something missing for me in terms of merging business values with my personal values. I worked with contractors for a long time before I hired my first full-time employee. Before doing so, I had to come up with the values for the company and the values that were going to be attractive in prospective employees. A large part of my interview process is a discussion surrounding their personal and professional values. During the interview process I really like prospective employees to tell me stories, both personal and professional, that demonstrate the values that are important to them. Sometimes there is a story behind where a value comes from, or a time when a value was in danger of being compromised, I love to hear them because they can really tell you who someone is. RHS was founded on three values: Excellence, Integrity and Service. Those values are woven through everything that we do. I often ask prospective employees what those three values mean to them as well.  RHS’s values have to resonate with our employees. Understanding someone’s values can help guide employers on ways to engage, motivate and inspire employees to do their best work. Collectively, my team now is comprised of a group of individuals that are so amazing and do so well together while working as a team. My first employee is still with me today and I am really grateful for her commitment and drive. I found her through the job boards and since it was only me at the time, I didn’t have a ‘panel’ or a ‘team’ to conduct further interviews so I had to get creative about what other markers I could use as assessment tools. Something that I did then and still do now is ask prospective employees to do a practical exercise which incorporates pitching an applicant to me both verbally and in written form. This is such a great data point because there are so many things that I’m looking for in this exercise. I have had applicants that have had a great interview, then fail to complete the exercise in a timely fashion or get intimidated by the exercise! My first employee did the exercise within hours of completing the interview with me. I was so impressed by the fact that she did it immediately. The exercise doesn’t have to be done perfectly, and in fact it typically isn’t ever done perfectly, but there are other markers that relate to confidence, initiative and coachability, all of which are important and necessary attributes for a successful career in recruiting.

Erica , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I fell into legal recruiting after realizing that pursuing a career as an attorney wasn’t for me. At the time I was licensed in the State of New York, however, I knew in my heart that I would not be a happy lawyer and frankly didn’t want to be. I was miserable working at the firm where I was working at the time, and after much soul searching took the leap into legal recruiting. I am a natural giver and love to help people, so it was no surprise that I was successful immediately. The day I walked into the offices of an international Fortune 500 recruiting firm and started making calls, I absolutely loved it. I knew from my first week that this was going to be my long-term career. Because of my passion and love for the work, I climbed the corporate ladder very quickly and moved from an Account Executive to Division then Branch Director within 4 years, Thereafter, I moved to an Executive Director role of a national firm, then the Vice-President of a regional recruiting firm. The natural next step after this career progression was for me to head my own firm.

Round Hill Search works with AMLaw 100 firms, mid-sized firms and solo practitioners. The problem we help our clients solve is finding top legal talent, from attorneys and paralegals to support staff. We work with our client’s direct hire needs as well as their need for temporary/contract staff. My team has a deep inventory of legal talent at their finger tips and their fingers on the pulse when it comes to market knowledge as it relates to trends, firm culture, competitive compensation, benefits etc.

Next year, Round Hill will celebrate 10 years of being in business, which has gone so quickly! I am really proud of that alone. It’s been an exhilarating journey, and I’m happy to be on it still with such a strong and dedicated team of Recruiting Associates. What sets us apart from others in the industry is our commitment to service. Our clients and candidates come back to us time and time again because of the quality service that we offer. I have had the opportunity to work at a number of recruiting firms over the years and can confidently state that we are the platinum standard of legal recruiting firms. Our internal processes, team values and commitment when it comes to service is unmatched in California. I know that’s a bold statement, but it really is true!

I’m excited about Round Hill’s continued growth and some new projects that are coming down the pipeline that will expand our services for candidates and also projects that are aimed at helping to increase diversity within the legal field. Our next interview will be about the success of those initiatives!

Any advice for managing a team?

I have managed teams for a large part of my career, and I think that the reason that I have been successful in this area is my ability to be a leader that inspires, leads with confidence, and takes the time to help individuals with their career and life goals. I have heard more than once during my career that I am a great leader and have won awards for leadership at various firms over the years. I genuinely care about people and their well-being, I am a high-energy person which I think that teams appreciate and while it is a new trend in business to take an interest in getting to know your team on a personal level, I have always subscribed to this philosophy. We spend enough time at work and people on teams are multi-faceted and have personal lives that are equally as important as their careers. Morale has been kept high within my teams because I have always encouraged my team to bring their ‘whole selves’ to work. I grew up in a time where it was important to keep your professional poker face on always, it was not okay to cry at work, and you had to hide or diminish the fact that you had kids or valued family life. I have always expressed a keen interest in people and their lives outside work, their families, hobbies, likes, dislikes etc. I think that this has always lent itself to my teams being comfortable at work so they can bring their best selves to the job and environment without the need to hide. I remember one day when one of my employees didn’t have any childcare at the last minute, I told her to bring her child to the office and my whole team watched her little one for the day while we worked. I didn’t even have kids of my own at that time, but I know that life happens and instead of her being stressed about it and frantically looking for alternatives, I was able to provide an environment for her that made allowances. I know that went a long way.

Even today, we have appearances from what I call the ‘mini-members’ of our team on zoom calls. I allow people to be themselves and to bring themselves to the workplace. I think that goes a long way in maintaining high morale on teams. I know that I have created a work environment that is a home away from home. People do their best work when they can be themselves fully, and when you create collaborative, open environments and ones that are conducive to people learning from their mistakes, that is great for morale.  At the end of the day, we are all human beings that want to be happy and fulfilled.  If you can create those types of environments,  I think that you get the best out of teams.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I have a very strong reputation in the market here in Los Angeles because I have been consistent in my commitments. I am the same Erica Moore-Burton that started behind that cubicle at the Fortune 500 International recruitment firm that I am today sitting behind my desk as the President of Round Hill Search. I have a deep commitment to excellence, integrity and service (the company values) and I bring that every day to everything that I touch, whether it’s a team meeting, a client call or an employee training session. I know many people have dipped in and out of the recruiting world, but this is what I have been doing for 10-14+ hours a day, every day, for 20 years. That counts for a lot. Once people meet me and ‘experience’ my work ethic, genuine desire to help and commitment to doing so, they often go and tell someone else. That in turn has led to a continual flow of referrals both for candidates and clients. I get referrals every single day, and some from 10-15 years ago. I have had that kind of impact on people over the years, and it continues to pay dividends today, which I am grateful for.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.roundhillsearch.com
• Instagram: @roundhillsearch
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericamooreburton/
• Other: https://nxtwork.org/bio/erica-moore-burton/

Image Credits
Headshot – Tiara Parker-Ragland