With an ever rising number of graduates entering the legal profession, in addition to its increasing popularity as a second career path, there is significantly more competition for jobs in the legal marketplace than there has been for quite some time.

There has been a 35% rise in newly qualified solicitors joining the profession in the decade to 2004.

This is not just scare-mongering for trainee solicitors or indeed more seasoned solicitors in the market for employment.

The reality of today's marketplace is that the employers hold all the cards - not, unfortunately, the applicants.

With such a diversity of candidates on offer, each boasting a plethora of different skills and abilities, firms have such a variety of talent to choose from that they are no longer content with the customary client skills and file-handling ability.

It is those all-important additional skills that are setting people apart from the average competent applicant.

In such a climate, people are being forced to make difficult decisions about their chosen careers, often opting to consider several legal disciplines where they might have traditionally only chosen one, to ensure that they secure employment post-training.

It seems that few solicitors these days are achieving the dream job that was the reality for most of those who qualified in the 1980s boom years.

One particular candidate remembers going for seven job interviews in this golden age and subsequently being offered all seven positions; simply achieving seven interviews would be considered a veritable feast in the famine of today's recruitment scenario.

It appears, bizarrely enough, that the more competitive and challenging the legal marketplace becomes, the more specific the candidates are becoming about precisely what kind of firm, role, salary and working environment they are seeking.

With our 21st century quest for perfection in all areas of our lives and our general perception that we are somehow entitled to the deal job, an environment where perfectly good job offers are being turned down owing to slightly inadequate salaries or slightly long commutes, for example, is becoming all pervading.

The remedy is compromise, but it is good news for those who are flexible enough to realise that often what may seem like a sideways step can in fact be a door to a satisfying long-term career.

Many are discovering, for example, that the smaller firm they may not have considered might actually offer them greater variety of work or indeed earlier and more real prospects for partnership, or that a lower salary is a small trade-off for a short commute and a relaxed attitude to billing targets.

It is a clich, but those open-minded enough to 'think outside the box' are the ones who are still succeeding, despite the challenges they face.

Debbie Hill is a consultant at Harris Legal Recruitment