Jessica Booker
Legendary Member
TCLA Moderator
Gold Member
Graduate Recruitment
Premium Member
Forum Team
- Aug 1, 2019
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You don't need to change your work experience unless it is a role you are still in and there are additional experiences/responsibilities you have gained since your last application. You could obviously just to a quick check to see whether you would explain things slightly differently. For instance, the last time I reviewed my CV I thought on several points "why the hell did you write it like that, would be better if you said it like this instead" and so changed my CV ever so slightly to what I felt was a better worded version of the same experiences.
For Freshfields personal statements, I have seen enough people state having come through to assessment centre last cycle they are more determined to apply to the firm again. It can work very well to be clear that you go to that stage, but I do think you need to have a significant development somewhere in your application for them to warrant bringing you through to interview again. If you can particularly show how you have worked on the feedback they provided, then this can also be helpful in convincing them to interview you again.
Commercial awareness is not really about learning stuff. Instead, see it as an opportunity to show how you are generally interested in commercial matters and pursuing opportunities to learn more. This could be with actual learning (courses, training etc) or could be by taking on responsibility to work on commercial topics (blogging, writing articles, taking part in commercial awareness competitions, taking more more BD/research task or other activities that deal with more commercial topics at work). Its not really about going "I now know about M&A", its more about demonstrating you have actively sought opportunities to think more commercially in the things you do.
