Dheepa
Legendary Member
Staff member
Future Trainee
TCLA Moderator
Premium Member
Forum Team
M&A Bootcamp
Junior Lawyer 43
- Jan 20, 2019
- 852
- 2,158
Thank you, that's great.
The rather unusual, yet somewhat fortunate position I am in is that a firm I applied to for a VS has accelerated my application towards a direct TC interview. So, I've not actually done the VS, nor do I have any other prior work experience that is legally related. In this scenario, do you think the interview will be much more like a general VS interview with, as you said, more emphasis on digging deeper?
Also, how would you answer the following question: "you have no legal work experience, why should we hire you over other candidates that have"?
Yup, definitely. If you haven’t done the VS it will be just a tougher version of a typical VS interview.
I think the second one is hard to give advice on without knowing your exact experiences to date. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk your answer through. Some generic thoughts I have are that I would maybe answer it in two parts. One, how I learnt what I know about the work a commercial lawyer does and what draws me to it. I’m assuming you have attended events or open days with various firms and I would draw on anything substantive you’ve learnt through these that demonstrate that tangible interest. Two, I’d highlight skills that I have that are directly related to things trainees/lawyers do. So things like research, analytical ability, client service. What experiences have you had that made you realise you enjoyed those things and would find a career that drew on that fulfilling?