2020-21 Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion

[NSinger]

What kind of interview is it? Such as a competency/motivational interview, a case study/presentation, etc.

If you're asking in broad terms, unfortunately, there are multiple kinds of interviews/assessments, so it is hard to give a catch-all answer.

Hi Neville, Do you have any advice for a motivational interview? Any idea what questions to prepare for and expect. Many thanks in advance.

 

[bethbristol]

Many of us have experienced this I'm sure! Once, I realised I was waffling and quickly said 'so to answer your question' and I could swear the interviewer gave a little sigh of relief 😂

I once waffled SO much in my answer to why the firm and thought I had massively blown the interview - but I just had so much to say. Anyway continued the interview feeling pretty down that i’d blown it, until when I asked the interviewer at the end why he was at the firm and he said ‘well I wish I could give as good as answer as yours’ so moral of the story - even if it sounds like shite in your head, it might actually sound *alright*

edit: I got the role

 

[Omi]

has anyone done the verbal reasoning test for k&l gates yet , is it similar to watson glacer ?

 

[Anon08]

Hi Neville, Do you have any advice for a motivational interview? Any idea what questions to prepare for and expect. Many thanks in advance.

See here for a list of standard questions (see motivation section).

The usual motivation questions are:

1. Why are you interested in pursuing a career in commercial law?
2. Why are you interested in training/working at [insert firm name here]?

 

[els124]

I once waffled SO much in my answer to why the firm and thought I had massively blown the interview - but I just had so much to say. Anyway continued the interview feeling pretty down that i’d blown it, until when I asked the interviewer at the end why he was at the firm and he said ‘well I wish I could give as good as answer as yours’ so moral of the story - even if it sounds like shite in your head, it might actually sound *alright*

edit: I got the role

I always find it funny how bad employees' answers tend to be to the "Why this firm?" question. Like, if I said "the big deals and the friendly culture" when you asked me then you'd reject me in a heartbeat lol

 

[ZaraB]

Just had the most awful interview experience. It was my first ever interview, and I just flopped. You know when the words that leave your mouth don't match up to the ones in your head? The interviewers were lovely but I just felt sorry for them to be honest for having to listen to my waffle. Anyone had this experience before? Or any tips to try and forget about it and move on (inevitable PFO pending!)?

So many of these even outside of the VS interviews! I think whenever this happened to me I realised post-interview that I rushed through every question because I was anxious at the time but reflecting back on it I should have asked the interviewer to think about the answer before rushing to an answer as I could take a deep breath in and calm down before answering.

 

[NSinger]

See here for a list of standard questions (see motivation section).

The usual motivation questions are:

1. Why are you interested in pursuing a career in commercial law?
2. Why are you interested in training/working at [insert firm name here]?

Thank you so much for this!

 

[hamza alam]

What kind of interview is it? Such as a competency/motivational interview, a case study/presentation, etc.

If you're asking in broad terms, unfortunately, there are multiple kinds of interviews/assessments, so it is hard to give a catch-all answer.

i honestly dont know ,all i know is that its a partner interview for nrf

 

[Asil Ahmad]

has anyone done the verbal reasoning test for k&l gates yet , is it similar to watson glacer ?

I done a verbal reasoning test for HSF and it was really easy compared to watson glaser which is true false or cannot tell. I don't know if it is the same.

 

[Anon08]

i honestly dont know ,all i know is that its a partner interview for nrf

See here for a list of standard questions (see motivation section).

The usual motivation questions are:

1. Why are you interested in pursuing a career in commercial law?
2. Why are you interested in training/working at [insert firm name here]?

See the list I have quoted above, and this, which gives an indication of what to expect.

 

[ola830]

If I am being asked to provide a "personal summary" that includes my skills, roles and achievements as well as the kind of person I am, with no word limit or other guidance, would you treat that as something similar to a cover letter? And also, how long would you keep it? The answer I have at the moment is 650words but I have no idea if that is way too excessive or whether that would be seen as me putting in effort considering the lack of guidance. @Jessica Booker do you have any thoughts?

 

[Jacob Miller]

can anyone give me advice on the interview at an AC, like what i should be prepping for etc? tx

For the NRF interview, I would advise consulting my interview article accessible via my signature

 

[Jacob Miller]

If I am being asked to provide a "personal summary" that includes my skills, roles and achievements as well as the kind of person I am, with no word limit or other guidance, would you treat that as something similar to a cover letter? And also, how long would you keep it? The answer I have at the moment is 650words but I have no idea if that is way too excessive or whether that would be seen as me putting in effort considering the lack of guidance. @Jessica Booker do you have any thoughts?

I'd consider this broadly as a cover letter - generally about a page to a page and a half of A4 typed in size 12 is about the acceptable limit

Try not to focus too much on word count in the abstract, though - focus more so on content and style: a succinct, 350-word answer hitting all the key points will be regarded as better than a 600-word answer, of which 250 words are filler. Try to say everything as clearly, concisely and succinctly as possible and then consider your word count as a secondary issue

 

[Lastseasonwonder]

Hiya!

Personally, I never really tried to link my deals of interest to my commercial awareness. I usually prepped for 2 key firm deals then 3 areas of commercial awareness. I never really found that I had to link them as they would usually come under two different questions e.g. why X firm? ( I would mention a deal of interest when discussing the firm's expertise) and tell me about a commercial story you have been following? (I'd mentioned my commercial stories).

Hope this helps & best of luck tomorrow ☺️

@Naomi U what do you mean by three areas of commercial awareness - like 3 news stories (e.g Tesla purchasing $1.5B of bitcoin)

I have an NRF AC coming up which includes an interview with 2 partners and very unsure on how to prep for the commercial awarness questions. It's making me very anxious. Can you please advise me on this.

 

[Jessica Booker]

If I am being asked to provide a "personal summary" that includes my skills, roles and achievements as well as the kind of person I am, with no word limit or other guidance, would you treat that as something similar to a cover letter? And also, how long would you keep it? The answer I have at the moment is 650words but I have no idea if that is way too excessive or whether that would be seen as me putting in effort considering the lack of guidance. @Jessica Booker do you have any thoughts?

I think you could go up to around 800 words if you wanted to.

 

[Helpme12345]

Anyone heard from Vinson & Elkins post interview? I know it will probably be Monday... but also hoping to hear back today!

 

[Crastle]

Because it’s not the done thing - most people will just forward it to HR or delete it.

Go for it if you want to, but there is a reason these things go through HR/Recruitment. The decision is not made by individual interviewers, it’s coordinating their the recruitment team, so they should be your go to people.

Thats interesting I didn’t know that. I just assumed that it was more of a case of interviewers feeding back to recruitmrnt with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. So do interviewers tend to pass on their notes to recruitment and then recruitment make a final decision based on the notes?

 

[Legal_rawn]

Jones day rejection post interview. Gutted as I thought it went really well and got on so well with my interviewers. They don’t offer feedback either. I think this is probably the end of my legal journey so it was nice meeting people on this forum and best of luck to everyone!

 

[law1999]

Has anyone heard from TLT post AC for a direct TC?

 

[AJLegacy]

Jones day rejection post interview. Gutted as I thought it went really well and got on so well with my interviewers. They don’t offer feedback either. I think this is probably the end of my legal journey so it was nice meeting people on this forum and best of luck to everyone!

Obviously I don't know what your reasons are for saying it's the end of your legal journey but, if it's this undoubtedly demoralising experience, please try to remember that you must be so incredibly capable to get to the stage that you did. A little more perseverance will pay off and you're already far ahead of most.