I am feeling so overwhelmed at the moment. I am trying to come up with examples for different competency questions and I am blank. Completely blank. I feel like I have nothing to talk about. But I also don't want to make up things. How are people tackling such questions and preparing examples?
First piece of advice is to take a deep breath and make a cup of tea, step away from the screen, etc. Then what really helped for me was writing out a timeline of my life essentially (lol) starting from 16 to now (26!) and including everything I'd done, no matter how big or small. The crucial thing was this timeline was for me, not firms, so I included things that wouldn't traditionally 'impress' a law firm (more on that later...) but were notable to me personally.
After that, I wrote out all the common competencies (teamwork, communication, leadership, integrity, innovation / commerciality, overcoming a challenge, resilience, sorting out a dispute) and put them near my timeline so I had a nice visual encompassing everything. Final thing was to go through the competencies, with the timeline there to jog my memory (sometimes I'd literally run through it with each competency in mind). I would always try and think to myself, 'what
genuinely springs to mind when thinking about this quality?' E.G, if a friend asked you the same question, what would you say?
With that approach, I found I actually had quite a lot to draw upon. For instance, a challenge / a time I showed resilience was actually when I was made redundant from a job post-uni. What I did in response was I quickly adapted to the empty year I suddenly had in front of me by volunteering and working in a pub, meticulously saving so I could go travelling, which I couldn't have done if I hadn't been made redundant. Another challenge I often write about is not meeting my predicted A-Level grades, and my example for teamwork is always when I worked Christmas Day at a pub! None of these are on paper 'impressive', but they work for me because they're true, so when prompted I can expand and give detail - this is ultimately what firms are looking for.
Edit: Just to add this, I have done a few work experiences in law firms, and funnily enough these are the examples I drew upon the least in competency questions... I would say they were way more useful for justifying my interest in law / specific practice areas. So don't worry at all about a lack of law expo, there are ways to justify your interest without it and I barely use them for competencies anyway.
