2020-21 Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion

[Adrian_Healey]

PFO from Dechert and W&C, neither terribly surprising but still not a good day lmao

 

[Raluca-Madalina Mardarescu]

Hello guys! Any advice on this? Thank you so much!
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated change to our ways of working and the delivery of client service. Looking forward, consider the challenges facing the profession and describe how Shoosmiths can remain competitive and attractive to clients without compromising on profitability? There are many issues which may feed in to this answer, but we would like you to focus on your top three priorities

 

[Kerry]

PFO from Jones Day after interview, RIP

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that! You shouldn't worry too much though, there will deffo be other chances. What was it about the interview that tripped you up? Were there any questions that were particularly hard?

 

[PositiveVibesOnly]

@Dheepa @Jacob Miller @Daniel Boden @Naomi U @Alice G

For an AC/Interview, where does my commercial awareness need to be? To be specific, are there things I should definitely know about instead of being able to talk about my interests?

This leads me to my follow up question, what can one do in terms of commercial awareness in anticipation of an interview/AC - I have some firms in the works and I hope to have an AC/Interview for any or all of them. Im not saying I will get it but I am so worried that I want to start prepping my commercial awareness/knowledge now rather than after getting the invitation for the AC/interview. What can I do?

For more context, If I get the ACs, they will include a written exercise, partner/associate interview, presentation and negotiation.

Thank you

Know I wasn’t tagged but would really reiterate some of the sources Jacob said - immensely recommend Finimize, the daily FT podcast is great whilst having a coffee in the morning, also I went through Investopedia’s dictionary terms to make sure I understood any business terms that could have came up, and listened to podcasts like Americast and Reasons to be Cheerful. They were all I used to participate in the AS commercial awareness competition and for TC apps and ACs.

definitely agree about picking out a few commercial areas for a bit of a deep dive - the ones I did were AI in law and tech risk, and climate change, and tried to look at how these things could affect individual clients (and tried to find clients the firm worked with to specifically mention), and cause new trends in business, also looking at what law firms could pre-emptively advise on to help clients stay ahead.

hope this even vaguely helps!! 😘 good luck I’m sure you’ll do grand!

 

[Abgaal]

Cleary rejection.. about time lol

 

[Kerry]

PFO from Jones Day after interview, RIP

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that! Don't worry about it too much though, you'll deffo have other opportunities. What was it about the interview that tripped you up? Were there any particularly hard questions?

 

[Lastseasonwonder]

Hi Dwight,

It's challenging to say precisely where your commercial awareness needs to be in terms of specific stories. For me, CA was always a combination of being aware of general news and current affairs as well as how these affect or could affect law firms/ the firm you're at and how these factors ininteract. I think you should also have one or two key stories/ issues in which you are more expert for the sort of "what have you been looking at in the news" issues.

For staying up to date with CA, I personally woukd recommend the Financial Times, Finimize, the TCLA newsletters and also the CA forums here which will be expanding in the coming weeks with @Dheepa and I putting some more discussions in there.

For the other parts of the AC like the negotiation and case study, you might want to look at the articles I've already written on these if you've not read them before.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for this!

I don't know if it is me or my friendship with imposter syndrome. I'm listening to FT podcast and reading more closely about my interests - hopefully this is enough and I will be reading more specific once the AC invite hopefully comes thro.

Edit: Forgot to add - the part in commercial awareness about impact on firms/clients, am I am able to go somewhere to find this out/check my analysis? I mostly read FT and it doesn't have this.

 

[CareerChanger]

At this point I’m basically anticipating PFOs for all the rolling firms that already closed that haven’t PFOd me yet

 

[MJ90]

Cleary PFO. Least they didn't 'jaysen' me...(6 years and waiting for a response)

 

[Lastseasonwonder]

Know I wasn’t tagged but would really reiterate some of the sources Jacob said - immensely recommend Finimize, the daily FT podcast is great whilst having a coffee in the morning, also I went through Investopedia’s dictionary terms to make sure I understood any business terms that could have came up, and listened to podcasts like Americast and Reasons to be Cheerful. They were all I used to participate in the AS commercial awareness competition and for TC apps and ACs.

definitely agree about picking out a few commercial areas for a bit of a deep dive - the ones I did were AI in law and tech risk, and climate change, and tried to look at how these things could affect individual clients (and tried to find clients the firm worked with to specifically mention), and cause new trends in business, also looking at what law firms could pre-emptively advise on to help clients stay ahead.

hope this even vaguely helps!! 😘 good luck I’m sure you’ll do grand!

Thanks @PositiveVibesOnly for this!

Can I make it clear that you DONT NEED TO BE TAGGED TO CONTRIBUTE! Everyone is welcome to contribute to discussions and I am really glad you did. I only tagged the people I did because they are TCLA staff and so I only know them on TCLA, so TCLA members please feel free to if you want.

Appreciate the support!

 

[Celestie]

What was it about the interview that tripped you up? Were there any particularly hard questions?

I feel as though this is a lil insensitive to ask someone when they've just had a pfo...

 

[Celestie]

Know I wasn’t tagged but would really reiterate some of the sources Jacob said - immensely recommend Finimize, the daily FT podcast is great whilst having a coffee in the morning, also I went through Investopedia’s dictionary terms to make sure I understood any business terms that could have came up, and listened to podcasts like Americast and Reasons to be Cheerful. They were all I used to participate in the AS commercial awareness competition and for TC apps and ACs.

definitely agree about picking out a few commercial areas for a bit of a deep dive - the ones I did were AI in law and tech risk, and climate change, and tried to look at how these things could affect individual clients (and tried to find clients the firm worked with to specifically mention), and cause new trends in business, also looking at what law firms could pre-emptively advise on to help clients stay ahead.

hope this even vaguely helps!! 😘 good luck I’m sure you’ll do grand!

Finimize is a godsend but christ the emails give me a heart attack every day

 

[Lastseasonwonder]

Finimize is a godsend but christ the emails give me a heart attack every day

Ok Ill check them out - what is it about Finimize that is so good? A lot of people use it/talk about it

 

[Celestie]

Ok Ill check them out - what is it about Finimize that is so good? A lot of people use it/talk about it

Basically they give you the TLDR of whats happening in the commercial world - I find FT a bit too complicated when I am in a rush but Finimize gives me bitesize chunks

 

[PositiveVibesOnly]

Ok Ill check them out - what is it about Finimize that is so good? A lot of people use it/talk about it

they give you a business news summary that you can read in around 3 minutes. Really accessible language, daily emails. Just really easy going and most stories are broken down into 1) what’s going on 2) what does it mean 3) why should I care. So it’s applied/contextual

 

[Ricky]

PFO from Dechert. Kinda expected it this late in the game tbh considering I applied 3 Dec.

 

[Pallatablelawyer]

PFO from Dechert. Kinda expected it this late in the game tbh considering I applied 3 Dec.

Can’t knock you down though Ricky, I remember you still got that Macfarlanes vs 🤪 Congrats again btw!

 

[Lastseasonwonder]

Basically they give you the TLDR of whats happening in the commercial world - I find FT a bit too complicated when I am in a rush but Finimize gives me bitesize chunks

they give you a business news summary that you can read in around 3 minutes. Really accessible language, daily emails. Just really easy going and most stories are broken down into 1) what’s going on 2) what does it mean 3) why should I care. So it’s applied/contextual

Thanks!

You guys are referring to the newsletter which anyone can sign up to for free?

 

[PositiveVibesOnly]

Thanks!

You guys are referring to the newsletter which anyone can sign up to for free?

Oui, I’ve had the premium version for free before interviews before but found that more overwhelming a resource due to the volume they then give you, so would definitely just recommend the free newsletter initially

 

[dxbbilly]

Anyone heard back from Travers Smith or Trowers since application deadline? Thanks!

still no