Clifford Chance Vacation Scheme Application

[M777]

Clifford Chance's vacation scheme application question for this year is as follows:
You have told us about your academic achievements and work experience and now, in no more than 600 words, we are keen to hear more about you. This should include your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of.

How would I go about structuring my answer to this question? I thought that I'd make a list of 4 or 5 distinct points addressing each part of the question, and how each point developed the skills I need to be a good trainee, but I'm not sure whether I need to link all my points back to Clifford Chance/commercial law. I want to avoid writing a simple list of achievements or extracurriculars, unless this is what the question is asking me to do.

Any advice by any person is sincerely appreciated.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Clifford Chance's vacation scheme application question for this year is as follows:
You have told us about your academic achievements and work experience and now, in no more than 600 words, we are keen to hear more about you. This should include your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of.

How would I go about structuring my answer to this question? I thought that I'd make a list of 4 or 5 distinct points addressing each part of the question, and how each point developed the skills I need to be a good trainee, but I'm not sure whether I need to link all my points back to Clifford Chance/commercial law. I want to avoid writing a simple list of achievements or extracurriculars, unless this is what the question is asking me to do.

Any advice by any person is sincerely appreciated.

I personally don’t feel like you need to do the “how each point developed the skills I need to be a good trainee“ part - most of the time this is pretty self explanatory, especially linking it back to commercial law. You “could” link back to the skills or competencies CC recruits for, but even then phrases like “this have me the opportunity to development my team work skills” when you are talking about something as obvious as working on a committee or in a sports team is a massive waste of word count.

It’s not asking you to just list experiences. What you really have to explain what you achieved within them (ie what did you personally accomplish that might not have happened if you weren’t there).

 

[PSM]

I personally don’t feel like you need to do the “how each point developed the skills I need to be a good trainee“ part - most of the time this is pretty self explanatory, especially linking it back to commercial law. You “could” link back to the skills or competencies CC recruits for, but even then phrases like “this have me the opportunity to development my team work skills” when you are talking about something as obvious as working on a committee or in a sports team is a massive waste of word count.

It’s not asking you to just list experiences. What you really have to explain what you achieved within them (ie what did you personally accomplish that might not have happened if you weren’t there).

Hi Jessica,

Do you think it is better to take the approach of discussing 1-2 examples in more detail and expanding deeper on those points or 3-5 with less detail but more variety.

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi Jessica,

Do you think it is better to take the approach of discussing 1-2 examples in more detail and expanding deeper on those points or 3-5 with less detail but more variety.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Depends. If you only have 2 examples but these have depth and meaning (and achievement), that’s fine. If most of your experiences are more superficial and you are just waffling to expand on the “detail” though, that’s not good. But at the same time there’s little point listing out loads of things where you haven’t really done much (eg being a member of a society).

So it depends on your profile and what you have achieved, and what you are proud of. I’d probably go into a little more detail on the “achievement you are proud of” to explain why it is the one thing you chose though.

 

[M777]

I personally don’t feel like you need to do the “how each point developed the skills I need to be a good trainee“ part - most of the time this is pretty self explanatory, especially linking it back to commercial law. You “could” link back to the skills or competencies CC recruits for, but even then phrases like “this have me the opportunity to development my team work skills” when you are talking about something as obvious as working on a committee or in a sports team is a massive waste of word count.

It’s not asking you to just list experiences. What you really have to explain what you achieved within them (ie what did you personally accomplish that might not have happened if you weren’t there).

Thanks a lot!

 

[Osh]

Depends. If you only have 2 examples but these have depth and meaning (and achievement), that’s fine. If most of your experiences are more superficial and you are just waffling to expand on the “detail” though, that’s not good. But at the same time there’s little point listing out loads of things where you haven’t really done much (eg being a member of a society).

So it depends on your profile and what you have achieved, and what you are proud of. I’d probably go into a little more detail on the “achievement you are proud of” to explain why it is the one thing you chose though.

Would it be okay to introduce this section literally in those words? i.e the achievement I'm most proud of is...

 

[Jessica Booker]

Would it be okay to introduce this section literally in those words? i.e the achievement I'm most proud of is...

If you want to start with that, then yes not an issue at all. Just make sure you cover the other points.

 

[Osh]

In answering this question I have included one international extra-curricular activity, would it be too repetitive to include another even though the second was in a different area. (1st was legal volunteering abroad in a country where I had extensive knowledge of the language, second a language study programme).

 

[Jessica Booker]

In answering this question I have included one international extra-curricular activity, would it be too repetitive to include another even though the second was in a different area. (1st was legal volunteering abroad in a country where I had extensive knowledge of the language, second a language study programme).

Sound like two very different things to me

 

[Osh]

Sound like two very different things to me

Thankyou