Hogan Lovells question

[whisperingrock]

Would this be an ok answer for this question:

Whilst working as a Trainee Accountant, my main function was to prepare and audit accounts for a range of clients. In doing so I had to balance different tasks at the same time, prioritising them and working accordingly. In one instance, I was preparing accounts and the personal and business tax computations for one of our clients, with this needing to be completed by midday on the following day, as one of the partners had a meeting with the client. I was on track to finish this in time, to then be able to pass it on to a senior accountant to check through, before handing it to the partner.

Later in the afternoon a more senior colleague of mine, informed me that he required help sorting through records of one of our most important clients, ready to prepare their end of year accounts, which were due imminently. I estimated how long I would need tomorrow to finalise the accounts preparation I had started and realised I would need to stay on for a short while after work, should this new task of sorting through records take the remainder of the day. I helped with methodically sorting through and recording the financials with my colleague so he could prepare the clients accounts. I then proceeded to finalise my work, staying on for an hour after work so that I could leave it on my colleague’s desk to check in the morning before handing it to the partner.

You are using up a lot of your word count pretty needlessly here. You can make every sentence more concise and doing that will give you more space to add more actions and make the result of your actions in the question clearer.

 

[kmo20]

"We set out standards high and we trust our people to hold themselves accountable for meeting other people’s expectations. Describe a time when you had to drop everything and really ‘raise your game’ in order to keep a promise you had made to someone else. How did you manage both this and your other commitments?"

This is a very specific question, how would you go about answering it if you don't really have a suitable example that answers all points of the question?

I suspect you are over thinking it in seeking what you think should be a perfect answer rather than a sufficient one.

Hi Jessica @Jessica Booker, I was wondering if you could give some insight into this question. I have an example of when I had to take a family member to A&E unexpectedly during exam season when I had multiple deadlines. Would this be an appropriate answer to this question and how I managed my time here, or would you suggest something that had a longer term effect? Thank you

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi Jessica @Jessica Booker, I was wondering if you could give some insight into this question. I have an example of when I had to take a family member to A&E unexpectedly during exam season when I had multiple deadlines. Would this be an appropriate answer to this question and how I managed my time here, or would you suggest something that had a longer term effect? Thank you

Personally, I would suggest finding something you had more impact on and had more responsibility for.

Academia is a personal and individual pursuit - how well you do doesn’t generally impact anyone else. I therefore don’t think this really hits the “upping your game” aspect of this question to me because of this.

In addition, with the A&E trip, ultimately that is only quite short-term - you could drive someone to A&E but once you were there you weren’t really responsible for them (I understand you may have had to stay with them, but you weren’t responsible for their care).

 

[kmo20]

Personally, I would suggest finding something you had more impact on and had more responsibility for.

Academia is a personal and individual pursuit - how well you do doesn’t generally impact anyone else. I therefore don’t think this really hits the “upping your game” aspect of this question to me because of this.

In addition, with the A&E trip, ultimately that is only quite short-term - you could drive someone to A&E but once you were there you weren’t really responsible for them (I understand you may have had to stay with them, but you weren’t responsible for their care).

Thank you so much for your help

 

[prospectiveswitcher]

Hi @Jessica Booker , would be interested to get your thoughts here, one of the other questions on the HL application is:
"Sustaining a successful and profitable practice requires both commercial awareness and innovative thinking. Tell us about something that you have done that shows you have a strong innovative or entrepreneurial spirit."

While at university I founded a startup with a friend which was awarded (a relatively small) amount of funding after pitching the business during a competition held at our university. Over the next year or so we continued to develop the business, being awarded more resources from other incubator-type programmes outside of our university, but ultimately the business did not take off (mainly due to regulatory hurdles) and we stopped pursuing it. Would it be risky to include this given it was ultimately not a success? I thought it was quite a strong example but am second guessing it now.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi @Jessica Booker , would be interested to get your thoughts here, one of the other questions on the HL application is:
"Sustaining a successful and profitable practice requires both commercial awareness and innovative thinking. Tell us about something that you have done that shows you have a strong innovative or entrepreneurial spirit."

While at university I founded a startup with a friend which was awarded (a relatively small) amount of funding after pitching the business during a competition held at our university. Over the next year or so we continued to develop the business, being awarded more resources from other incubator-type programmes outside of our university, but ultimately the business did not take off (mainly due to regulatory hurdles) and we stopped pursuing it. Would it be risky to include this given it was ultimately not a success? I thought it was quite a strong example but am second guessing it now.

You did have success in securing the funding - I would focus on that aspect of the success. But you do need to explain why you were innovative or entrepreneurial in this example - just because it was a start up, you can’t assume that comes across in the answer, so be explicit in explaining why what you did was entrepreneurial or innovative.

 

[prospectiveswitcher]

You did have success in securing the funding - I would focus on that aspect of the success. But you do need to explain why you were innovative or entrepreneurial in this example - just because it was a start up, you can’t assume that comes across in the answer, so be explicit in explaining why what you did was entrepreneurial or innovative.

Thanks Jessica, I have altered my answer to reflect this. As a brief follow up question, should I also mention this in the 'work experience' section? I may end up repeating things so was not sure if appropriate to include here.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Thanks Jessica, I have altered my answer to reflect this. As a brief follow up question, should I also mention this in the 'work experience' section? I may end up repeating things so was not sure if appropriate to include here.

Did it become a registered business? If so yes. If it was more the securing funding via pitches, I would leave it for an extra information question or extracurriculars question.