Scenario Based Assessment

[Jooooopp7]

I have an interview coming up that is based around scenario assessments and was wondering if anyone has any sample questions or tips for these types of interview?
I usually struggle to think of innovative answers and also worry that some of my answers are a little silly because a trainee would never do that of be allowed to do a certain thing for example.

Any help would be super appreciated!

 

[Jaysen]

Sure, here's some practice questions I have from a variety of firms:

• If your colleague was slacking at work because of personal issues that they didn’t want to share with their boss, what would you do?
• You’re a trainee, and you have been working really hard on a specific task. An associate says that you need to take a completely different approach and scrap what you’re doing right now. How do you react to this?’
• Imagine a situation where you completed a piece of work and want to get feedback, but the partner is very busy, how do you approach this?
• You are staying late in the office tonight because you are leaving work early tomorrow to go away for the weekend. A partner invites you to a client dinner. How would you respond?
• You notice a trainee solicitor outside your office is being rude to a secretary, what do you do?
• You’re working on a project with a tight deadline but you find that you’re unable to complete your section because your coworkers and your supervisor are unavailable to answer a few key questions. How do you deal with the situation?
• You are staying late in the office tonight because you are leaving work early tomorrow to go away for the weekend. A partner invites you to a client dinner. How would you respond?
• A first seat trainee is being quite rude to support staff and this is beginning to rub off on you and other trainees. You hear support staff complaining about the "trainee's attitude". How would you respond?
• You’ve been assigned a major project and are halfway through when you realise that you’ve made a mistake that requires you to go back to the beginning to fix it. How do you handle that while still trying to make your deadline?
• You’re working on a project with other trainees. What would you do if the work of one of your trainees was not up to expectations?
• What would you do if you made a mistake that no one else noticed? Would you address the error and risk slowing things down or ignore it to keep the project or task moving forward?
• Suppose there is a dispute between two parties, and the other party mistakenly discloses some privileged information to you. That privileged information will benefit your party – is it okay to keep it and not say anything?
• Yesterday you told your supervisor that you would be free today. Your supervisor lets you know that you should help him with an urgent project but you had taken on some work for an associate earlier on in the day. There are six other trainees who are available. What would you do?
• What would you do if you have a flight to catch in the morning and work to get done tonight but a partner asks you to attend a client dinner?
• A trainee is being rowdy at an event. How would you approach this?
• You're a trainee. You're moved to another team by an associate. You were doing really well so didn't know why. You aren't familiar with the new deal team's work. What do you do?

No need to worry about giving an 'innovative' answer. I find it helpful to just imagine I was in that situation and break down exactly what I'd do.

 

[D]

I completed a "Scenario" Interview at HSF. I'd recommend looking at the feedback that has been posted on TCLA and alternative websites about the assessment. For reference, the form mine took was that the partner spoke about a previous deal they had worked on. They presented the issues to you and looked for you to provide solutions.

As Jaysen has noted above, they come in all shapes and sizes, but, I thought that simply knowing how the HSF one worked may offer you some assistance.

Best of luck!

 

[Alice G]

From my experience, I also had HSF which was very commercial in the sense it was a scenario the firm had faced and you had to answer questions and essentially find solutions to the issues presented as @D has said. I found this scenario assessment was very hard to prepare for and just require some common sense thinking and logic to try and arrive at what you think would be the best solution. However, the other style is the SJTs ones which are more 'on the job' so you will get a trainee situation and be asked to explain what you would do. Weirdly, I found the latter harder and think it is because you need to structure them more tightly.

Here are my quick tips for the SJT questions (ones like 'you have a deadline but are meeting friends for dinner, what do you do?')

- don't take anything for granted - if you are making some assumptions because the scenario was vague, vocalise them. Say that 'well, if this is because of X then I would firstly do X'. When given a scenario try to think about the different reasons and scenarios which might be underpinning it. For example, if someone is clocking off early in the team when you have a deadline, you might want to take a moment to consider whether it matters what they are clocking off for. If someone's family member has been taken suddenly ill then you might approach this differently to someone leaving to have drinks with a friend which could be readily rescheduled. So, always consider the various contexts to a given situation before having your answer ready.
- following this, have various levels to your response. By this I mean you need to structure your response. You could do so like this: 'In the first instance, I would do X... in failing that, or as a plan B I would do X...' This can give your thinking better structure and can allow the interviewer to appreciate what you are trying to say and allows them to see your all-important thought process.
- Try to answer honestly. Different firms will have different ways they want you to answer these questions because they all have slightly different cultures and ways of doing things. Try to give what you would honestly do in a given situation as this is all part of the matching process and seeing whether your character and approach is befitting of the firm and vice versa.
- ask for pen and paper if it is there - some scenarios are very long-winded and you may need to write down to help you sketch out a coherent answer.
- Look at the competencies law firms are looking for. This doesn't undermine the honesty point earlier but it can give you an insight into what they may be looking for. If you know a firm likes proactivity, then if you get a scenario about being able to either undertake new work which might be laborious or similar work to that which you have done numerous times nbefore, you might choose to opt for the new work and try to find a way to make it more time-efficient by using a study technique or something.
- embrace the pauses. These are tough interviews and require a lot of thought because of what I said in points one and two so really own the pauses and just ask if you can have a few minutes to sketch out a well-formulated answer. I really wish I had done this myself on a couple of occasions in the past because it would have allowed me to have a better and more clear structure.

Hope this helps! Feel free to tag me in any follow-up questions you may have.

 

[Jooooopp7]

Many thanks for all your help! It's super informative!

 

[Anupriya Dhonchak]

@Alice G I have an upcoming TC interview with HSF that is going to be a half an hour business case and a half an hour commercial scenario personal to the partner (probably a deal he has worked on). Can I get any advice on the latter?

 

[Alice G]

@Alice G I have an upcoming TC interview with HSF that is going to be a half an hour business case and a half an hour commercial scenario personal to the partner (probably a deal he has worked on). Can I get any advice on the latter?

To tell you the complete truth, there is very little I think you can do for these commercial ones. However, here is some guidance I have previously written:

What I would say to do is this:
Research every department as much as you can. Know what each of them do in detail
Know a couple of news stories for each department and understand why these were relevant to them
Research terms and definitions relevant to each department
Research trends and challenges for each department
Try and research sectors too if you can and understand trends and challenges for them too
Use HSF's podcasts to gain further insight and help with researching the above


General tips:
Stay calm and think logically.
Don't overlook answers because they seem basic
Take your time and own pauses - there is no shame in asking for a moment and writing things down - it actually shows more confidence to do this.
During the interview - remember to think globally. Sounds basic but sometimes it can be hard to think more broadly under pressure.

This was honestly all I did to prepare for this interview previously with HSF and I was really pleasantly surprised to hear that this had been my best assessment of my AC with no negative feedback to be given. What helped me in this one was that I was so relaxed by the time it came to this as it was my third assessment and I established a good rapport with the partner so definitely try to do this if you can.

Wishing you the best and please feel free to ask follow-ups! I appreciate these can be tricky and hard to prep for.

 

[Mani28]

To tell you the complete truth, there is very little I think you can do for these commercial ones. However, here is some guidance I have previously written:

What I would say to do is this:
Research every department as much as you can. Know what each of them do in detail
Know a couple of news stories for each department and understand why these were relevant to them
Research terms and definitions relevant to each department
Research trends and challenges for each department
Try and research sectors too if you can and understand trends and challenges for them too
Use HSF's podcasts to gain further insight and help with researching the above


General tips:
Stay calm and think logically.
Don't overlook answers because they seem basic
Take your time and own pauses - there is no shame in asking for a moment and writing things down - it actually shows more confidence to do this.
During the interview - remember to think globally. Sounds basic but sometimes it can be hard to think more broadly under pressure.

This was honestly all I did to prepare for this interview previously with HSF and I was really pleasantly surprised to hear that this had been my best assessment of my AC with no negative feedback to be given. What helped me in this one was that I was so relaxed by the time it came to this as it was my third assessment and I established a good rapport with the partner so definitely try to do this if you can.

Wishing you the best and please feel free to ask follow-ups! I appreciate these can be tricky and hard to prep fo

To tell you the complete truth, there is very little I think you can do for these commercial ones. However, here is some guidance I have previously written:

What I would say to do is this:
Research every department as much as you can. Know what each of them do in detail
Know a couple of news stories for each department and understand why these were relevant to them
Research terms and definitions relevant to each department
Research trends and challenges for each department
Try and research sectors too if you can and understand trends and challenges for them too
Use HSF's podcasts to gain further insight and help with researching the above


General tips:
Stay calm and think logically.
Don't overlook answers because they seem basic
Take your time and own pauses - there is no shame in asking for a moment and writing things down - it actually shows more confidence to do this.
During the interview - remember to think globally. Sounds basic but sometimes it can be hard to think more broadly under pressure.

This was honestly all I did to prepare for this interview previously with HSF and I was really pleasantly surprised to hear that this had been my best assessment of my AC with no negative feedback to be given. What helped me in this one was that I was so relaxed by the time it came to this as it was my third assessment and I established a good rapport with the partner so definitely try to do this if you can.

Wishing you the best and please feel free to ask follow-ups! I appreciate these can be tricky and hard to prep for.

you couldn’t go in the specifics of the actual scenario please?

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi @Mani28 - unfortunately it would be against our forum rules to go into the specifics of an assessment like this. It is important for us to help firms retain the validity of their assessments, and going into the detail of what a particular assessment consists of would provide an advantage to candidates.