Hi Nat! I was wondering if you could give us any tips on how to best prepare for an interview? I have mine on the 18th Jan and don’t really know what I should do in advance for the commercial awareness part. Also in your experience are they more focused on motivational or competency based questions on the day? Thanks!
Of course! So for the commercial awareness part, you don't really need to do anything beyond reading the Financial Times regularly (at least several times a week, and daily for the week or so before your interview). I found it really enjoyable personally because it's the only element of the whole process you can control, at least to an extent. It doesn't matter if the topic is really niche/totally unfamiliar to you, as long as you demonstrate a general awareness of the current affairs which might impact that specific topic and you're willing to give educated guesses.
There are definitely more competency questions than motivational. Obviously be prepared for 'why Slaughters' and 'why law' just in case, but they don't usually bother going into depth with stuff like that. To be honest though, in my interview I didn't have many competency questions either - it felt way more like a conversation with more random topics. So be ready for the unexpected essentially.
Good luck!