Start Here: My Training Contract Journey 2022-23

[Jaysen]

Hi everyone,

I believe setting specific, measurable goals can make a substantial difference to your progress when working towards your training contract. It means being intentional about how you spend your time and provides a framework to determine whether you are making progress.

Even the process of writing your goals down can make you more likely to achieve it. By transferring your ideas onto paper, you must clarify what exactly you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it. When goals are kept in your head, they’re easy to overwrite and it can be tempting to convince yourself you never really wanted to work towards that goal in the first place.

But even writing your goals down is not enough. Suppose you plan to submit one vacation scheme application every other week for the next 10 weeks. Writing this goal down might make you feel motivated in the moment, but the hard part of working towards a goal is consistency. What happens when life gets in the way?

This is where accountability comes in. By writing your updates in a public channel, you keep yourself accountable because you know other people are reading it. You’re forced to confront the truth about your progress each week. This is powerful because it gives you the opportunity to reflect on why you aren’t making progress on your goals week to week and you can adapt the steps you are taking in real time. Better this way than to reflect after the cycle only to wish you made small changes at the time.

With all this in mind, I’m delighted to relaunch our ‘Training Contract Journey’ forum in this vacation scheme cycle. 1 six-month subscription to TCLA Premium is up for grabs every month until January 2023 for those who participate.

To enter, please follow these simple steps:

1. Create a thread introducing yourself in the My Training Contract Journey section of the forum by 31 October 2022
2. In your thread, update us on your goals for this vacation scheme cycle and how you plan to achieve them
3. Write one update each week to keep us updated on your goals

The best part is that this is an easy way for TCLA’s Community Managers, as well as the rest of the community, to get involved in your journey and to give you more personalised support.

I look forward to seeing your posts!

 

[jakerobins]

Hi, my name is Jake and I am a third year law student from Durham, currently undertaking a year abroad in Tübingen. I am interested in writing on this forum to ensure I hold myself accountable for my application process as last year, I found it difficult to sustain my initial motivation whilst applying to and researching various firms. I plan on trying to apply to a minimum of one firm every fortnight and I will update this forum of my progress once a week. I look forward to seeing other posts and hope we can all offer each other mutual support and accountability.

 

[aspiringfuturetrainee2025]

Hi Everyone, My name is Meher Dhingra and I am a final year law student at University of Southampton. This is my first cycle of applications and aiming to start with open days for the first half and then aiming to apply at firms for summer Vac schemes. I hope to fill one application per week and will be posting on this forum hoping to keep myself accountable.

Looking forward to seeing more posts.

 

[Beni1995]

Hi everyone! My name is Beni. I am currently a paralegal at Allen & Overy and have recently made an application for the training contract this year. I want to spend time preparing and reading commercial news and preparing for the assessment centre, hoping to get an assessment centre invitation. I hope to make a training contract application everyone month and will be posting it here for accountability. I have already made the training contract application for this month.

 

[Future_lawyer_somewhere]

Hi everyone! My name is Beni. I am currently a paralegal at Allen & Overy and have recently made an application for the training contract this year. I want to spend time preparing and reading commercial news and preparing for the assessment centre, hoping to get an assessment centre invitation. I hope to make a training contract application everyone month and will be posting it here for accountability. I have already made the training contract application for this month.

Hey Beni, I'm doing the same currently (trying to prep for M&A case studies and the A&O AC if I get invited. (I got confirmation of passing the test earlier this week) and submitted my application with my motivational and Commercial awareness questions the week before. (Spoke about blockchain in the finance industry and its potential/ and Fuse being a key motivator for wanting to join).

I would be keen to discuss prep if you had the chance, I am currently collecting important links and documents about ways to best prepare/ the structure of the AC/key areas and technicals required, and Presentation strategies. - I'd be happy to share & discuss.

 

[Maria d'Orey]

Hi, my name is Jake and I am a third year law student from Durham, currently undertaking a year abroad in Tübingen. I am interested in writing on this forum to ensure I hold myself accountable for my application process as last year, I found it difficult to sustain my initial motivation whilst applying to and researching various firms. I plan on trying to apply to a minimum of one firm every fortnight and I will update this forum of my progress once a week. I look forward to seeing other posts and hope we can all offer each other mutual support and accountability.

Hi @jakerobins !

Thanks for introducing yourself to the forum - it's really great to see your engagement with the TCLA community!

I agree with Jaysen that sharing your goals with a community is an amazing way to hold yourself accountable, so applying to at least one firm every fortnight seems like a brilliant plan!

Please let me know if you have any specific questions regarding applications.

Welcome to the forum and best of luck with this application cycle! ☺️

 

[Maria d'Orey]

Hi Everyone, My name is Meher Dhingra and I am a final year law student at University of Southampton. This is my first cycle of applications and aiming to start with open days for the first half and then aiming to apply at firms for summer Vac schemes. I hope to fill one application per week and will be posting on this forum hoping to keep myself accountable.

Looking forward to seeing more posts.

Hi @meherdhingra !

Thanks for introducing yourself to the forum!

I really admire your initiative of joining TCLA in your first application cycle - we really hope you find it to be a useful resource. 😁

Please feel free to let me know if you have any specific application questions!

Welcome to the forum and best of luck with applications!

 

[Maria d'Orey]

Hi everyone! My name is Beni. I am currently a paralegal at Allen & Overy and have recently made an application for the training contract this year. I want to spend time preparing and reading commercial news and preparing for the assessment centre, hoping to get an assessment centre invitation. I hope to make a training contract application everyone month and will be posting it here for accountability. I have already made the training contract application for this month.

Hi @Beni1995 !

Thanks for introducing yourself to the forum and for sharing your goals with us!

I think that it is an amazing idea to include developing your commercial awareness into your monthly plans! It will definitely save you time and make you feel more comfortable once assessment centres come around. 😎

Please feel free to ask me any application-related questions.

Welcome to the forum and best of luck with your TC applications!

 

[j.s.cox]

Hi everyone, I'm Jiya.

This year I am trying to improve my commercial awareness and success at AC's as these are the areas I fell down on last year. I will achieve this by:

• Completing at least one lecture of the courses offered by TCLA each day to have a continuous top-up of general commercial knowledge.
• Finding at least one article that interests me each week and writing about why it is important to businesses and why it is important to law firms. I may post this on LinkedIn to ask my connections if they have further ideas about my thoughts, but I may do this once I feel a bit more confident about my abilities!
• Making myself a booklet for each law firm I've applied to with bullet points of answers to questions they could potentially ask, as well as a reminder of why I have chosen to apply to that firm. For example, each of the competencies they look for, why law, why the firm, and general commercial questions. I will aim to update these at least once a week and treat it almost like a revision book where the ideas I write down can be developed in an actual interview.
• Only making applications to law firms that I can genuinely see myself at, and ensuring that I have finished my applications for them at least 1 week before the deadlines to have time to properly check them.

Good luck with TC hunting everyone!

 

[NatashaS98]

Hi everyone, I'm Jiya.

This year I am trying to improve my commercial awareness and success at AC's as these are the areas I fell down on last year. I will achieve this by:

• Completing at least one lecture of the courses offered by TCLA each day to have a continuous top-up of general commercial knowledge.
• Finding at least one article that interests me each week and writing about why it is important to businesses and why it is important to law firms. I may post this on LinkedIn to ask my connections if they have further ideas about my thoughts, but I may do this once I feel a bit more confident about my abilities!
• Making myself a booklet for each law firm I've applied to with bullet points of answers to questions they could potentially ask, as well as a reminder of why I have chosen to apply to that firm. For example, each of the competencies they look for, why law, why the firm, and general commercial questions. I will aim to update these at least once a week and treat it almost like a revision book where the ideas I write down can be developed in an actual interview.
• Only making applications to law firms that I can genuinely see myself at, and ensuring that I have finished my applications for them at least 1 week before the deadlines to have time to properly check them.

Good luck with TC hunting everyone!

Hi @j.s.cox !

Thanks for introducing yourself and sharing your key objectives for this application cycle. Having key objectives such as these will be really helpful and I'm sure you will get a real sense of satisfaction from feeling like you are expanding your commercial knowledge.

I think it's an awesome plan to do research on one article that interests you each week - it will be a fun project and an active way to continuously hone your commercial awareness. I think sharing this on LinkedIn sounds like a great idea! ☺️

Having a targeted approach when applying to law firms is always the best way - both to ensure that you are time-efficient when you are making applications and to ensure you end up at a firm where you will be genuinely happy.

Please feel free to ask me any application-related questions.

Welcome to the forum and best of luck with your TC applications (you've got this!)! ⭐

 

[Jaysen]

Welcome everyone! Just a reminder that you are very welcome to create your own thread for your updates for this rather than responding in this one. This just makes it easier to give you a personal response. To do so, you can head over to this section of the forum and click 'Post Thread'

 

[Jaysen]

Hi everyone,

I believe setting specific, measurable goals can make a substantial difference to your progress when working towards your training contract. It means being intentional about how you spend your time and provides a framework to determine whether you are making progress.

Even the process of writing your goals down can make you more likely to achieve it. By transferring your ideas onto paper, you must clarify what exactly you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it. When goals are kept in your head, they’re easy to overwrite and it can be tempting to convince yourself you never really wanted to work towards that goal in the first place.

But even writing your goals down is not enough. Suppose you plan to submit one vacation scheme application every other week for the next 10 weeks. Writing this goal down might make you feel motivated in the moment, but the hard part of working towards a goal is consistency. What happens when life gets in the way?

This is where accountability comes in. By writing your updates in a public channel, you keep yourself accountable because you know other people are reading it. You’re forced to confront the truth about your progress each week. This is powerful because it gives you the opportunity to reflect on why you aren’t making progress on your goals week to week and you can adapt the steps you are taking in real time. Better this way than to reflect after the cycle only to wish you made small changes at the time.

With all this in mind, I’m delighted to relaunch our ‘Training Contract Journey’ forum in this vacation scheme cycle. 1 six-month subscription to TCLA Premium is up for grabs every month until January 2023 for those who participate.

To enter, please follow these simple steps:

1. Create a thread introducing yourself in the My Training Contract Journey section of the forum by 31 October 2022
2. In your thread, update us on your goals for this vacation scheme cycle and how you plan to achieve them
3. Write one update each week to keep us updated on your goals

The best part is that this is an easy way for TCLA’s Community Managers, as well as the rest of the community, to get involved in your journey and to give you more personalised support.

I look forward to seeing your posts!

By way of an update, given how good the updates have been, we have decided to extend the deadline to participate in these competitions.

Now, anyone can create a thread in the 'My Training Contract Journey' section of the forum between now and 31 January 2023 and still be eligible for the monthly prize .