I'm currently on a year abroad and want to make the most of an extra year of the recruitment cycle, however I won't be able to do any vacation schemes this year as my year abroad is in Australia and I can't just pop back to London to do it (my bank account definitely would not allow that) so I was thinking of applying for some direct TCs. I haven't done a vac scheme before, so do you guys think I stand a chance at all with the direct TC apps? Would firms hold it against me if I were to go for a direct TC this year, get rejected, and then try for the vac scheme next year when I'm back in the UK? Sorry if it's a stupid question, I just don't want to waste this extra year, especially as so many people around me had great success in the last cycle and I only had one AC.
@Jessica Booker
Firstly, regarding your inability to apply for vac schemes this year: there are some firms which will cover travel costs for you, including flights. Two firms I can think of on the spot who are willing to do this are Slaughter and May and Paul, Weiss. As such, supposing there is no conflict with your term dates/other reasons why traveling is not possible for you, you could apply for vacation schemes at these firms. Something to take note of here is that not all law firms who cover travel costs advertise this policy, so it may be worth it to ask directly by sending some emails/LinkedIn messages to recruiters at the firms you are interested in.
For the second issue (your chances of securing a direct TC), I agree with
@NMA's points. As long as you write a high number of high-quality applications and you know how to leverage your current experiences, you will have good enough chances to be worth applying.
For the third issue (about reapplying): different firms have different policies here. Some actively encourage reapplying, while others directly ask you not to reapply if you have not substantially improved your candidate profile. In general, there are more firms that will not mind reapplying than firms that will - especially if you first got rejected for the more competitive opportunity (the direct TC). Besides looking for any announced firm policy in FAQs, you can also try to infer whether a firm is likely to care about the fact that you got rejected once by seeing if they directly ask about this on the application form. If they ask whether you have applied in the past and at what stage you got rejected, it is more likely that they use that question to filter some applicants.
