Still can't believe I am writing this but I managed to secure a TC with Linklaters!!!! I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone on here. This forum and the commercial awareness courses have been invaluable!
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TCLA General Discussion Thread #2 (2021)
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Huge congratulations!!! This is such great news to start the weekend with 🎉 Enjoy your very well deserved celebrations!!
Jessica Booker
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I've never had to submit a CV for a TC application before and I was wondering if I could get some advice.
Currently I have a very nice template that is aesthetically pleasing and represents my personality a bit more. It's super professional, but the whole cv is in colour and a design platform was used to create it. (excuse the poor explanation). This was okay'd by my university and has since landed me a summer internship and my current role (in-house legal), with it often being praised by employers. That being said, I'm not sure if this is a complete no no for law firms? any advice would be great.
I've got quite a bit of experience so currently my cv is 2 pages, I know some people say early in your career it should only be one, any advice would be super appreciated.
In terms of a personal profile, is this necessary or should my cv be purely experience?
If I am giving a complete break down of my academic grades elsewhere in the application do they need to be in the CV or is my degree classification sufficient?
What font should I be looking at, is 10 ok?
Do I need to include personal contact details in the cv as these will also be elsewhere in the application.
Sorry for all the questions, I just have so many, any advice would be super appreciated.
Currently I have a very nice template that is aesthetically pleasing and represents my personality a bit more. It's super professional, but the whole cv is in colour and a design platform was used to create it. (excuse the poor explanation). This was okay'd by my university and has since landed me a summer internship and my current role (in-house legal), with it often being praised by employers. That being said, I'm not sure if this is a complete no no for law firms? any advice would be great.
I've got quite a bit of experience so currently my cv is 2 pages, I know some people say early in your career it should only be one, any advice would be super appreciated.
In terms of a personal profile, is this necessary or should my cv be purely experience?
If I am giving a complete break down of my academic grades elsewhere in the application do they need to be in the CV or is my degree classification sufficient?
What font should I be looking at, is 10 ok?
Do I need to include personal contact details in the cv as these will also be elsewhere in the application.
Sorry for all the questions, I just have so many, any advice would be super appreciated.
Jessica Booker
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Generally I'd avoid colour. At best, some blue (navy type blue) can work but I wouldn't really use any apart from that.
A 2 page CV is fine, even if you are early in your career. At the same time, you don't need to bulk it out to two pages for the sake of it. A 1 or 1 and a half page CV will also work.
A personal profile is not needed in the vast majority of cases and especially if you are applying with a cover letter. Most personal profiles are really predicatable too.
10 is fine as long as it isn't squished (e.g. very narrow margins/line spacing etc).
I would put your email, telephone number and LinkedIn profile link (if you have one) on your CV
If you are giving a full break down of academics elsewhere, no need to repeat it in your CV in full detail.
Massive congratulations! Hope you're able to celebrate this weekend
Hi guys, I've had about 3 interviews where I felt my prep was practically useless because I didn't get asked any of the qs I prepared. I know it's always good to leave room for some flexibility in interviews but I've found that my interviews always become conversational but at the same time the questions become quite difficult to answer on the spot so I never know if I'm saying the right thing (at the time). Is there a way to improve on this? I don't even know if the question makes sense but I hope it does. Would be interested to know your thoughts
Hi guys, I've had about 3 interviews where I felt my prep was practically useless because I didn't get asked any of the qs I prepared. I know it's always good to leave room for some flexibility in interviews but I've found that my interviews always become conversational but at the same time the questions become quite difficult to answer on the spot so I never know if I'm saying the right thing (at the time). Is there a way to improve on this? I don't even know if the question makes sense but I hope it does. Would be interested to know your thoughts
What I've found is that most law firm questions, while different, tend to cover the same basic themes. It's not uncommon to go to a few interviews and realise that they have asked you for the same thing as the other firm, but in a slightly different way. The best way to prepare for this is to keep your examples relatively simple (so they can be adaptable) and practice answering multiple variants of the same questions. The trick is making sure that your example fits the question, and not forcing the question to fit your pre-prepared answer.
However, there are always going to be one or two wild card questions you can't prepare for easily. Law firms love asking these to catch you out as it separates the truly prepared candidates from those who only put in superficial effort, or those who are still not quite confident enough in themselves. In this situation, an effective strategy is to ask for a moment to think about the question before you answer. Just a few seconds of extra thinking time could allow you to go through the different examples you have prepared in your head and choose the best one.
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Hi guys, I've had about 3 interviews where I felt my prep was practically useless because I didn't get asked any of the qs I prepared. I know it's always good to leave room for some flexibility in interviews but I've found that my interviews always become conversational but at the same time the questions become quite difficult to answer on the spot so I never know if I'm saying the right thing (at the time). Is there a way to improve on this? I don't even know if the question makes sense but I hope it does. Would be interested to know your thoughts
Agree with Matt’s comments above. I’ve always felt that the questions I get asked often have the same themes or are getting at trying to understand similar things about myself/my motivations. If you don’t mind sharing, what kind of questions have you been asked that you haven’t been able to prep for? Knowing this would help with giving you more specific advice.
The other thing is it’s actually a really good thing that your interviews become conversational. Imo, the best interviews often are conversational because the candidate is confident enough to be relaxed. It’s actually something a lot of people struggle with at the interview stage so really you’re doing pretty well in that sense.
I also agree with this! Maybe it wouldn't work for everyone but I find injecting a bit of personality into interviews makes them go better as it humanises you and makes you stand out a bit from other candidates who mostly give more cookie cutter answers. I like to make my examples slightly funny or add a few humorous details that don't really add much except make the interviewer crack a smile. Obviously, it's important to keep these accessible and test them out on other people you know first, though. There's nothing worse than a joke that misses the mark.
Some great advice has already been given and there's really not an enormous amount for me to add.Hi guys, I've had about 3 interviews where I felt my prep was practically useless because I didn't get asked any of the qs I prepared. I know it's always good to leave room for some flexibility in interviews but I've found that my interviews always become conversational but at the same time the questions become quite difficult to answer on the spot so I never know if I'm saying the right thing (at the time). Is there a way to improve on this? I don't even know if the question makes sense but I hope it does. Would be interested to know your thoughts
Digging down into questions to figure out what's actually being asked on the spot is something of an intuition that develops with time - there will always be curveball questions though, at the end of the day firms need to see what you can pick up on the spot because it's a fundamental skillset.
From a practical perspective, having a routine before you go ahead to answer a question is really helpful. For me, this was usually to acknowledge the question, take a sip of water and a deep breath before answering. You'd be surprised how much you can get planned in that few seconds.
For a covid related legal issue that has affected a law firm would agile working and technology be good examples or am I wrong here. Also what about looking at the real estate practice area as during covid 19 rents were paused and this sector was disrupted the in the pandemic. This is an application question. Thank you in advance.
I think they're good examples!
I also know from talking to my partner that force majeure clauses have been a nightmare for firms over the past year or so, and continue to be a pain at the moment. That might be something to look into? It's a general contractual issue that's affected lots of areas.
Thank you for this and I saw majeure clauses also somewhere but don't know much about it so was not keen on it but I will have a look at that issue also. Once again thank you very much for your reply.
No worries at all, not sure if it might have been a bigger issue when the pandemic first hit as opposed to now - but it certainly has been a frustration for a lot of lawyers!
I don't know the exact wording of the question you're looking at, but I usually start thinking about these by considering the areas of law I'm most interested in and then look at the impact on those sectors. Obviously consider whether the sector is relevant at that law firm too.
But it's so much easier to write about something you might have prior knowledge of or are interested in rather than picking an issue that you don't know a great deal about! Just a general tip from what I've found so far ☺️
Thank you very much for this. I agree with you it is easier to talk about a topic that interests me and yes I will look at the practice areas.
Hey! I had this recently and it threw me off slightly because, as you, I wasn’t sure how to plan. However I think there’s a few things you can plan regardless, and a few tips to keep in mind to stand out:
•Prepare for the main motivation questions. That includes why law, why the firm, why the role etc. You might not get asked these questions directly, but they are very likely to arise - it’s an interview after all!
•Remember your strengths. Again, although it’s quite conversational, you still want to stand out. It won’t be as easy to get your strengths across if they’re not asking directly for ‘tell us about a time when...’ but by being conscious of what strengths you want to highlight, you can find a time in the conversation to demonstrate your strength.
•Conversations are by nature free flowing. However, I think it’s important you still take your time in the interview to plan your responses. Taking a sip of water, breathing before replying etc will help keep you calm and composed and avoid coming across as nervous. You might jump into answers in a free-flowing conversation but taking those extra few seconds to control the tempo in an interview could really help you as it shows you have good interview technique!
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