Really needing some support and motivation here. I got two vacation schemes this year (sort of). Firm 1 (F1) I had a cancelled vacation scheme last year that was moved to spring this year. Firm 2 (F2) was a direct-TC application last year and after the final stage assessment in Spring this year (delayed from last summer due to Covid) they invited me to a vacation scheme instead.
After my vacation scheme with F1 they said I needed to complete a separate application for the TC, which I did and completed the AC and got invited to the final partner interview. Two days before the interview, I fell really unwell but went anyway, cocked it up entirely. I emailed later on to explain that I was unwell (in hospital) but was told I was unsuccessful. F2 had a one day vacation scheme, I sat in on a couple of meetings (wasn't briefed on anything before the meetings) and was sent some documents to read over and had a chat with some trainees - they didn't ask me to do any work or anything. I was told on a few occasions that I wasn't being assessed and that this day was an opportunity for me to get to know the firm (it was entirely online). I was still unwell. At the end of the day, the partner overseeing my "vacation scheme" (who organised which meetings I would be in but I didn't actually speak to them on a call or anything) said in an email that I wasn't being offered a TC and "there's no need for us to speak again". I've just been discharged from hospital now, after two months being ill, and had been told I had encephalitis and intracranial hypertension. I feel like I powered through on these two days for absolutely nothing and spent so much time and effort and energy on their application processes just to have this completely thrown away. Both firms have declined to give me feedback even though I was on the very final stage of the process - one firm I know I messed up (I was barely conscious) but the other is baffling (how could I have messed up shadowing a meeting virtually whilst "not being assessed"?).
I already have a graduate level job and would be taking a pay cut to be a trainee, but I hate my job and have wanted to be a lawyer for as long as I can remember. I feel like every time I get anywhere, it gets fucked up at the last moment - this is my third cycle (in my first cycle I was hospitalised November-June and really unwell, I fell over in a final stage interview and messed that up. In my second cycle, I secured two vacation schemes, one was cancelled entirely and one was postponed to this year. And this year, I had two strong leads and messed it all up at the last minute). The thought of starting the whole thing again next cycle is killing me - how long do I stick it out before realising this is never going to happen for me?
Talking with some personal experience of the "really ill and shouldn't have gone to interview but did anyway and it all went pear-shaped" situation, I can completely, 100% empathise here.
When you're in the midst of a situation like that, decision making and prioritisation become extremely hard and blurry, so all the reasons you probably had for going to the interviews/ schemes etc totally make sense to me.
Ultimately, there's nothing you can now do to "go back" and undo what's been done; as hard as it is, try not to obsess over what could have been or your decision making, and try to put it down to experience and know that, in the future, it is likely to actually be better in the long run to admit when you're unwell and take time out. Ultimately, a firm can't really consider it contextually in retrospect, so, although it's a horrible situation to have been in, it's ultimately something you can look to learn from.
For what it's worth, it does sound as though the person coordinating your experience in firm two has dealt with things rather brutally; though there are people i know personally who have been told they're "not being assessed" on certain things and they were then rejected for XYZ based on that thing they were told they weren't being assessed on. Again, although I think that's the wrong way for a firm to approach it, you can take from your experience that it's probably better to err on the side of caution and assume you're always being assessed.
I'm also aware, though, that these "teachable moments" are all very well, but aren't exactly what you want to read at the minute - so come back to them in a few days or weeks when the wounds are less raw. Right now, it's 100% understandable that you're upset, but tbat doesn't even begin to mean that this pathway isn't for you, or anything of the sort.
Nobody is born with the knowledge of how to get into a commercial law firm. Everyone has to learn, and (in my opinion) we often learn from past experience more than anything else. When you feel more settled and it's all a bit less emotionally charged than it is at the minute, you'll actually realise the amount you've learned from these experiences - even though they weren't good at the time.
I've every faith that you'll get there, you clearly want it enough and you've came back cycle after cycle to get there. Now isn't the time to drop all that; the time and effort has only been wasted if you let this get the better of you and don't come fighting back.
