TCLA General Discussion Thread #2 (2021)

[Alice G]

Sorry to ask a boring and slightly annoying question in the middle of a fun chat about hobbies, but...
I've been given a form to fill in ahead of a mini vac scheme, which includes a section "About yourself (This will be shared with the team that you will be joining)". I'm probably way overthinking this, but should I use this just for professional info, i.e. my past roles, or should I include some personal info like what I enjoy doing in my spare time? The rest of this form is just about my studies.

And to add to the hobbies discussion...
- I use cooking and baking a lot to chill out - I've been 'that person' getting into sourdough, and also baking lots of cakes and making ice cream! My fiance actually had to ask me to stop baking recently because we had so many sweet treats in the house and there's only so many cakes two people can eat...
- I love reading. I just finished Dolly Alderton's novel 'Ghosts', which I really enjoyed, and Elif Shafak's '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World'. Also enjoyed Lucy Foley's 'The Hunting Party' for a bit of murder mystery.
- I also need my daily dose of fresh air and exercise!

Good question! My gut reaction is they probably mean things about you like your hobbies or what you enjoy doing but I think it would be fine to detail anything professional not inherent to the other areas of the form perhaps. I would maybe clarify with the recruitment team just to be absolutely sure given it will be circulated, but my initial thought would be it would be things about you personally as an individual.

love the hobbies too! And baking really is so therapeutic isn’t it?

 

[Jacob Miller]

Sorry to ask a boring and slightly annoying question in the middle of a fun chat about hobbies, but...
I've been given a form to fill in ahead of a mini vac scheme, which includes a section "About yourself (This will be shared with the team that you will be joining)". I'm probably way overthinking this, but should I use this just for professional info, i.e. my past roles, or should I include some personal info like what I enjoy doing in my spare time? The rest of this form is just about my studies.

And to add to the hobbies discussion...
- I use cooking and baking a lot to chill out - I've been 'that person' getting into sourdough, and also baking lots of cakes and making ice cream! My fiance actually had to ask me to stop baking recently because we had so many sweet treats in the house and there's only so many cakes two people can eat...
- I love reading. I just finished Dolly Alderton's novel 'Ghosts', which I really enjoyed, and Elif Shafak's '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World'. Also enjoyed Lucy Foley's 'The Hunting Party' for a bit of murder mystery.
- I also need my daily dose of fresh air and exercise!

I think a bit of both is fine here. I'd probably do something like :Hi, I'm X. I'm currently completing Y degree from Z university. I've previously worked at ABC and in my spare time I enjoy DEF"

 

[Sonia_Kawaii]

Hi sorry for the late reply, but yes I have an AC coming up with them next week for the DXB Internship. I got an email from them last week informing me of the same. Hope this helps!

Hi, they took ages to get back to me after their first email saying they were still reviewing my application. I know that they had started rejecting people but I didn't hear from them until they sent me my rejection 2 days ago.

Congratulations on your AC. I hope it goes well!! I hope you don't mind but what recent news article did you discuss? I didn't get any feedback so I'm just wondering where I went wrong or if it was probably my CV that they took issue with.

 

[djqb]

Hi, they took ages to get back to me after their first email saying they were still reviewing my application. I know that they had started rejecting people but I didn't hear from them until they sent me my rejection 2 days ago.

Congratulations on your AC. I hope it goes well!! I hope you don't mind but what recent news article did you discuss? I didn't get any feedback so I'm just wondering where I went wrong or if it was probably my CV that they took issue with.

Thank you! Sorry to hear about the rejection, I hope your other applications go well!

If you don't mind, can I PM you re: news article?

 

[Lumree]

Haha as an Arsenal fan I doubt watching your team causes as much annoyance as watching Arsenal does for me, especially this season 😂😭

For me, my outlet has always been sport, with field hockey in particular being my biggest focus away from applications. Training with senior internationals twice a week and playing matches at a weekend definitely gets your mind away from applications as instead, you're just focussing on trying to keep up with those guys haha. I suppose the post-training/post-match beers are always a welcome distraction too

As a Chelsea fan, I’m getting far too used to Arsenal being quiet all season only to show up and play well against us

 

[Jessica Booker]

Whenever "big 6" fans moan....

 

[Sonia_Kawaii]

Thank you! Sorry to hear about the rejection, I hope your other applications go well!

If you don't mind, can I PM you re: news article?

That would be amazing!! Thank you.

 

[ChantelleTen]

Has anyone who got to the Watson Glaser stage for Bevan Brittan been sent the test invite yet?

I'm thinking about sending an email early next week...

 

[Matt_96]

Hey all!

One thing I really don't miss about the application cycle is how emotionally and psychologically draining it can be, and the negative impact it can take on applicants' mental health. I'm almost even more conscious of that now, I think largely due to being a part of the forum and seeing that impact objectively across so many people.

It's also got me thinking, though, about the importance of having hobbies or pastimes as an outlet away from things like the application cycle, and I'd be really interested to hear about your outside interests and how you use them for headspace and to get away from some of the stressors of applications!

My "main" hobby for the last six months or so has been getting into coffee - I bought a decent espresso machine at the end of last year and, as I started to read more about coffee more generally, it's really piqued my interest and it's fair to say I've gone down the rabbit hole! I've also got more into different styles of coffee, so making pour-overs etc as well as espresso and espresso-based drinks like lattes and flat whites. I love it because, no matter how much I improve, there's always more to learn and improve on - I think it feeds into my enjoyment of having something there that, although fundamentally a hobby, is also really mentally stimulating and I never feel like I'm wasting time because I'm learning and developing a skillset.

I've been focussing most recently on my latte art! Still a lot of improving to do but I'm finally starting to make some progress with it. This was one of my morning flat whites from a few days ago

View attachment 3340

Very impressive stuff. I have chosen to take the opposite approach, by running away from my problems. Quite literally. I like to destress by getting up very early, and making the most of the extra sunlight and lack of people about to enjoy a nice long run, usually between about 8-12k. I also bought a new road bike recently which has been fun on the sunnier days too.

 

[BoulderCO]

Re: hobbies - my lockdown achievement was learning to knit and mastering the cable knit pattern! Crafting really helps with big life anxieties because I have a bad habit of turning things I enjoy into goals that need to be achieved. With embroidering and knitting, it's all about making the next stitch, and the next one, and so on...would highly recommend it.

Am not in a financial position to do this ATM, but once my partner and I cross the house-buying finish line, we'd love to have a hobby room - one corner for my crafting gear and another for my partner's maps (partner is big on planning hiking expeditions)!

 

[Daniel Boden]

As a Chelsea fan, I’m getting far too used to Arsenal being quiet all season only to show up and play well against us

Haha I can imagine - last night was a pleasant surprise (quality of football aside though which terrible)!

 

[LS12]

Just got a WG invite from Dentons, applied on the 6th. If anyone has any advice I’d really appreciate it, I struggle with the WG a lot

 

[djqb]

Just got a WG invite from Dentons, applied on the 6th. If anyone has any advice I’d really appreciate it, I struggle with the WG a lot

May I ask the 6th of which month?

Also for the WG, I've used Job Test Prep for preparing via their paid courses. Although it's a bit pricey, I realised that a fair number of questions on WG tests I've done across firms (NRF, CC, etc.) always repeat. Off the top of my head, I've repeatedly had the question about Peter's cooling experiment it was I think . . . across my WG tests.

But a combination of practice, and knowing which questions to expect for the test (through having done WG prep courses and analysing the answer keys) have really helped me improve my performance.

 

[LS12]

May I ask the 6th of which month?

Also for the WG, I've used Job Test Prep for preparing via their paid courses. Although it's a bit pricey, I realised that a fair number of questions on WG tests I've done across firms (NRF, CC, etc.) always repeat. Off the top of my head, I've repeatedly had the question about Peter's cooling experiment it was I think . . . across my WG tests.

But a combination of practice, and knowing which questions to expect for the test (through having done WG prep courses and analysing the answer keys) have really helped me improve my performance.

This month! so like just over a week ago - not sure why they've got back to me so quick tbh but not going to complain - they've given me a while to do the WG test too (until the 30th)

Ahhh this is amazing! Thank you! I feel like I syke myself out for absolutely no reason, but the WG is deffo a beast of a test haha

 

[SamTam99]

Marriott Harrison VS 🥰 honestly what a crazy week!

 

[Samantha]

Yall notice that it’s always the worst application you send that gets to final interview stages and the best one that’s the automatic rejection?

 

[M777]

Yall notice that it’s always the worst application you send that gets to final interview stages and the best one that’s the automatic rejection?

Happens time and time again!!

 

[M777]

Yall notice that it’s always the worst application you send that gets to final interview stages and the best one that’s the automatic rejection?

This especially happens with open days. I've found that attending an open day almost always means my VS/TC app will be rejected, whereas I always manage to get to AC with firms I've never spoken to in my life

 

[Anon 11031]

Since this is a general forum, I'm having s bit of a work related problem today and if anyone could weigh in I'd really appreciate it.

I suggested a weekly catch-up 'virtual cuppa' style call to my team today and asked for their thoughts. All being well, I was going to propose the idea to management to make sure it was okay to use business time this way. Anyway, a colleague decided to skip checking with everyone and management and basically stole my idea and sent everyone a calendar invite for the event.

I pointed out that we should ask management about it and that I wanted him to CC me in. Instead, he went to management and took credit for the idea and got approval and commendation for it.

After that he made a passive aggressive comment in our team's chat about how I was worried about it unnecessarily.

Does anyone have thoughts about how I should approach this? I'm trying to be more assertive (I know it's a key skill in a legal profession). But this guy stealing my idea, taking credit for it and then calling me out for trying to do the right thing has really upset me.

Sorry if this is off topic 😔

 

[S87]

So interestingly that’s the only one in that list which isn’t a ‘recent’ read per se, but it’s really stuck with me which is a sure sign of a good book, I reckon!

It gives a great lecture on mental health and really shows that we really do not know that we all struggle!
Have compassion people!