Hi all! I'm a recent non-law graduate (graduated this year) with no VCs or Open Days for anything so far as I'm just now trying to break through to law. A question before I submit the VC app to NRF:
I'm not overly confident about my work experience and cover letter combination as although you can submit a cover letter, work experience needs to all fit within 2 limited text boxes and then there's a 200 word max supplement text box for "anything else".
The thing is, I've done a lot of volunteering, society work, extracurriculars, let alone having part-time work right now as a waitress which is technically my current job but obviously not as related to law as other experiences I could list (such as a month working as a paralegal in a small London immigration firm last year, and shadowing a boutique commercial solicitor). Does volunteering even count as 'work' experience if I did it for free, and society stuff?
Additionally, in the Cover Letter I think I want to explain why I want to work with NRF which is related to my interest in IP Law and life sciences, and how I've lived in many different countries so the global scale of their transactions is particularly appealing etc. So... my Q's are:
- Should/can I put volunteering as work?
- Is it advisable to not mention anything from the 'work experience' sections in the cover letter to expand my reach?
- In the "anything else" textbox... bulletpoint-style?
Bonus question, mitigating circumstances... I am just explicitly listing "X happened to me and also Y the month after" instead of talking about how I persevered against the odds, or whatever. That's what you're supposed to do, right?
Thank you so much in advance! I don't know if this is allowed (if this isn't allowed I retract the second part of this) but if anyone wants to talk privately about NRF apps and things I'm free to do so as well