Hey Guest, do you have a question for graduate recruitment? Gemma Baker from Willkie is live to answer your questions!
Thank you very much for this and will do. Just wanted to double-check if adding achievements to this question was the right approach.You could discuss achievements, or anything that is not adequately conveyed elsewhere to be honestI would never leave such a question blank - more space to show yourself off is a gift!
I don't think it's the wrong approach. Some questions will be more obviously geared towards mitigating circumstances, but the wording of this question seems to leave open the possibility for you to talk about anything you want to in my opinion!
I think usually you would write to the partner, with the assumption that they will at least take the time to amend it and address it to the client. I would not worry about addressing it to the client myself, or if you would really like to do so then you could use format A
I've done the first half. Do you know where I can find any information on any recent deals, I can't navigate their website clearly.
Really don’t worry about this. The exercise instructions will either tell your or this isn’t really important.
I’m in the final week and a bit before my AC and this has been a god send because I am panicking about whether I “know” enough! I am going to implement this method from now 🙏🏼Hi @summer207, I am copying over the same answer that I used to respond to your post in the thread, Keep getting ACs but always feel like I fail them... so that I can respond to your answer here as well and perhaps reach a wider audience in the process
I rarely felt that I had 'done enough', but I also knew when to stop. I only felt unprepared for an interview if I had not thoroughly gone back over all of the following six things in advance of the interview (which only happened once I think, when I had a coursework deadline the night before an interview):
If I had completed these first six things then I felt ready. I would feel comfortable going to sleep the night before an interview if this was all that I had done. In whatever extra time I may have happened to have, however, I would do everything else I could think of. This included preparing answers to more questions from this list, thinking about the types of questions I may want to ask the interviewers and generally searching online for any advice about interviewing at the firm that I could find. If I did not have time to do these final things, however, then I would not stress out!
- First and foremost, I compiled a thorough document dedicated to my research about the firm, including deals, partners, awards etc. and a structured list of bullet points on how to answer 'Why this firm' if it came up. Often I would end up with way too much information and have to be very rigorous about going through and deciding what was a priority to mention and what I would only bring up if the interviewers asked subsequent questions. I would not worry abut having done too little research (unless you really have not done much research at all) because usually the problem is having too much information to draw from.
- I reminded myself of my other 'general' answers to questions including 'Tell us about yourself and your journey', 'Why did you study your university degree?', 'Why are you interested in law/commercial law?', 'What are your strengths/weaknesses?' and 'What makes you stand out as a candidate?' I always got asked 3/5 of those questions.
- I went back over which examples I would use for seven key competency questions on teamwork, resilience, ability to take constructive criticism, leadership, integrity, communication and dealing with failure/making a mistake. If I had one example for each of those, I tended to be fine and very rarely found myself searching for an answer on the spot. If the question did not quite map onto one of those competencies, I could often still use the same example and alter my conclusion slightly in order to address the exact question being asked.
- I prepared two commercial answers - one about a general commercial news story of interest to me and another specifically about a deal that the firm had recently worked on.
- If we were given the names of our interviewers, then I made sure to know a bit about them and their work, just in case it could fuel any conversation or inform my questions later on.
- If the interview involved a case study, I always went back over @Jacob Miller's comprehensive case study advice the night before.
Bearing all of this in mind, know that firms will try to ask you questions that you have not prepared for, and they will almost certainly succeed at least once. So be prepared for that moment where a question comes that makes you think, 'Ok, you win - I simply don't have this one prepared'. Allow yourself to confidently admit to yourself that you did not prepare an answer and then ask for a few seconds to think. Don't beat yourself up over not preparing enough and don't worry if this answer does not end up being your very best answer. Everyone will face this moment at least once in an interview and as long as you don't let it startle you, then I am sure you will think up a decent answer on the spot!
After every interview, I would make a note of all the questions I was asked and what my answer was, whether it was good enough, or whether I should think of a new one for next time. This process of learning and improving after each interview really helped me improve from one to the next!
All of this is to say - don't stress! I am sure that you are extremely well prepared already, but feel free to have a look over these suggestions if you want to be able to put your mind at rest
Take nothing for granted. Cash forecasts might be difficult to get if the company is very young or if some of the value of the company is locked up in a way that hasn't been monetised yet, like IP for some product or service that isn't on market yet or has only recently gone to market. I can't imagine the reason why you would use 'a similar company in a different sector,' I'm not even sure that makes sense as a concept as you're not comparing like-for-like (not an expert though so I may be missing something here).Hey! I had a mock group case study exercise the other day and I came across something quite unusual in the material presented. The task was to advise the client on which company of three to acquire, and for one of the companies it was noted that accurate figures for forecasted cash flow were not available and so the figure was derived by comparing the company with a similar company in a different sector. I have three questions:
1) Am I right in understanding this as a market approach valuation?
2) Beyond noting that this is obviously less accurate (and a bit of a red flag) than other valuations which were based on figures publicly available for the respective companies, I wasn't sure what other information I could ask for- is there something that I could recommend or documents I could ask for to gain a better valuation or is the lack of publicly available figures the end of the story?
3) Why would accurate figures for forecasted cash flow not be available in the first place?
Finally, for the other two companies it was noted that we are confident in the accuracy of this valuation because "figures publicly available" were used. As above, do we just take this for granted and move ahead or is there more to unpack?
I'd really appreciate any advice since I'm just starting to gain a better insight into company valuations
I think you are overthinking this. I would recommend just addressing it to the partner and mirroring the salutations the partner uses in their instruction email. For example, in an AC i was successful in, the partner used “hi/ many thanks” so I used the same. Unless you are instructed otherwise.
Thank you both!!! I used it about 4 times - I made sure to formally introduce it first as you advised
Good luck with your application!Thank you both!!! I used it about 4 times - I made sure to formally introduce it first as you advised
In my view, the worst thing you can do is message them. On the off chance they don’t notice, don’t draw their attention to it. If they did notice, I’m not sure what messaging them will change.
Wow, thank you so much for this detailed response! It all makes much more sense now
