TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2021-22 (#1)

[James Carrabino]

lol just realised I got a nrf ti after calling them Fulbright the entire way through my application instead of Fulbright

Either I have been bamboozled or you just wrote 'Fulbright' the same way twice

 

[summer207]

OMG congratulations this is amazing news well done you deserve it and luck with the VS. Also I suggest signing up for AS head start for VS it is really helpful as my friend attended that last year and got their TC when attending their VS because of AS.

Also, can I just say you deserve this and go and celebrate this week and this post made my day I am going to use it as motivation.

Thank you for your kind words Asil! I've signed up to Headstart as well. I'm rooting for you and feel free to drop me a message on anything application or interview related, and I will do my best to help!

 

[Asil Ahmad]

Thank you for your kind words Asil! I've signed up to Headstart as well. I'm rooting for you and feel free to drop me a message on anything application or interview related, and I will do my best to help!

Thank you very much for this and will do.

 

[TCLA Community Assistant]

I want to thank everyone on the forum for the support they have provided over this cycle, especially @James Carrabino and @AvniD for the AC tips they gave me last week. Also, to the many people who have replied my DMs and quoted my posts with the most encouraging words, I really appreciate it. I heard back from Weil today and was offered a VS. I also heard back from Baker McKenzie last week with a Spring VS offer. This time last week, I was crying because I had been rejected from a final round interview (non-VS related) so things can always turnaround. That's the end of the application cycle for me! I applied to 6 firms, received 4 rejections and 2 ACs.

I'd appreciate if anyone can link me to any forums related to converting a VS to a TC. If anyone has an upcoming AC with Bakers for Summer VS or an AC with Weil, feel free to message me and I will do my best to help!

Amazing news - here is a useful thread with lots of advice on converting VS to TCs

Converting your vacation scheme into a training contract - top tips in 2021 | The Corporate Law Academy Forum

 

[Jaysen]

I'd be a bit cautious as almost all dichotomies are false dichotomies. In general the two groups Jaysen mentions do have very different routes into law, but not everyone will fit in to one of those two groups.

Many people may have grown up in a mix of the two. So they might have had family dinners and supportive parents and still been bullied at school and had to deal with mental health difficulties. The simplified version makes a more compelling story, but in reality there's more nuance in people's individual circumstances.

You are absolutely right here. It's my mistake if the presentation of groups suggests that some people fit into one and other people fit into another as this was not my intention. The second group will only apply to a small subset of people because it’s written based on my journey.

The goal was to present one way of thinking about how life circumstances, background and upbringing (among so many other things) impact the ability to pursue a career in law. I always find it hard to present these points in a short written form in an easy-to-understand manner because I am only able to discuss a very incomplete picture - but I can see why comparing two groups comes across as reductionist. The reality is far more complex than the post suggests.

 

[James Carrabino]

Just got a post AC rejection… I feel sooo gutted and I love the firm I found the interview extremely hard as it was strengths based and very ridged. I have another AC next week and feel like this has really knocked my confidence

Hi @manchester12,

I am going to write a post along the lines of what I wrote to @lawful_neutral216 yesterday not out of laziness but because my heart goes out to anyone suffering from a post-AC or VS rejection and I spent a long time drafting this with the same exact scenario in mind from my own experiences. To make a long story short, you should not let your confidence get knocked at all - post-AC rejections from a dream firm are a rite of passage en route to almost every candidate's Training Contract offer. I know that in your AC next week you will be an absolutely exceptional candidate! My earlier post was as follows (and I sincerely intend it to relate here as well):


I want to start by saying how sorry I am to hear that you have found yourself in this position. Rejection is incredibly painful, especially in the later stages of a firm's application process.

I was rejected from three vacation schemes in the space of three months and every single one was brutal. Spending an entire application cycle building up to those schemes, with confidence that I would be able to convert at least one of them, meant that I just felt completely hopeless when I realised that I had failed to do so. The latter two post-vac scheme rejections came on the same day no less!! I moped around for about 24 hours before I sat down and started looking at upcoming direct TC deadlines.

The day after I received both of those two rejections, I sent off an app that ended up in a TC offer less than a month later. The day after that I sent off another app that ended up in another TC offer! This was all in July right at the end of my first cycle. The learning process of getting ACs and vac schemes and subsequently being rejected from them was invaluable in ultimately getting me to a firm that I love. I also got a genuinely interesting and varied perspective of the kind of work that City lawyers do, so I have no regrets about any of these experiences.

Take time to reflect and then realise that you have a huge amount of time remaining this cycle. I submitted a lot of direct Training Contract applications and that is how I received the offer for the firm I am going to. Of course it would be great to have a VS or TC offer at this stage, but I sincerely think that the more work one puts into researching and applying to firms now pays dividends in the long run. You do not necessarily want to default into the first firm that offered you an AC - it is great to have the opportunity to learn from that experience what areas of law you are interested in and which firms you should be looking at going forward.

It is an incredible feat that you got to two ACs in the first place, so congratulations!!! Do not worry about whether or not you prepared enough - I am sure you did everything you intended to with the right approach and intentions, but no-one is fully prepared for a law firm AC until they have done several previously. The real preparation required to ultimately obtain a Training Contract involves the lessons you learn from your unsuccessful ACs and how you take that insight into your future ACs. You will continue to develop confidence in your interview ability and you will find yourself in a pretty good position if you draw upon your resilience and keep moving forward

 

[Parsorandini]

Anyone else still waiting for Akin Gump post WG?

 

[James Carrabino]

ME, inhabiting both worlds:


View attachment 3855

Is this implying that Taco Bell is not fine dining?

 

[Adrian_S]

Is this implying that Taco Bell is not fine dining?

¡Sí!

 

[S87]

Sky training contract test invite. Just depressed because it is a verbal reasoning test and my dyslexic brain can’t take it:

 

[Adrian_S]

Sky training contract test invite. Just depressed because it is a verbal reasoning test and my dyslexic brain can’t take it:

you GOT this.

 

[CF12345]

anyone else still not heard from linklaters or HSF?

 

[Han.louise]

Any final tips for my case study presentation tomorrow?
I did one last week and my mind went blank during it... Like everything I just read was gone

 

[TCLA Community Assistant]

¡Sí!

Your new profile picture....

 

[Abii]

Is this implying that Taco Bell is not fine dining?

the repeated mentions of Taco Bell on this forum are making it very hard for me to resist opening ubereats and getting one delivered!

 

[S87]

anyone else still not heard from linklaters or HSF?

Links ghosted me

 

[James Carrabino]

Hi James, your answer is actually spot on with somebody else I was speaking with about this. Thanks so much for clarifying! This will definitely help me make a more targeted approach to specific firm's going forward. It's interesting because I understand the whole 'moulding' concept, i.e if you recruit those younger, you can train them up in a specific way, however in some ways, surely this goes against the whole ethos of having diversity of approach/opinion/working styles within firms. Just a thought of mine, but eh we move!

Hi @syw I am really glad that my post resonates with you Truthfully, I had a very similar experience in my own application process! Now in some ways I was also perhaps a strange candidate, although I would certainly not claim to be any more 'unique' than any other candidate on here! I applied to law firms whilst pursuing a master's degree in piano performance and having pursued my undergraduate degree in liberal arts in the United States. I had next to no work experience under my belt, let alone legal work experience and I did not fit into the familiar 2nd-year law/final year non-law categories.

I got to the final interview stage at six different firms and only one of those was a UK firm - that was the only one where I was unsuccessful. Now it could certainly be the case that US firms valued my US education, but I also got a sense that they liked the fact I had explored other things. I think that UK firms do an excellent job of hiring diverse candidates (in many ways more than US firms), but I would say that this diversity manifests itself slightly differently.

Each firm has their own approach and you start to realise that as you traverse the process

 

[tc_hopeful]

Hi! Has anyone heard from Shearman & Sterling, Gibson Dunn, Cleary or Sidley for summer VC?

Haven't heard from Shearman & Sterling or Gibson Dunn

 

[thirdtimelucky]

In the two case study presentations I’ve done the assessor has always commented on the fact that mine was shorter than they generally expected. It always puts me off when they say this but it’s always followed up by “no it’s fine, it’s how you answer the questions that matters” and “you covered enough ground anyway”. But it always makes me think, why tell me then?!

 

[lawyer859]

HL Summer Vac Scheme Offer earlier today!!! Had my AC yesterday, I'm absolutely over the moon