Hey Guest, do you have a question for graduate recruitment? Gemma Baker from Willkie is live to answer your questions!
DAC just responded, deadline for the VI is the 11th March! insane length of time...I will very much appreciate it
Could be either option really.
I never had Taco Bell but my future wife is telling me “my love you would hate it”
Hi @syw, I do not have any particular knowledge about this issue and I would love for anyone who knows more than me to jump in and correct me! My (perhaps naive) assumption, however, would be that paralegal experience cannot be a negative, can it?
Following what @Jessica Booker said, it could be either (and I did vac schemes at firms which both did it the opposite way)! My sense, however, is that the former approach is more common - hope that helps
This is a cool answer! Hey we all have different interests and you can justify anything very well if it genuinely excites you
In my opinion, this is far preferable to a standard boring answer like 'reading the news' or something!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 do not have any particular knowledge about this issue and I would love for anyone who knows more than me to jump in and correct me! My (perhaps naive) assumption, however, would be that paralegal experience cannot be a negative, can it?
Perhaps the bigger question is which firms are more amenable to recruiting graduates who have been out of university for some time? In my anecdotal experience, UK firms with large trainee cohorts tend to prioritise the standard intake groups (i.e. 2nd-year law/final year non-law) whereas US firms and firms with special areas of expertise often take candidates who have some other experience. At BPP on the PGDL course, I am in a class with students who are almost all going to US firms and at 24 years old I think I am under the average age in the class. My friends in a class with future trainees of London's 'City Consortium' firms say that almost everyone is 21!
So judging on this alone, I would say that the major UK firms may prefer 2nd-year law or final-year non-law students but as far as post-uni experience goes, I can't see why being a paralegal could possibly be a bad thing. Firms often espouse their desire for candidates to have legal work experience so I think that your experience should put you in good stead for most of the firms you are applying to
It varies a lot - if you're like 2 weeks before deadline you're ahead of a majority of candidates. A rule of thumb I've seen is to try to apply within the first 2/3 of the application window.
