Hey Guest, do you have a question for graduate recruitment? Gemma Baker from Willkie is live to answer your questions!
In my degree, self-plagiarism definitely is a thing, so maybe it bleeds over from that. In the sense that if you copy something that you've already written and submitted, it gets flagged by TurnItIn to be plagiarism, so you cannot write the same thing twice. They really really emphasise it too.
That would explain it! Seems a really odd concept though - why can’t you reuse your own thinking? Most academics would lose most of their back catalogue if it applied to their academic writing!
Same here, I had a friend get an academic warning for plagiarism because he used parts of his past formative essay in a summative lol.
Yeah literally! I think it’s so every assessment you do is unique, and you’re not just writing the same thing for every module as there could be potentially overlaps.
Ive got like 4 weeks until my first stage interview and people are already getting ACs smh (congrats)Jones day AC
Hi Bella, I agree with @safari3's advice here. I would still seek to answer the three main questions in the cover letter as well (Why commercial law, Why the firm, Why me) but I would seek to employ more of a 'narrative structure' and speak more about personal experiences. Essentially, you should describe your personal, academic, and professional trajectory more broadly, focusing on how your journey had led to where you are now. In the application form question, while answering the same questions, you should write in a to-the-point style and implement a very clear structure. Your points should be a lot more factual and the experiences you describe should be more academic/work related.
I was also worried about 'self-plagiarism', as I was about to submit the same answer to an application question that I used last year. (improved, but some sentences were the same) It’s connected to our university experience—for example, I had to write my Master's dissertation on a law I think should be reformed. I remember doing an undergraduate essay on the same issue and thought I could reuse parts of it. However, professors said this would be considered self-plagiarism, and we're not allowed to incorporate even our previous work into new essays for university! (and during my undergraduate degree professors also continuously said we were not allowed to use our old work) This made me wonder if the same concept applies to law firms applications ahaha
Hi @sammm10101 around six!
Hey @lolololol , when I did it last year, there was one VI question at the end. I am unsure about this year, but I presume it is the same as there has been a VI element for over 3 years now. In relating to preparing for video interviews, I’d say you should take some time to understand your skills and competencies. VI usually require you to explain how you demonstrated a key competency that is valuable to the firm. You will need to not just state these competencies, but show examples of how you demonstrated these. It’s sort of like an expanded version of STAR, only that you will need to make it more conversational and less script-like than you initially would in an online application.
Since you haven't used AI for anything substantial, it will be difficult to get to a conclusion that it improved your personal development directly. However, if you are willing to be a bit flexible with your writing, I think you can tie your use of Grammarly to some indirect resulting personal developments. Off the top of my head, I can think of:
Hey @legallybrunette8 , I’d say you should definitely switch things up a bit. You will have gained so much more knowledge and experiences between last year and now - would be worth demonstrating this via the initial stages. It is also arguable that firms may have ways of testing whether the same application has been submitted twice. I also understand that the reasons for choosing the same firm twice may be consistent between last year and now, so its understandable to repeat a few points. However, consider linking them to new points/developments in your own knowledge, or knowledge about the firm.
That happened to me in the past as well, it's quite a frustrating experience. What I would advise you to do is to try to speak with people at the firm and ask the same questions that elicited the response you got two year ago - perhaps someone will describe the same/very similar experiences. Then you can quote their names and phrase your answer along the lines of 'Having spoken to trainees at FIeldfisher at X event in the past, I learnt that ... (point about culture/work environment). I subsequently spoke to X person from the firm, who told me ... (and then you explain how their experience reinforces the point) which confirmed my desire to work at the firm'. You could try to engage with the people at the firm you will meet tonight and/or also reach out on LinkedIn.
Just to stress, law firms will not be acting like academics in regards to this.
I now understand why people are worried about it on here! Thanks for clarifying everyone - I will try to allieviate future fears by explaining this is not a thing for law firms, just academics!
I think this will be fine as otherwise they would just say it was a word limit.
Thank you was just worried I would be over the limit. On their portal it does not say if you are over the limit.
