Volunteer/ Work Experience & Cover Letters

[bronson]

1. Can you put volunteer/ unpaid experience that has legal elements in it in your work experience section in applications? For example if you had been the President of a law society could you put this in your experience?

2. Also what in the cover letter you would be okay to just start with Dear Mr/Ms X, ........ rather than putting their name, position, the firm at the top?

All advice re cover letters and work experience is also welcome.

 

[Salma]

1. Can you put volunteer/ unpaid experience that has legal elements in it in your work experience section in applications? For example if you had been the President of a law society could you put this in your experience?

2. Also what in the cover letter you would be okay to just start with Dear Mr/Ms X, ........ rather than putting their name, position, the firm at the top?

All advice re cover letters and work experience is also welcome.

1. Yes, should be fine. I think there is a drop-down option within the work experience section, where you state whether the role was paid/unpaid, etc.

2. I think it depends on the firm, if they are known to be traditional with cover letter format requirements, I would advise doing the latter, however, if not Dear Ms X should be fine.

 

[Selina]

Hi!! Could anyone provide some advice on this?

With regards to work experience, how much should be written to describe the work done (no limit provided).
Considering that there are application questions following the work experience which would require me to use my work experiences, do I repeat those descriptions in the work experience section?
Or should I just briefly describe my work experiences in 70-100 words without using the STAR method?

Thank you so much!

For my applications, I typically wrote 100-150 words for each work experience about my main responsibilities and any memorable tasks undertaken in that role (if it was a short work experience). I also mentioned how I obtained the role if it didn't ask already! I didn't usually use the STAR method. Finally, in a couple of lines at the end, I wrote how this related to my motivation for law or for that particular firm - e.g. working in a small office with a collegiate culture relates to firms with a small trainee intake (use the law firm's name); working in retail improved my understanding of customer relations, as well as how a business operates; attending law fairs/campus presentations helped me gain insight into different types of firms; etc.

Re. repetition - try not to repeat anything that you've written in your application answers. Write these first as these take precedence - put your most important points about what you did and what you learnt here. If you want to flag up a particular scenario then I would use the STAR method. Anything else that you think would be relevant to mention can go in the above work experience sections (also saves on word count in your answers).

This is just how I did it - hope it helps!

 

[R203]

Thank you so much!!

 

[v123]

Thank you so much!!

I also put non-paid volunteer experience (ie. pro bono experience) under the work experience boxes! Make sure to maximise the work experience boxes ie. if you have 250 words try to make the most of them rather than writing 100