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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Carrabino" data-source="post: 97116" data-attributes="member: 16764">Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone was able to take a break from applications and relax a little over the holidays.Please find my first application pitfalls post of January below. My next update will be in two weeks as I have exams next week!Please do reach out if you have any questions about any of the things I have raised. I hope that this is useful in advance of a busy application month <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> JANUARY WEEKS 1-2Not putting your experiences in contextFor example, were your cycling achievements something that you pursed as part of your university extra-curricular activities, or did you pursue these in your spare time? It is useful to give the reader a sense of how serious you were about each activity you pursued and the extent to which you had to juggle your time in order to keep up the activities that are important to you.Writing vague firm-specific answers This is a (made-up, but using a mixture of details from applications I have read over the last few weeks) example of an answer to a firm-specific question. By ‘firm-specific questions’ I mean the ones that ask you why you want to work with them in particular… and yes, your answer to this question does need to be wholly specific to the firm so you should not be doing any copying and pasting from other applications! My following example would be a weak answer for an application to XYZ LLP:‘I wish to train as a solicitor at XYZ LLP as it combines my interests in the intellectual nature of law and the complex character of the business world. Having worked at two international corporations, I have been fascinated by how businesses respond to new regulations and I am particularly attracted to XYZ LLP’s international outlook as a result. I value how being a solicitor at the firm would allow me to be a client’s first point of contact when approached with these difficult questions.I believe that as a progressive firm, XYZ LLP will provide me with first-class legal training which will prepare me well for a successful career. I think that the firm’s large/small trainee intake will offer me a comprehensive/intimate training environment, which will present me with excellent opportunities for professional development. I am uniquely drawn to XYZ LLP because of the firm’s dual strength in both its transactional and disputes practices. This is unique and it really appeals to me as I hope to undertake seats in both practice areas as a trainee. Moreover, XYZ LLP’s award-winning pro bono work and diversity initiatives demonstrate that the firm’s values are closely aligned to mine.’This answer manages to make a lot of claims about XYZ LLP whilst simultaneously saying very little that is specific about the firm (note that it does matter whether the firm’s trainee intake is large or small – candidates love mentioning this either way but it is really not a very interesting point to make since so many other firms share a similar-sized cohort and it is unclear which one really has a greater benefit to trainees).When you are writing a firm-specific answer, really do your research. Now, this does not need to be an exorbitantly long process – you may have seen applicants on the forum say that they spend days researching a firm before applying, but honestly that is not necessary. I actually approached the firm-specific answers as a box-ticking exercise and in 1-2 hours of research I would make bullet points that allowed me to do the following:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mention a deal the firm had worked on recently in an area of interest to me</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mention a partner I would possibly like to work with as part of my training contract</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mention a firm-specific initiative</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mention an award that the firm had won</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Convey that I had an understanding of what the firm was really known for </li> </ul>Once you have done these things, you will have enough information to write your answer in a very short period of time whilst ensuring that every sentence is specific to the firm. It will not be too difficult and it will be a great answer!Including the same material in multiple answersIt is not good to have overlapping material between answers. By overlapping material I am referring to large chunks of text that are instantly recognisable to the reader as being highly similar to another part of your application. You might think that you have changed the wording enough for this not to be a problem, but if you are making substantially the same point about your achievement or experience then the reader will recognise this immediately.This often appears when an applicant uses wording from a work experience entry to describe a question about the time they held a position of responsibility. You can definitely use the same example – that is not the problem at all – but you need to make sure there is a different point to be made. If you are simply describing your role as you have done in the work experience entry, then it is quite apparent and it comes across as if you had nothing else to talk about. A good answer may delve into a specific challenge you faced during your role and how that really tested you in your position of responsibility, as this is something you are unlikely to discuss in a stand-alone work experience entry.Making reference to things without explaining/elaborating on themMany candidates write sentences like, ‘My international experience has prepared me for cross-border work’, or ‘I discovered in my banking internship that I enjoy and thrive in a commercial team environment,’ without actually describing what their international experience is or where they did their banking internship.Even more common is that candidates do not do something quite this extreme but will write a sentence about how living and working in four different countries has prepared them to work at an international firm. As a reader, I really want to know which countries these are! I also want to know if you speak languages from those countries as well. I am not quite sure why the point is worth mentioning if it only gets mentioned so sparingly.This seems strange to me but I do review applicants’ written answers on their own, so perhaps what is happening is that applicants assume recruiters will remember the experiences they are referring to from other components of their application (e.g. their work experience and education). This is the most plausible explanation I can think of for these kind of vague references.I would not count on recruiters remembering things from other parts of your application, simply because they will be reading every application so quickly and they will be reading so many of them. If the point you are making is not self-contained and requires the person reading your application to refer back to another component of your application, then this could result in it not being properly understood.Making naïve discoveries‘On the Open Day I learnt that commercial lawyers make relationships with clients so that they can advise them on legal solutions to their business problems’.This actually sounds kind of good when you read it, except for the fact that this is really obvious, isn’t it? Did you actually learn this on the open day (implying you did not know it before)? Did you not learn anything more specific or substantial on the open day? Filler sentences like these seem to appear a lot and I would not recommend putting them in as they could come across as naïve.Placing a long phrase before short phrases in a listThis reads poorly. For example, ‘I am attracted to the firm’s comprehensive mentorship opportunities tailored to each trainee, international secondments and culture.’This reads fine though: ‘I am attracted to the firm’s culture, international secondments and comprehensive mentorship opportunities tailored to each trainee’.It is sort of a stylistic convention that in a list of phrases, you start with the shortest and end with the longest.Notes from this week’s spelling/grammar errorsNot maintaining continuity of tense ‘By early 2020 the business was struggling to sell its assets quickly enough to meet debts of over $100 billion. These liabilities included nearly $10 billion in bonds that are denominated in US dollars and were issued offshore.’Nothing is technically incorrect in this sentence assuming that the bonds continue to be denominated in US dollars, but it sounds awkward to write ‘are denominated’ in the present when everything else is in the past.This problem can also arise when writing about your experiences – you may express that you ‘have’ (i.e. present tense implied) a certain skill whilst you were doing something in the past. It can sometimes sound awkward to do this unless you are clearly and deliberately changing the tense (for example, you are actively emphasising that you continue to have this skill in the present day as a result of your past experience).Order of Adjectives in a List There are syntactical ‘rules’ about the order in which adjectives should appear within a list of adjectives. This is more an issue of style than strict grammar, but it will often sound wrong not to follow this order for a phrase consisting of multiple adjectives:A. Determiner/Article (The/This/That/Some etc.)B. Adjectives (in order of adjective categories below):<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Quantity or number</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Quality or opinion (general)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Quality or opinion (specific)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Size</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Physical Quality</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Shape</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Age</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Colour</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Material</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Type</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Purpose or qualifier</li> </ol>C. NounHere are some example sentences with each word’s category given in brackets (I could not come up with an example incorporating all 12…🤣)‘The six(1) smelly(2) old(7) French(9) cheeses’‘The large(4) round(6) blue(8) bowling(12) ball’On the other hand, ‘The six French old smelly cheeses’ does not sound right, nor does ‘The blue round large bowling ball’. It would be especially bizarre to say, ‘The French smelly old six cheeses’ or ‘The bowling round blue large ball’.This is not a hard-and-fast rule (there seems to be particular disagreement about the order of ‘shape’ and ‘age’ adjectives) and there are definitely other exceptions too. It is possible to change the order of adjectives for emphatic purposes or because a particular adjective is more closely associated with the noun – e.g. you would not say a ‘red French wine’ when you are referring to a ‘French red wine’, despite colour usually coming before nationality according to the above list.Nevertheless, if you are in doubt about what sounds right in the sentence, then take a look back at this! It is easy to get ‘too close’ to an application and have no idea if your sentence sounds right any more so this can serve to help in those instances <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification: Our company is called, "The Corporate ___ Academy". What is the missing word here?

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