BIRCHAM DYSON BELL LLP
LCN AWARD WINNER 2017 BEST RECRUITER – MEDIUM CITY FIRM
A firm with a long history, but a modern edge, Bircham Dyson Bell (BDB) is the worthy winner of this year’s Best Recruiter – Medium- Sized Firm award. With its main office at the heart of Westminster (and another in Cambridge), the firm’s government and infrastructure team carries out some of the most interesting work in this practice area – something that drew trainee Rahil Haq to the firm: “The location of the firm was a big thing for me; although the firm is involved with projects throughout the country, it’s based in the heart of the capital, near Parliament and various government departments involved in the kind of projects the firm advises on.” With a month’s paralegalling at the firm under his belt, Rahil’s decision to apply for a training contract there was a no-brainer, although he still had to undergo the same two-stage interview as the other candidates. “I took part in several role plays,” he recalls, reflecting on some of the key features of the process. “One involved having to offer advice to the interviewing partner who was pretending to be a client. None of the exercises required you to have any legal knowledge; instead they were designed to assess how well you think on your feet.” Nicola Jacobs, BDB’s HR manager, explains that the interview process is designed to test a range of skills. “We are assessing candidates in a number of different areas,” she points out. “It’s not just an ordinary interview. But we only ask them to do things that we would expect a trainee to be able to do; there’s nothing too abstract! The exercises are designed to showcase what the candidate would do in a particular scenario; we still want them to be themselves. We try to make it as real as possible. Not everyone is good at a straight interview, so the practical aspects of the process are important.” On top of this Mark Challis, a partner in the government and infrastructure team and the firm’s graduate recruitment partner,
2017
14
Best in Law 2017
LawCareers.Net
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