TRAINING CONTRACT INTERVIEWS MADE EASY
You’ve submitted your training contract applications and – hooray! – you’ve been invited to an interview. After five minutes of patting yourself on the back, the fears start to surface. What if I become a gibbering wreck? What do I wear? What sorts of question are they going to ask? All of sudden you realise you are being asked to prove yourself in person rather than on paper. There are two stages to a successful interview: the first is the preparation and the second is the technique that you demonstrate at the interview itself. By taking some time to consider both stages, you can confidently approach the law firm that you are destined to work in, knowing that you are about to deliver a fine interview. Preparation One of the most common reasons for failure at interview is poor preparation, so spending some time on this could make all the difference. Remember that an interview is a two-way process: it is an opportunity for the firm to find out more about you and for you to find out whether this is a firm you want to work for. Start with what they might want from you. Your application has obviously aroused their interest, so go back to that first. Analyse it across the three main areas: academic life, work experience and extracurricular activity. Ask yourself why you made the choices you did, what you have gained from your experiences in terms of skills and personal development. and whether you would have done anything differently. If you have an academic result that seems out of step with other results, or other issues such as illness or bereavement, think in advance about how you want to present that to the interviewer in a way that won’t make you anxious or upset. Honesty is
certainly the best policy here – if less than impressive grades were a result of things going temporarily astray, you should state this, but explain that you are now back on track. Spend some time looking for clues to questions in your application. If you have been a keen and committed member of a sports team or part of a rather off-the-wall club or society, or have travelled during a gap year, then you might reasonably expect the interviewer to pick up on those points. Even if you feel that you haven’t done anything wildly exciting, clearly something made them interested enough to invite you to interview, so what was it? One of the things you can confidently expect them to want to know is why you have decided on a career in law. If you are going to convince, you need to be able to demonstrate that you understand what a solicitor actually does and you have considered the different practice areas. For example, if you are applying to a commercial law firm, do you know what the role of the solicitor
is in business and can you show that you are commercially aware? Be aware of what is going on in the legal and business press, and be sure to read our “Commercial Question” articles on p50. Further, it is important that you take time over the summer to read the newspapers, particularly the law and business sections, to keep up with current events. No interviewer will ever go for anything too obscure, but they might reasonably expect you to be interested enough to follow major legal and commercial stories in the press. The firm will also want to establish why you applied to them in particular, so research them thoroughly. They will only expect you to know what is available to you, but if you know nothing about them as a firm, you are unlikely to impress! You need to look at the firm’s own website, with particular focus on the “About Us”, “News” and “Recent Deals” sections. It may also be useful to do a search on some of the legal press websites to see what comes up in relation to that
An interview is a two-way process: it is an opportunity for the firm to find out more about you and for you to find out whether this is a firm you want to work for
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