Jamie England - Three mistakes to avoid when applying for vac schemes
05/01/2016
I am in a fortunate position in that I managed to pinch a training contract before I started my GDL (yay for me). But sometimes I do look back with nostalgia at my efforts to reach this point. The stresses of perfecting vacation scheme applications while trying to squeeze in revision was, in a strange way, quite fun.
A lot can change in a year. My first round of vacation scheme applications were a joke. I live in fear of the extremely unlikely day that I come into contact with the lawyer who read my application and remembers me for its atrocity. As they say, the best way to learn is from mistakes, so I thought I’d help others learn from some of mine.
Failure to research properly the firm I was applying to
I didn’t appreciate what this meant until I bombed in my first round of applications. I think I followed a few firms on Twitter and read up on the usual websites. I certainly wasn’t immersing myself in the legal industry in a way I would do next year. I’ve already written about my unconventional education, so finding out which firms I was better off applying to was an important task for me the second time around. Originally, I had picked firms almost at random and fired off applications – little wonder none of them went any further. But through trying to absorb lots of information about firms over the months, I found it much easier to tailor my answers and really evidence my interest.
Wasting words
A definite reason for my original failure was my shoddy waste of language when answering questions. I think arts students possibly struggle most in this respect. You’re given 250-500 words to answer questions, some of which are ambiguous. It’s better to punch out four or five points, each of clear relevance, than to waste words by making the thing flow poetically (painful, I know). The only way to make sure you’re as efficient as possible with your answers is to draft. At first attempt, I sculpted out paragraphs as answers and edited a few things during proofreading. However, it’s better to treat each answer as a mini essay. Write out bullet points and string these together instead of worrying about repeating an adjective from a previous answer.
Not spending enough time
There were two strands to this mistake. First, I didn’t spend anywhere near enough time doing research. Even though I read about different firms, I didn’t spend any time trying to find out what made an application form answer excellent. Support is obviously available as part of the GDL or LPC, but even as a non-law undergraduate there are opportunities to take advice. The most obvious being to ask those who have already made it to the promised land. I probed trainees who took part in recruitment presentations at university or emailed them after the event. It was a magic circle trainee who imparted to me that concise answers will beat flowing answers every time. I can’t speak for all, but the trainees I’ve approached have been extremely willing to help.
The second strand is not spending enough time on the application itself. Rather than looking at it as an afternoon’s work to create answers, put a couple of days aside to put together the building blocks of your answers and bring them together.
We’re always told there’s no perfect answer, but these are some mistakes to avoid in order to have the best chance of getting as close as possible.
A lot can change in a year. My first round of vacation scheme applications were a joke. I live in fear of the extremely unlikely day that I come into contact with the lawyer who read my application and remembers me for its atrocity. As they say, the best way to learn is from mistakes, so I thought I’d help others learn from some of mine.
Failure to research properly the firm I was applying to
I didn’t appreciate what this meant until I bombed in my first round of applications. I think I followed a few firms on Twitter and read up on the usual websites. I certainly wasn’t immersing myself in the legal industry in a way I would do next year. I’ve already written about my unconventional education, so finding out which firms I was better off applying to was an important task for me the second time around. Originally, I had picked firms almost at random and fired off applications – little wonder none of them went any further. But through trying to absorb lots of information about firms over the months, I found it much easier to tailor my answers and really evidence my interest.
Wasting words
A definite reason for my original failure was my shoddy waste of language when answering questions. I think arts students possibly struggle most in this respect. You’re given 250-500 words to answer questions, some of which are ambiguous. It’s better to punch out four or five points, each of clear relevance, than to waste words by making the thing flow poetically (painful, I know). The only way to make sure you’re as efficient as possible with your answers is to draft. At first attempt, I sculpted out paragraphs as answers and edited a few things during proofreading. However, it’s better to treat each answer as a mini essay. Write out bullet points and string these together instead of worrying about repeating an adjective from a previous answer.
Not spending enough time
There were two strands to this mistake. First, I didn’t spend anywhere near enough time doing research. Even though I read about different firms, I didn’t spend any time trying to find out what made an application form answer excellent. Support is obviously available as part of the GDL or LPC, but even as a non-law undergraduate there are opportunities to take advice. The most obvious being to ask those who have already made it to the promised land. I probed trainees who took part in recruitment presentations at university or emailed them after the event. It was a magic circle trainee who imparted to me that concise answers will beat flowing answers every time. I can’t speak for all, but the trainees I’ve approached have been extremely willing to help.
The second strand is not spending enough time on the application itself. Rather than looking at it as an afternoon’s work to create answers, put a couple of days aside to put together the building blocks of your answers and bring them together.
We’re always told there’s no perfect answer, but these are some mistakes to avoid in order to have the best chance of getting as close as possible.
