Using social media in the training contract hunt

As published on Legal Cheek

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Earlier this year I got a training contract at a small, reputable firm in Buckinghamshire. To break this down simply; I met my recruiter on Twitter. The firm, like many others, is looking to expand and give substance to its online profile. And that’s why my experience as a blogger became relevant. My use of social media made me an attractive candidate so I made an application to the firm – three competitive recruitment stages later, I was offered the job. 

Getting into Twitter was a pretty odd experience. Following people and having others follow you is one thing. But trying to become a familiar name within the circles you care to be known is akin to joining a new school. Except no sniggering children. More decorum. More thinking about coming across as smart and someone in the know. My babbling blogging escapades, I had hoped, would help give me at least a little weight in this faceless arena. There were a few kind folk (@legalaware, @traineesurgery and, yes, @AlexAldridgeUK to name some examples) who helped make my entrance into the legal twittosphere less mucky and embarrassing than it might’ve been.    

Twitter in turn helped make my blog a more meaningful one; I became increasingly bothered by what people thought of it. And so from its jokey, naïve, often cringe-worthy origins it evolved into something better researched and more thoughtful – at times anyway. I gave more care to my content; hardly ground-breaking or even quality writing, but that was never the goal. First glimpse and it’s all about sharing my experiences, offering ‘tips’ and ‘tales’ to my struggling compadres. To a significant extent this was its purpose. But what it really did was enable me to join the dialogue and colour with humour the dull, boring, repetitive and dispiriting grind of training contract hunting. And its role as a means for getting me noticed by law firms developed as my readership grew.      

It would be wrong to say I got the training contract through using Twitter and by blogging alone. So too would it be wrong to say I would’ve seen success without using them. Twitter and blogging are not substitutes for aptitude, enthusiasm and genuine passion for law. But what I think I’ve shown is that they can be viable platforms for reaching what many are dead-set can only be reached through the obvious, well-trodden routes. I know this approach isn’t appropriate for every person, nor every law firm; but in 2012 - this most testing of years for getting a training contract - sticklers for the norm might find their luck fast dwindling.

twitter's maverick COO

Right now I’m a trainee at the kind of firm I want to be part of. But a training contract isn’t the first job my blog and Twitter helped me net. I also worked as a full-time blogger for a firm in central London. Hadn’t I brought a blogging background to the table I can’t imagine the firm would’ve taken me at all seriously.

More and more firms are modernising; sculpting, shaping themselves to fit into a market which doesn’t seem to know itself yet. The only way you can survive the training contract hunt in such unholy an environment is if you too modernise with the firms and look for the new opportunities in the new industry.

The BureauZone Crisis

Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) could use a few more like us. The adviser training course is a fulfilling and worthwhile way to familiarise yourself with the law and advice work. [This article has been approved by all relevant parties. Aspects of the account have been fictionalised to further protect parties. But this shouldn't compromise the purpose of the article.]

A Monday. New carpet smell laced with that lingering adhesive tang- the promise of the recently refurbished office space; not something I like to have greet me in the morning. But the place at least looks bright and alive. It was that afternoon’s events that made me realise what being here really meant.

I held the door open for the couple; him - tall and burly, menacing; her - short, unassuming and insipid, forcing a smile- inexpertly veiling the unmistakable anguish on her face. The man rushes past me- no eye contact, no anything. She shuffles in his trail. He presses the button for the lift and the doors open instantly. As he gets into the lift he tears in half the yellow sheet of A4 he was carrying. She approaches the same lift but the doors close on her. They don’t reopen. She keeps her gaze on the closed doors. I ask her if she’s okay and she looks at me; completely silent, vacant stare. She turns to open the door to the staircase and disappears. I’d interviewed the couple moments before. The yellow sheet of A4 was the debt form I asked them to complete before their next appointment.

I’d spent an hour with the couple. They wanted advice on how best to maximise their income. The man was impatient, arrogant and expected to leave us with a cheque for child benefits. At the time, I would have said it was the cavalier manner with which he probably approached every facet of his life that saw him unable to cooperate; after the event, I’d say it was his painfully unrealistic expectations that did it. I was left disheartened- my time and effort amounting to nothing more than mere character analysis.  

I think about how I could have done things differently; about what my natural approach would have been had I known the woman was pregnant by another man- something I discovered just days later. My immediate feeling was to treat this truth as a justification for the man’s behaviour. Then I thought more about the situation; how did she get pregnant? Was she abused? Why think about these things at all? Any combination of scenes a possibility. From that day I learnt to set aside my preconceptions along with the “what’s really going on here?” mentality; an effective lesson only available on the job.

It’s the difficult days that make an even greater reward of those times you do get to see justice along its way; helping the client identify their issue and take ownership of it; researching policy and law and delivering advice which can open up to the client new avenues they hadn’t before considered or even heard of. Many millions visit CAB and every now and then you’ll see a client whose life will be unquestionably better for it. It’s emotionally draining, it’s tough, but so rarely do you get to glimpse reality and human understanding revealing themselves to such a degree.   

In a time when Citizens Advice cuts threaten the most vulnerable, volunteers are needed now perhaps more than ever. I’ve been with my local CAB, in some capacity, for over two years, in which time i've learnt to better manage the client’s expectations - no matter how impracticable they first appear, to better manage my own expectations of the client, and ultimately to deliver an improved service. What I learn from my work as an adviser I will take forward with me into my legal career and beyond.