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.

No mean tweet..

Law and education journalist Alex Aldridge caused a minor uproar amongst twitter's elite legal community when he published this article in The Guardian on Friday. The furor was sparked chiefly by what many perceived to be an attack by Aldridge on twitter regular, former TC hunter, current prospective trainee and all-round nice guy Ashley Connick - in particular: "Connick has found himself increasingly short of interesting things to tweet about now his hunt for a graduate job is over".

Founder of Twitter

I joined twitter just days before I read this article; when I first started reading it I was intrigued, even excited by the idea that I could further my profile and, what's infinitley more important, widen my job-hunting strategy via this relatively new and wondrous medium.

Blawging magnate Charon qc yesterday said of Connick: "[he] almost certainly got his training contract in a ‘magic circle firm’ by hard work and having the right qualifications – rather than his ability to tweet". While I don't doubt this for a minute, I feel it is inevitable that setting up shop in an arena where firms and other employers have a presence can get you/your blog noticed, for better or for worse.

That employers are looking to recruit via Twitter is a concept alien to me, and while firms might not be actively recruiting this way, making yourself known to them can't hurt. To my mind, what any prospective employer ought to look for is honesty, passion [of some kind], humour, and intelligence in tweets [as far as one can demonstrate intelligence in a 140 character snippet], and it is perhaps a sign of the times that suspicion is aroused when someone is also courteous and amiable on a social networking site; what's his game? what's he trying to get out of this? I am not speaking for Mr Connick here, indeed I haven't consulted him [nor anyone else] on this issue, but from my perspective, there is a discrepancy between being aware of your audience and modifying your online 'persona' to indulge or register with others.

I doubt this was mere posturing on Mr Aldridge's part; he seems smarter than this, and is in my opinion an excellent and incisive writer. But, on this occasion I disagree with him, as from what I have gleaned from my week as a twitter newbie, Mr Connick is a thoroughly interesting chap with plently to offer those who are wise enough to engage with him. If, as is being suggested by Aldridge, Connick's tweets were more insightful and interesting prior to the sun setting on his job-hunting days, then it is regrettable that I did not know him then.

If Connick tweeted then in the same manner he does now, it can only have been to his advantage. And while there is scarcely a substitute for hard-graft and sacrifice, at a time when the active, nosey kind of job-hunting is essential, we're all looking for new avenues to exhaust. This might be one of them.