Is your skills bank account in credit or overdrawn?

By Matt Oliver [guest writer]

If you are serious about your applications for vacation schemes and training contracts then you must have gone through the skills bank account exercise or similar.

If you don’t then its often a sign that you don’t want to see the results for some reason. Usually this is because you feel that you don’t have enough skills or that you don’t have the relevant skills.

Without doing the brainstorming exercise and committing these things to paper then you will never know. Often candidates will do this exercise thinking they don’t have enough skills and experience and when they are finished they are pleasantly surprised and much more confident about their applications.

Once you have done the exercise you will get a good bird’s eye view of yourself as a candidate and be able to see whether your skills bank account is in credit or overdrawn.

If you feel that you are light on skills and/or experience then the best time to do something about that is now. It is never too late. Do not become one of the applicants who knows there is a skills/experience shortage on their CV but buries their head in the sand and hopes they might get lucky with their applications.

You will hardly need telling that the job market is very competitive at the moment. Therefore you bury your head in the sand at your peril. The good news, however, is that there are a large number of applicants who will not even have this knowledge let alone be doing anything about it.

Therefore if you can take positive action now to top up your skills bank account through additional experience you will increase your chances of success significantly.

Even if your skills bank account is looking very healthy, until you secure a job it is advisable to continue to seek out experiences, activities and interests that will allow you to use and develop skills which are relevant to the job of a solicitor. This will not only give you a bigger pool of things to use on your applications but also more things to use in interviews as a way of backing up what you are saying about yourself. It also shows that you are a pro-active person who is keen to be taking on new challenges and learning new things which always goes down well with law firms.

This article is an extract from the eBook "21 Secrets to Successful Applications" written by Matt Oliver of Trainee Solicitor Surgery. Get a free copy of the full eBook here: FREE EBOOK

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.

The Inbetweeners

I am leaving law school, dying in original sin, and am waiting to be eternally damned by a firm of lawyers. I'm in limbo. I am an inbetweener. And nothing on this planet is quite as wasting as the time of an inbetweener. What is an inbetweener to do?

Uncertainty is the state of existence of an inbetweener. Since I finished the LPC, the recurring thoughts are 'what on earth am I doing'? and 'should I reassess and do something else'? Is it a blessing in disguise this period of longing, lingering, lamenting? Maybe its us inbetweeners who are truly privileged. Maybe we're the ones who have the chance to have a real go at life, the ones who have the time to step back and ask 'what do I really want to do'? After all, a man finds himself when he gazes into the abyss. Or maybe we're the ones being left behind with the dregs of society; maybe we are the dregs. You can understand what I mean about uncertainty.

When you're an inbetweener you want to be employed, for neither luxury nor comfort, but for your own sanity. Finding a TC is difficult, but finding a hold-over job, an inbetweener job, is arduous because they are precisely that: jobs. We have paid our way through university and law school, endured the bad tidings of countless PFOs, shook hands with people we will never again encounter, availed ourselves as best we could of the wisdom of practitioners, and have wrestled to harbour our confidence and self-belief. Not for a job, but for a career. Not for the thing we land in, but for the thing we want.

As an inbetweener, the most stress-inducing aspect is the need to put the pursuit on hold, to an extent at least. I still send applications, attend an interview here and there and do this and that for mr and mrs legalease, but I can never immerse myself in this pursuit; I have to keep my eyes above the surface so I can see what else is out there.

Life as an inbetweener is frustrating, dull, confusing, mind-numbing and often solitary. But this could also be the most important period of my life. It is a period of, and I say this grudgingly, desperation, but also one of reflection; the two are discordant but reflection is involuntary. 'Reflection': do I simply mean I am thinking about doing something other than law? It is a more holistic kind of reflection; the French writer Chamfort wrote “a man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.” Well this is toad swallowing time.

Waiting. Thinking. Grinding my teeth. This is how its going to be until my day of damnation. Damn them.

Employ me I don't want babies!

By Sissymoon [guest writer]

I am going to do my GDL in September , and like many others of you out there I convince myself I am the one that these firms want, they just don’t know it yet. I’m sure you all know how much soul searching you do while completing your application forms, you convince yourself that each firm you apply to is the one for you, you simply have to make yourself stand out from everyone else, that is actually in essence a clone of you.

You reel off how much passion you have for the firm, how you believe you will fit in very well with the other solicitors, how you respect their trainee recruitment because you understand how important it is to recruit the ‘partners of the future’ (when actually you hate it because it makes the process harder)etc etc. What interested me while completing these applications was how far one would go to get a TC. I am constantly searching for new ways to improve my applications to gain the elusive TC, and through many networking events with lawyers I found when talking to women the subject of babies always came up.

Now I am certainly no feminist, I hate them, whinging about the ‘glass ceiling’, about how porn is essentially abuse of women, how they are expected to become housewives. The basis of their argument is all wrong; why would you attempt to be equal to something you are so different to? However one conversation I had with a lawyer has always stuck in my mind; when is the right time to have babies? For some reason this stuck and made me think, has it got to a point where I feel like one of my unique qualities is that I am prepared not to have children to have a career? I am prepared to choose my employer over my ovaries.

I always joke that I would be the type of mother who would say ‘go and play on the motorway’, but the reality is if I am even debating this I would not be a good mother. Under the section ‘is there anything else you feel would support your application’ I am always desperate to put “I don’t want babies” , “I won’t take maternity leave”, “I will sacrifice my main biological purpose of being in this world”! I do however stop myself – they may think oh good she won’t sting us for flexi-hours, and covering maternity leave but she will need time off for being certifiably insane! Just how much do we need to sacrifice to show that we are different from the other 500-1000 applicants? When does the line need to be drawn, but how do you show commitment to your chosen path? I know I will regret it when I am lonely and old, and there is no one there to wipe the food away I dribbled or change me when I soiled myself , yet I would still say I am prepared to not have children for my career (and the greater good).

Interviews: Is your body betraying you?

A study, reported in a Forbes magazine article called Is Your Body Betraying You In Job Interviews?, claims that "a first impression is based on 7% spoken words, 38% tone of voice and 55% body language." The article is from 2006 but I imagine the science is still good. There is no substitute for being enthusiastic. This probably goes for assessment centres too. But what body language? How can one 'appear' enthusiastic in a scenario as artificial as an interview? Maybe its time to put on a show, break out the mirror and with it the Othello charm. Although, I suppose it helps if you are genuinely enthusiastic...


 

Interviews: another perspective

The following piece is by Lawyered_87, poached from the cathedral that is Roll on Friday with permission. I thought it was rather spiffing, hence the poach.
                                                                                              

By Lawyered_87 on Roll on Friday on 7 August:

I was one of those candidates that was lucky enough to get invited to a lot of interviews at good City firms but never seemed to be able to break through that "glass ceiling". This had happened since I started applying 3 years ago. So I have a lot of experience with interviews and I've come to one conclusion: you cannot wing anything, ever.

I managed to get a t/c recently and I totally changed my approach for that interview and I feel this new approach helped me get it.

I treated the interview as if it was an exam. So a few days (or even a week, it's up to you) all I would do is get into a routine of getting up early and going to sleep early, and throughout the day I'd "revise". This would consist of:

- reading everything I can about the firm (its website, lawcareers.net, lex100, student chambers and partners etc.)
- keeping up to date on current affairs (BBC News, Lawyer 2B, Legalweek etc.)
- watching BBC News 24 whenever having breakfast and lunch
- practising verbal reasoning tests (if you had to)
- And the most important one - looking at every possible question that can be asked at an interview and coming up with at least some answer to them or one example.

That last part is really important. I know it's virtually impossible to know what could get asked at interviews; they'll throw you a left-fielded question you may not have anticipated. You deal with those wildcards the best you can. But there are some questions that are very common; there are great resources on-line that give for example 100 interview questions that could be asked - so I went through each one and asked myself what I'd say if I was asked them. It's a tiresome, tedious and boring process - but when you realise the potential dividends of getting a t/c through this preparation, it's worth it!

I'd also practice actually answering some questions out loud - privately in my room of course! The very act of speaking about yourself and bigging yourself up is so unnatural, that the more you do it the more natural it'll be. You can also practice structuring your thoughts/answers in your head and speaking a little slower, as nerves on the guy can make you speak too quickly and wildly.

For each potential interview question, I'd try and come up with 3 good points I'd always reel off. So, for example, "Why do you want to be a solicitor?" - for this I'd have 3 points I'd rely on; it makes you sound confident and certain. Competency questions, I'd always have one example but a second one just in case I needed it. So, for example, "tell me about a time you used teamwork?" - I'd have a good example for this, and then go through STAR structure (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

You'll see that preparation is key. When I began to have so many dud interviews, I started to realise that I wasn't preparing for them enough - and it's silly to not prepare for them. Because at the end of the day the mere opportunity to get an interview is a lot more than a lot of applicants get at all! An interview is an opportunity for you to shine and if you don't put every effort into it you've just robbed yourself of a great opportunity that others would kill for.

The added bonus of good preparation is that it makes you more comfortable, which relaxes your nerves on the day.

So be focused. Stay sharp. Prepare. It'll pay off in the end, believe me.

Commercial awareness - savvy?

Socrates. When people hear this name, many will identify the great Greek philosopher of ancient times, others will shrug their shoulders. For a minority, images of the 1982 World Cup and the blind heel pass, the two-footedness, the ruggedness, the height and the majesty will present themselves instantly. Socrates. One of the finest football captains the beautiful game has ever produced. A Brazilian [of course], Socrates was able to do the impossible. He could see things that other players couldn't even fathom. His skill and vision on the pitch made him an idol to millions.

An acute knowledge of what is around them, coupled with the requisite know-how of what to do with that knowledge is instilled in every great captain- of industry as well as football. I view commercial awareness similarly. Knowing the elements of the commercial world is one thing, but to then make connections between those elements is where, I believe, true commercial awareness lies.

Knowing that the sovereign debt crisis exists is good; knowing how it has consequences for the legal and commercial world is better- A impacts B which impacts C. Now i'm thinking like Socrates [the footballer, that is- although the philosopher was probably no dope when it came to making simple deductions]. He would know the elements on the pitch, identify the connections and execute the necessary [with all the aplomb and swagger that came to be expected of a Brazilian maestro, I should add]. For an incredible book on commercial awareness, I recommend All You Need to Know about Commercial Awareness 2011 (All You Need to Know Guides). Also, check out the Bank of England website's education section which is full of useful and easy to understand information- http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education

For more information on the legend that is Socrates take a look at Giants Of Brazil: Soccer World Cup History 1950-1994 DVD. Its well good.

Pee-Eff-Oh

Who came up with the phrase "please f*ck off"? I want to know who he or she is. Was it one person, or was it a team effort? Was there a meeting at which it was decided that 'PFO' was going to enter the mainstream and prosper? Its a phrase used frequently and across continents and cultures; you might say its a popular, cross-continental, cross-cultural phrase. But its a funny phrase because it is intrinsically counter-intuitive, yet it captures the essence of most situations it is used in. How interesting. And it is so aptly used by beaten down future-noblemen/women.

Of course, firms that write to you to reject you cannot say 'don't want you, get lost' or 'heh' or 'yeah, nice one mate', although it would save them a great deal of time and ink. Ink is important. They pretty much have no choice but to 'PFO' us. It's good manners. PFO is manners. PFO is the art of manners encapsulated in a couple of lines on a sheet of A4. I've received some beautifully written, deliciously crafted PFO's. A few times i've been tempted to reply with a thank you note.

I'm yet to receive a PFO for the most recent round of applications. But they'll come. They will. Indeed, it was never the idea that I send off 20/30 applications and get greenlighted for all of them. PFO is part of the process. Much like people say death is as much a part of life as life itself [although this to me has always smelled a lot like BS], PFOs are as much a part of the struggle as interview offers [what's the acronym for 'interview offers'? IOs? Never heard it before.]

Who came up with the word BS? I'd like to meet them too.

Knowing when to quit

Many people will accuse those who do the LPC without having obtained a TC of being either misguided or stupid. In the worst cases I have seen, some unfortunate souls have been referred to as both of these things...in quick succession. It doesn't happen often, but i've seen it. But from official statistics which i'm assuming must exist, most people start the LPC without a TC. Moreover, those who start the LPC having secured a contract make up only a small proportion of those who do the LPC and then go onto TC'hood. But, still, there is the beclouding statistic that there are more LPCers that TCs.

But how are we supposed to know when to quit? No doubt for many of you who don't have a TC, 'quit' isn't a word which enters your vocabulary. But for me, i've always felt that I do know when to quit. It just happens that that time isn't now. My feeling of 'knowing' that I will secure one soon is sort of compounded by the fact that I know many mooks who have signed their names on that hallowed piece of paper. How did they do it and I not? Of course, there are so many objective, subjective, economical and personal factors affecting this query, but lets ignore those.

A further reason why i'm not quitting, other than that I want to be a lawyer and all that lark, is because far too much has been invested in this; financially, emotionally, and most of all, time-wise. 31st July has passed us and soon we will all discover the fate of our words of promise, and the worth of our summer sacrifices. For many, the summer of hardship will pay dividends, but for others, it won't be a time looked upon with fondness.

A summer of hardship is quickly displaced by a summer of relentlessly checking emails. I'm doing it right now. There..I just did it. Its not fun, nor is it easy to stomach a lot of the time; but for those of you like me, you'll know that now is not the time to quit, and for those of you who don't know when to quit, what can I say, other than 'keep plugging away'...until its time to quit, that is.

In celebration..

Closing in on the 2000 page-views mark. As a sign of my appreciation to all of you who have visited my blog since its inception 12 days ago, I give you this. Use it sparingly..Legal Interview Answers for Lawyers. Its all you'll ever need. So i've been told anyway.

And on a lighter note..

 

Yep. Its a TC. A real no foolin' TC. All you need to do is print this out, walk in to the law firm of your dreams, slap it on the front desk [remember to smile; don't smile, and it could queer the deal] then stroll up to one of the partners and start complaining to him about why they haven't arranged for somewhere for you to sit yet. And they say its competitive..

31st July - Holy day

There has always been and will forever be a greater flurry of activity during the hours leading up to 31st July than in any other period in the year - that includes the July/August rush to flee the motherland and 24th December christmas shopping.

Getting applications out before the great deadline date is a sport; as in football, as in tennis, as in hockey, as in basketball, as in etc etc, the dying moments of a game are crucial. There are of course many firms which recruit on a rolling basis which can make 'delayed' applications futile. But there are so many which don't.

The doubts that stream into your soul around this time become trifling; will a late application be consigned to the shredder? Who cares. I'm rolling the dice, and the more times I roll, the greater chance of snake eyes! [If only it were that simple]. Most people I know who have a TC tell me they sent out anything between 20 and 100 applications before they landed one. Sending out 100 quality applications sounds near impossible let alone paradoxical. But the message i'm receiving is that I should use all the time i'm prepared to use to apply. Moreover, I should use all the time i'm given to apply- this includes the hours leading up to 31st July.

So there it is. 31st July- one day they'll make a film about it. Oh, the tales it would tell.

Changing tack

I no longer fear interviews. And I'm not terrible at them. At least, I don't think I am. I've had successful interviews for non-legal jobs as well as for numerous vacation schemes. But for TC recruitment I hadn't before come across an interview-only process, until now. I have one next month. This could be my moment, touch wood.

My approach to interviews has changed over the last couple of years. I used to flick through interview books. And only flick through interview books. This, as anyone with a bit of common sense will tell you, is like training for the big match by reading Wayne Rooney's biography. Don't get me wrong, interview books can be useful (check out Complete Interview Guide for Lawyers or for the more gung-ho amongst you, take a look at The Best Book On Getting Corporate Law Jobs (The Only Guide By Real Corporate Attorneys)) but to do an interview well, I quickly realised (i.e. was told repeatedly by various irritable people) that I need to practice and practice and practice. This led me to my second interview strategy; to learn answers by rote. Depending on the type of interview, this can work, particularly if you make it all seem natural. But I'll never do this again and I'd never encourage anyone to do it. Straying from a scripted answer, which would probably be necessary in most law interviews, is like leaving the footpath in a forest- you'll struggle to find your way back.

So my present strategy is to learn to talk about my experiences freely and to relate them to the law. Of course, a lot of people would have realised that this is the correct approach long ago, but where would you all be without the selfless folk like me who have tried and tested the other methods and tumbled at the first hurdle? Nowhere! That's where! 

The famous STAR approach in delivering answers (i.e. Situation, Task, Action, Result) is a sure fire way to show the interviewer that you've prepared. But to ensure that my answers are flowing, I am practising to 'chat' out STAR answers- making it second nature. Lets see if it works. Lord I hope it works..

How do you prepare for interviews?

p.s. have you ever written on a banana skin with a biro? Its smooth. Real smooth. Try it. 

MLitt - Master of Letters

Scandal is all around us. Police, politicians, billionaires, and even notable squillionaires have felt the sting following News of the World's ignominy. But to me, as to many, the greatest scandal of all is my lack of a job. Now, I've come close. Real close. A few times. And into my third year of trying I don't feel like chucking up the spongy sponge just yet. The real difficulty I have is with assessment centres; the big AC, the Colosseum, the Lion's den, the Savage Snake-pit, the..errr..old..Gruffalo Hut.

If I cherry-pick the various successes I've had over the four assessment centres I've been to, it jigsaws neatly into the perfect day. I sometimes wonder if I can put this fact on my CV, but I don't want to run the risk of having oily fish heads thrown at me. But whatever the weather in AC land, it's always sunny in application..ville! Oh yes, i'm a singing whippoorwill when it comes to getting my foot on the first rung of that knackered old ladder. That's because I know how to do it. I especially know how to write covering letters and CVs. I do you know. I wish I could make a six figure salary out of it. I could you know. And to my mind, the numbers game shouldn't be discouraged too much, as long as you know what you're doing. Possibly to the dismay of those law firms who consider themselves the cat's meow, the numbers game is very necessary in this most trying of years.  

So I manufactured me some rules! What are them rules? If i'm interested in a particular firm, I'll give the application the time it deserves. I reckon I can fire out an on-line application in about four-ish hours, including editing etc. A covering letter shouldn't take quite as long. But this, of course, isn't the numbers game. Last November I sent out twenty CVs and covering letters and I have six interviews lined up this summer. Some are for my dream firms. Some are for firms I hadn't heard of until I did a bit of snooping around. Using the numbers game, 20 applications can be sent out in a week easily.

CV - 2 pages maximum.   
Unless asked to state all grades, I only mention the ones i'm most proud of.

For the covering letter.
One page only.
Include my address, their address, date. I find the name of the person i'm writing to.
The sir/madame thing doesn't fly any more.
Header in bold under the 'dear whoever' bit.
5 short paragraphs.
Para 1 - where did I hear about the firm - two lines.
Para 2 - Why that firm. Size, their wonderful training scheme, the practice areas and what made me interested in those areas - five/six lines.
Para 3 - My degree, my skills, my suitability to law, my passion for law - four/five lines.
Para 4 - What i'm doing now, any extra skills I've picked up - four to six lines.
Para 5 - Closing line. 'I love you so much, that's why I'm the bacon to your butty'.

For the numbers game its only really Para 2 that I might change. But only for the numbers game shall I do this.

So my approach to applications has two limbs- The focussed limb, and The numbers game limb. I know others who have received TC offers by employing about as much effort as I have in writing this post. It can be frustrating. But I can see an end. Its the toughest year on record for getting a TC so it should be the most triumphant of triumphs when it finally comes. That's what i'm aiming for.

On an unrelated note, do you like how petrol smells?

Slow beginning, slower middle...

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity". I have a theory that Seneca wrote this catchy one-liner either under the great stress of his exile or while running from the ominous shadow of the murderous Caligula. To me it has never made much sense, mainly because I always felt that 'luck' exists in the opportunity alone.

It should be, "success is what happens when preparation meets opportunity". Whatever the hell Seneca meant, luck seems to be in short supply, opportunity is the carrot at the end of the stick, and preparation is...(anyone?).

I've been searching for a TC for the best part of 3 years now; battle-scarred is a 1-word/2-word thingy I like to describe myself as. Like any other ragamuffin, I started out as a dreamer. I saw myself in the pin-striped suit, pink tie, thick slicked hair, silly pointy shoes, clean shaven face, walking fast around canary wharf, holding a satchel of some kind in one hand, coffee in the other, newspaper under arm, jogging up steps to get to big gleaming automatic slidy doors, gliding into a 40 storey building made of seemingly nothing but chunky bumper glass squares, clippety-cloppetying along solid polished marble floor tiles, under high ceilings, smiling at the beautiful receptionist, big someone&something&someone name-board above receptionist's impossibly blonde head, arriving at the head of a tunnel of elevators-either-side-of-me, floors still glistening, pushing a big button which illuminates instantly, angel's touch, big glass elevator arriving, seeing everything below me in a turbo-speed yet near-silent elevator, arriving at my floor where everyone goes silent and I bellow a resonating 'good-morning'.  Right now is the first time I am revisiting this magical sequence in what has honestly been around 2 years.
Obviously, no matter what you do- accountant, rockstar, hunter, gatherer, mother, county friar, local shrubsman- idea and reality will forever be unharmonious. I graduated, did the GDL, then the LPC, now here I am. Through strife and experience, reality slowly bleeds into your red-ribboned conception of what legal life will be like. Having said that, 'slowly bleeds' is more like mass genocide when the LPC comes to pass.

I've had several experiences in the legal industry, I've studied what I need to, i'm a heavyweight champ when it comes to writing covering letters and CV's. No TC. Some might say i'm getting this that and the other wrong. Clearly I am doing something wrong and I feel this is entirely it- 'luck' only plays a part if you believe it will play a part; its a word, like 'shoes'. If success is when preparation meets opportunity, as one great man once said, then for me preparation is the hound of the baskervilles (i.e. obstacle- i'm seeing if this phrase could take off).

I'll be posting as often as I can on my experiences of the TC struggle. What's your hound of the baskervilles?...