This is such a great story !! It gives me so much hope and inspiration to not give up.
5 years must have taught you a lot - Any pieces of advice on how did you perfect your interview process, your application process and commercial awareness? I
I think we will all benefit from your insights on how you achieved this (if its not too much trouble)
Of course!
Interview - I don't think I've perfected the process but I did get better and less nervous at interviews. After an interview, I used to write down all the questions I was asked whilst it was still fresh in my mind and after a while I had a big list of questions. I wrote down practice answers for all of them and would rehearse my answers during the day. THis was really helpful when it came to the interview as a lot of the questions I had already rehearsed (but I tried to make it sound natural in the interview).
Commercial Awareness - this one took a long time and it's only something I think I've got better at recently. I used to get caught out because I only had a very superficial knowledge of business topics.and when they asked a few follow up questions about a business issue that I had mentioned, they could easily see I was waffling and didn't really know it well at all. To improve this, I tried to read through business news and google everything I didn't understand - so things like bonds, how acquisitions work, security etc. I then worked my way up from a very basic level until I started to understand.
Application: I think I was doing a lot of things wrong here. I would say first it's better to answer a question with less examples and more detail than the other way around - I had a habit of listing a lot of experiences in some of the extra-curricular questions and it wasn't very structured, just pick a few so you have the space to expand on what you did and what you achieved. Second when tailoring your application, don't forget to focus on why a law firm interests you. I used to be good at describing a law firm in detail, but I always forgot to tailor it back to myself.
I hope that helps!
