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Message: <blockquote data-quote="j.s.cox" data-source="post: 123828" data-attributes="member: 20454">Moving back to some more updates today. As ever, new goals are in bold.Update:Norton Rose FulbrightI got a Norton Rose Fulbright Winter Vacation Scheme Offer!!!!!!! I can't begin to put into words how amazing this makes me feel. My hard work is really paying off!Ahead of the vacation scheme, I really need to continue practising the things I found hard at the AC (i.e. negotiating and knowing my application inside out - there is another assessment during the scheme). Graduate Recruitment also mentioned that they would be getting back to me before the scheme with feedback from the assessment centre, so I'll use that to further help me prepare. I also want to take the TCLA course "How to Convert a Vacation Scheme into a Training Contract". Hopefully this will help me to do just that. Meanwhile, I think I need to give myself some time just to celebrate this achievement!AS Commercial Awareness Semi-FinalsToday I went to Skadden for the AS CAC semi-finals. It was a hot mess. Before I go into that, I'd just like to mention that Mathieu Pinto Cardoso (graduate recruitment manager at Skadden) is an absolute legend and among my favourite of the graduate recruitment people I have met (up there with Paul Gascoyne from Shearman & Sterling and all the NRF people I have met).We started with an introduction, before being put into separate rooms in our teams of five (randomly selected before we arrived), where we had a few minutes to get to know each other before the first task. There were two people in my team who were incredible and I got on with them instantly (A and B). There was another person who seemed really lovely, but didn't really contribute in the preparation discussion except to tell us that they were confused about eveything (C). Finally, there was a person who was a little older than us and who really got under my skin (D). I'm not usually the kind of person to moan, but D told members of the team that their names were too difficult to pronounce so D would just be calling us their colleagues. D also asked me "so, what's wrong with you then" before we even had a chance to say hello (I have a walking stick). I tried to brush those things off in the name of teamwork, but honestly it really bothers me that my name became a problem and that I was asked about private medical history just because I had a visible mobility aid. On top of that, D wouldn't let anyone else get a word in edgeways during our team preparation. It really irked me! I realise that I may have to work with people I find difficult in the future, so I think this shows me I need to come up with a strategy of how to approach difficult people better in the future, as I don't think I did it very well today.I don't want to give too many details away about the tasks as there are ongoing AS CAC semi-finals, but it essentially broke down into two tasks, both involving a verbal presentation. For Task 1, I don't think my team did very well. We spent so much time during prep trying to get D to stop talking that we barely jotted out a plan. As such, the presentation was jilted and I don't really think we nailed the answer to the question. We ran out of time and it just felt underprepared and underwhelming. The questions we were asked afterwards were quite hard, although I think we dealt with them as well as we could. I was also REALLY glad I used the TCLA courses to prepare as they were a godsend for these questions.We then had a break to network with previous finalists of the competition who had secured their TC through the competition. This bit was really enjoyable and I learnt a lot more about the firm. From my conversations, I realised that I really liked the people at the firm, but overall I'm not sure it's the right firm for me. I've connected with some of the people I met on LinkedIn to try and maintain my connections and learn from the things they post.After this, we moved onto Task 2. My team were immediately focused on how to improve our timing issues and I felt like we prepared much better for this one. Unfortunately, when it came down to the presentation, C spoke twice as long as they were supposed to, meaning that myself and A were forced to shorten our prepared sections considerably. It meant that I wasn't able to speak as eloquently as I wanted to as I was mindful that A still had to speak. It also meant we couldn't showcase the depth of our knowledge. Questions were a lot harder than the first presentation, but I was happy with my answer. I just felt really frustrated that C had taken up so much time when it was something we specifically agreed to keep an eye on and everyone else did their part well. I'm not really sure what I can do to mitigate this in the future, but I'm going to have a real think about it.Overall, the day was a real example to me of what happens when you don't click with the people you are working with. This is bound to be an issue I face in the future, so I need to find ways to prepare myself for this. I think this is more of a long-term goal than an easy-fix and I'm going to take some time to really think about potential solutions and ways I can prepare myself for this in the future. Also, my watch kept telling me that I was getting missed calls from NRF all day and I couldn't phone them back until the end of the semi-finals which was driving me nuts! I'll have to see if I made it to the finals, but if not, I'm proud that I've gone from being rejected from a firm because of my lack of commercial awareness, to the final 125 participants in a commercial awareness competition.Thank you for following my journey!</blockquote>

Verification: Our company is called, "The Corporate ___ Academy". What is the missing word here?

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