TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2021-22 (#1)

[Asil Ahmad]

If there is another question for that and you ran out of space to write it there, then I am not sure that this is the right place to mention it. But if there is no other question relating to extra-curricular activities or achievements then I would feel comfortable mentioning it here!

There was a question about extra curriculum activities and interests so should I discuss more achievements in this question or leave it blank.

 

[James Carrabino]

Hey everyone,

One of the tasks for an AC I have this week is to write a short letter of advice to a fictitious client. I was wondering what everyone thought about formatting - should I write addresses etc like a business letter (even if they don't state to specifically)? If so, is there a document/example someone could share of what it should look like? Thank you all

@Jessica Booker @George Maxwell @James Carrabino any help would be appreciated

I think @Jessica Booker's advice is spot on! You could then sign off the letter unless they tell you not to use your name (e.g. it is a CV-blind interview)

 

[James Carrabino]

There was a question about extra curriculum activities and interests so should I discuss more achievements in this question or leave it blank.

You could discuss achievements, or anything that is not adequately conveyed elsewhere to be honest I would never leave such a question blank - more space to show yourself off is a gift!

 

[Han.louise]

I wouldn't say you can prep too much for the written exercise and case study other than making sure you're really aware of the time. The interview is a pretty standard competency interview with a few motivational questions thrown in as well, so I'd focus preparations on having competency examples prepped and knowing all your 'whys'.

Thank you Rose!! How did you find the case study, is it quite easy to understand? Did they ask you questions about the case study?

 

[James Carrabino]

This is such a good answer and brought a smile on my face

@S87 I appreciate your kind comments and am really happy that you liked my answer 😊

 

[James Carrabino]

I've got two ACs next week and I am starting to get overwhelmed with information. I had an interview last week with a different firm where I was unable to answer a competency question and I didn't answer two commercial questions how I would have liked 🥲, and it's stressing me out that maybe I don't know as much as I should. When do you know if you've done enough? I know you cannot prepare for every single thing, but the more time I have, the more I think I should be doing more competency examples, more firm research, etc 😕

Hi @summer207, I am copying over the same answer that I used to respond to your post in the thread, Keep getting ACs but always feel like I fail them... so that I can respond to your answer here as well and perhaps reach a wider audience in the process


I rarely felt that I had 'done enough', but I also knew when to stop. I only felt unprepared for an interview if I had not thoroughly gone back over all of the following six things in advance of the interview (which only happened once I think, when I had a coursework deadline the night before an interview):

1. First and foremost, I compiled a thorough document dedicated to my research about the firm, including deals, partners, awards etc. and a structured list of bullet points on how to answer 'Why this firm' if it came up. Often I would end up with way too much information and have to be very rigorous about going through and deciding what was a priority to mention and what I would only bring up if the interviewers asked subsequent questions. I would not worry abut having done too little research (unless you really have not done much research at all) because usually the problem is having too much information to draw from.
2. I reminded myself of my other 'general' answers to questions including 'Tell us about yourself and your journey', 'Why did you study your university degree?', 'Why are you interested in law/commercial law?', 'What are your strengths/weaknesses?' and 'What makes you stand out as a candidate?' I always got asked 3/5 of those questions.
3. I went back over which examples I would use for seven key competency questions on teamwork, resilience, ability to take constructive criticism, leadership, integrity, communication and dealing with failure/making a mistake. If I had one example for each of those, I tended to be fine and very rarely found myself searching for an answer on the spot. If the question did not quite map onto one of those competencies, I could often still use the same example and alter my conclusion slightly in order to address the exact question being asked.
4. I prepared two commercial answers - one about a general commercial news story of interest to me and another specifically about a deal that the firm had recently worked on.
5. If we were given the names of our interviewers, then I made sure to know a bit about them and their work, just in case it could fuel any conversation or inform my questions later on.
6. If the interview involved a case study, I always went back over @Jacob Miller's comprehensive case study advice the night before.

If I had completed these first six things then I felt ready. I would feel comfortable going to sleep the night before an interview if this was all that I had done. In whatever extra time I may have happened to have, however, I would do everything else I could think of. This included preparing answers to more questions from this list, thinking about the types of questions I may want to ask the interviewers and generally searching online for any advice about interviewing at the firm that I could find. If I did not have time to do these final things, however, then I would not stress out!

Bearing all of this in mind, know that firms will try to ask you questions that you have not prepared for, and they will almost certainly succeed at least once. So be prepared for that moment where a question comes that makes you think, 'Ok, you win - I simply don't have this one prepared'. Allow yourself to confidently admit to yourself that you did not prepare an answer and then ask for a few seconds to think. Don't beat yourself up over not preparing enough and don't worry if this answer does not end up being your very best answer. Everyone will face this moment at least once in an interview and as long as you don't let it startle you, then I am sure you will think up a decent answer on the spot!

After every interview, I would make a note of all the questions I was asked and what my answer was, whether it was good enough, or whether I should think of a new one for next time. This process of learning and improving after each interview really helped me improve from one to the next!

All of this is to say - don't stress! I am sure that you are extremely well prepared already, but feel free to have a look over these suggestions if you want to be able to put your mind at rest

 

[rose0904]

Thank you Rose!! How did you find the case study, is it quite easy to understand? Did they ask you questions about the case study?

Yeah I'd say it's not difficult in terms of actually understanding the information, it's more that it's difficult because there's so much information to comprehend and collate in a short period of time. You do a presentation first and then your interviewer asks a few questions about the case study. The impression that I got was that the questions were given to them in advance rather than being about what you'd actually said specifically. Hope that helps!

 

[Asil Ahmad]

You could discuss achievements, or anything that is not adequately conveyed elsewhere to be honest I would never leave such a question blank - more space to show yourself off is a gift!

Thank you very much for this and will do. Just wanted to double-check if adding achievements to this question was the right approach.

 

[James Carrabino]

Thank you very much for this and will do. Just wanted to double-check if adding achievements to this question was the right approach.

I don't think it's the wrong approach. Some questions will be more obviously geared towards mitigating circumstances, but the wording of this question seems to leave open the possibility for you to talk about anything you want to in my opinion!

 

[Commerciallaw]

For a written exercise where the instructions are from a partner/senior associate to send them a draft of an email to send to the client - how should one structure that. I know I am thinking in too much depth here but I really do not know. (because technically I am sending the email to the partner not directly to the client ...). Also, if the partner/senior associate is going to forward my email to the client - i technically should not sign my own name in the email if I am choosing format B - so should I sign it with the firms name?

Can you tell me if A is right or B? or if it should be something else.... (Yet again I know I am just confusing myself here 😂)

Format A
Dear (Partner/ senior associates name)

(greeting message)Below is the email you requested...

Dear (Client name)​

​

blah blah blah​

​

Yours sincerely,​

(firm name)​

(end message)

Kind regards,
(my name)

Format B

Dear (Client name)

blah blah blah​

​

Yours sincerely,

(firm name)​

 

[Asil Ahmad]

I don't think it's the wrong approach. Some questions will be more obviously geared towards mitigating circumstances, but the wording of this question seems to leave open the possibility for you to talk about anything you want to in my opinion!

Thank you very much for this.

 

[James Carrabino]

For a written exercise where the instructions are from a partner/senior associate to send them a draft of an email to send to the client - how should one structure that. I know I am thinking in too much depth here but I really do not know. (because technically I am sending the email to the partner not directly to the client ...). Also, if the partner/senior associate is going to forward my email to the client - i technically should not sign my own name in the email if I am choosing format B - so should I sign it with the firms name?

Can you tell me if A is right or B? or if it should be something else.... (Yet again I know I am just confusing myself here 😂)

Format A
Dear (Partner/ senior associates name)

(greeting message)Below is the email you requested...

Dear (Client name)​

​

blah blah blah​

​

Yours sincerely,​

(firm name)​

(end message)

Kind regards,
(my name)

Format B

Dear (Client name)

blah blah blah​

​

Yours sincerely,

(firm name)​

I think usually you would write to the partner, with the assumption that they will at least take the time to amend it and address it to the client. I would not worry about addressing it to the client myself, or if you would really like to do so then you could use format A

 

[S87]

A bit random but guys if you have the opportunity to watch Succession then do it because you learn a lot about the corporate world. Plus, I would also watch YouTube videos of Dragon’s Den, you can learn what are the things to keep in mind to create and sustain a business. All good gravy for an AC!

 

[ap28]

Amazing! Can I ask when you applied?

Apologies for the late reply! I applied a day before Christmas

 

[JayB]

Hope everyone is having a restful Sunday.

Has anyone heard back from White & Case yet with a video link? This is for the spring scheme? ☺️

 

[ap28]

Has anyone heard back from TLT or Osborne Clarke (Bristol office for both)?

 

[AP2000]

Hey! I had a mock group case study exercise the other day and I came across something quite unusual in the material presented. The task was to advise the client on which company of three to acquire, and for one of the companies it was noted that accurate figures for forecasted cash flow were not available and so the figure was derived by comparing the company with a similar company in a different sector. I have three questions:

1) Am I right in understanding this as a market approach valuation?
2) Beyond noting that this is obviously less accurate (and a bit of a red flag) than other valuations which were based on figures publicly available for the respective companies, I wasn't sure what other information I could ask for- is there something that I could recommend or documents I could ask for to gain a better valuation or is the lack of publicly available figures the end of the story?
3) Why would accurate figures for forecasted cash flow not be available in the first place?

Finally, for the other two companies it was noted that we are confident in the accuracy of this valuation because "figures publicly available" were used. As above, do we just take this for granted and move ahead or is there more to unpack?

I'd really appreciate any advice since I'm just starting to gain a better insight into company valuations

 

[MartineA]

Has anyone done the gateley interactive assessment?

I've done the first half. Do you know where I can find any information on any recent deals, I can't navigate their website clearly.

 

[Jessica Booker]

For a written exercise where the instructions are from a partner/senior associate to send them a draft of an email to send to the client - how should one structure that. I know I am thinking in too much depth here but I really do not know. (because technically I am sending the email to the partner not directly to the client ...). Also, if the partner/senior associate is going to forward my email to the client - i technically should not sign my own name in the email if I am choosing format B - so should I sign it with the firms name?

Can you tell me if A is right or B? or if it should be something else.... (Yet again I know I am just confusing myself here 😂)

Format A
Dear (Partner/ senior associates name)

(greeting message)Below is the email you requested...

Dear (Client name)​

​

blah blah blah​

​

Yours sincerely,​

(firm name)​

(end message)

Kind regards,
(my name)

Format B

Dear (Client name)

blah blah blah​

​

Yours sincerely,

(firm name)​

Really don’t worry about this. The exercise instructions will either tell your or this isn’t really important.

 

[thirdtimelucky]

Hi @summer207, I am copying over the same answer that I used to respond to your post in the thread, Keep getting ACs but always feel like I fail them... so that I can respond to your answer here as well and perhaps reach a wider audience in the process


I rarely felt that I had 'done enough', but I also knew when to stop. I only felt unprepared for an interview if I had not thoroughly gone back over all of the following six things in advance of the interview (which only happened once I think, when I had a coursework deadline the night before an interview):

1. First and foremost, I compiled a thorough document dedicated to my research about the firm, including deals, partners, awards etc. and a structured list of bullet points on how to answer 'Why this firm' if it came up. Often I would end up with way too much information and have to be very rigorous about going through and deciding what was a priority to mention and what I would only bring up if the interviewers asked subsequent questions. I would not worry abut having done too little research (unless you really have not done much research at all) because usually the problem is having too much information to draw from.
2. I reminded myself of my other 'general' answers to questions including 'Tell us about yourself and your journey', 'Why did you study your university degree?', 'Why are you interested in law/commercial law?', 'What are your strengths/weaknesses?' and 'What makes you stand out as a candidate?' I always got asked 3/5 of those questions.
3. I went back over which examples I would use for seven key competency questions on teamwork, resilience, ability to take constructive criticism, leadership, integrity, communication and dealing with failure/making a mistake. If I had one example for each of those, I tended to be fine and very rarely found myself searching for an answer on the spot. If the question did not quite map onto one of those competencies, I could often still use the same example and alter my conclusion slightly in order to address the exact question being asked.
4. I prepared two commercial answers - one about a general commercial news story of interest to me and another specifically about a deal that the firm had recently worked on.
5. If we were given the names of our interviewers, then I made sure to know a bit about them and their work, just in case it could fuel any conversation or inform my questions later on.
6. If the interview involved a case study, I always went back over @Jacob Miller's comprehensive case study advice the night before.

If I had completed these first six things then I felt ready. I would feel comfortable going to sleep the night before an interview if this was all that I had done. In whatever extra time I may have happened to have, however, I would do everything else I could think of. This included preparing answers to more questions from this list, thinking about the types of questions I may want to ask the interviewers and generally searching online for any advice about interviewing at the firm that I could find. If I did not have time to do these final things, however, then I would not stress out!

Bearing all of this in mind, know that firms will try to ask you questions that you have not prepared for, and they will almost certainly succeed at least once. So be prepared for that moment where a question comes that makes you think, 'Ok, you win - I simply don't have this one prepared'. Allow yourself to confidently admit to yourself that you did not prepare an answer and then ask for a few seconds to think. Don't beat yourself up over not preparing enough and don't worry if this answer does not end up being your very best answer. Everyone will face this moment at least once in an interview and as long as you don't let it startle you, then I am sure you will think up a decent answer on the spot!

After every interview, I would make a note of all the questions I was asked and what my answer was, whether it was good enough, or whether I should think of a new one for next time. This process of learning and improving after each interview really helped me improve from one to the next!

All of this is to say - don't stress! I am sure that you are extremely well prepared already, but feel free to have a look over these suggestions if you want to be able to put your mind at rest

I’m in the final week and a bit before my AC and this has been a god send because I am panicking about whether I “know” enough! I am going to implement this method from now 🙏🏼