TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2023-24

[happyhippo0402]

Hey when did you apply?

I applied mid september and received the invite to the first stage interview at the end of october - hope that helps

 

[helga_p]

Does anyone know if applying closer to the deadlines of VC affects being selected? In particular interested in VC at Osborne Clarke. I know some firms do "first come first served basis", does Osborne Clarke do the same? Thanks!

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi guys,
Would like to know your thoughts on this... I attended an AC at a Silver Circle firm two weeks ago and I learned that X candidate (a successful candidate) on the AC was best friends with the assistant grad rec. The grad rec assistant and the senior grad rec were with us the whole time whilst we were being interviewed by partners/associates. I fully understand that personal connections exist so this did not really bother me much at the time, especially as X themselves revealed that they were best friends after the AC.

Anyway, X learned they were successful right after the AC and told me right away. I waited a couple of days, then received the PFO from the assistant grad rec (the friend). I also received very detailed feedback (about 4 pages long) on each interview giving me 'insight into [my] performance' and 'observations of [my] behaviour'. At first, I thought the feedback seemed very odd because it didn't accurately describe how my interviews went (one of them went amazingly well but this was described as completely the opposite). A bit concerned, I asked another candidate what they thought of their feedback, and to our surprise, we learned that we received word-for-word identical feedback (basically copied and pasted the whole document), and this was also sent to them by the assistant grad rec (the friend).
At this point I was very concerned, so I sent a kind email to grad rec addressing the situation about the identical feedback and asking politely for a more individual assessment of my performance, one that truly reflects my performance for my personal development. It has been nearly 7 days and I have not received a reply.
Should I just forget about it, or should I try to make sure my concerns are properly addressed?
thank you for reading and please let me know your thoughts on this.

The part of this that concerns me is the identical feedback you and another candidate have received, especially given it is so detailed. To me, this is either 1) an error and the wrong feedback report has been shared or 2) is a cut-and-paste feedback they are giving to everyone. To me the latter is worse than the former, as the former is just an unfortunate error/mistake (although if it references personal data, then there is also a data breach the firm needs to be aware of).

Getting the wrong report might explain why the feedback doesn't match what you think happened in your interviews. So would if it was just a generic feedback report given to every candidate. However, outside of these reasons, it is very feasible for the candidate to have a different view of how the assessment went compared to their assessors. I have lost count of how many people have been really surprised at the feedback I have given them and thought one exercise was a disaster and the other a huge success when it was actually the other way around.

The Graduate Recruitment Assistant will not be the one making the decisions and won't have the ability to influence assessments conducted by other people. Their manager is likely to be aware of the connection too and will be aware they are likely to have some indirect advantage by the friendship. I personally would not expect the connection to the GR Assistant knowing someone at the AC to be connected to the issue you are experiencing. I completely understand how it may look like it, but I just think it is highly unlikely to be the situation. Unless you are confident the GR Assistant was assessing the candidates (e.g. in their interviews etc), I don't see a conflict of interest as others have suggested. People being known to others in the firm is incredibly common - I would just expect a firm to not have that individual assessing the candidate they know or be involved in the decision-making. If they were assessing, then that isn't acceptable in my opinion and really the GR Manager should have had some foresight to keep the GR Assistant out of the assessments and just helping with general admin on the day/showing people to the right rooms etc.

My view on this:

• If your feedback report shares any personal data that can identify other candidates, raise this as a data protection breach with the firm. They will need to action this.
• If not, then wait to see what they say about the generic feedback and why the report is identical to another candidate and whether they can give you more specific feedback. If you feel you have to chase this up, then do so.
• If you do get any more specific/correct feedback, then to me this is the end of the issue. The aspects around the candidate and their connection to GR is based on some assumption of acting without the best of intentions, and I really don't think this would be the case. Even if you were confident there was something happening where the individual clearly got favourable treatment because of who they were, would you really want to work for that firm anyway?

 

[plmokn]

any PFOs from white & case? I've only seen offers as of now

when were the offers given?

 

[mfuturetrainee]

when were the offers given?

its been scattered, I think a few people have been hearing back so I saw one person getting an offer yday on the forum

 

[legally.brown]

Has anyone got AC offers this week from A&O? I just want them to put me out of my misery 😭

 

[SalmaNasser]

i applied to mayer brown on 2/11 and still haven't received any test? how long did it take for anyone who received one to get it?

still haven't received anything yet as well

 

[Jessica Booker]

I realise I am posting this on the corporate law academy, but I thought some people might have some insights on my current conundrum. I do not want to do corporate law; I actively avoided all commercial modules at my undergrad and excelled at private client work. I've applied to mostly boutique firms. There are some full-service firms with excellent private client services, but the applications and video interviews are asking me why I want to do commercial law. What should I do? They can see by my application that I have taken no modules in the commercial sphere except contract because that was compulsory. Should I just avoid these firms?

My guidance on this is will 50% or more of your training contract be in practice areas you are happy to work in? If so, go for it. If not, then its likely to not be the firm for you.

Sometimes firms just use the term "commercial" to cover a broad set of the work they do, and things like private client can still fall into that given the typically high levels of wealth their clients have. So I wouldn't worry to much about the definitions in questions, but I would look at whether the firm can truly give you the experience you will need, not only for your training contract, but on qualification as well. And by having multiple practice areas that align to your interests, the chances of that are much greater.

 

[Tattyasha]

Akin test invite

Brilliant! Well done! May I ask when you applied please?

 

[Minitomatosalad]

Hey @user7879,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I am genuinely sorry for this kind of behaviour, this is not acceptable. Unfortunately, these kind of behaviours are very common in this industry. I have heard worse stories than this. I really hope that these kind of behaviours and preferences during the recruitment process can change because it just limits deserving candidates' successes and this is not okay.

In terms of what you should do, I personally believe that you should let it go and focus on your next applications and firms you are applying to. Use that feedback (even if it is not accurate) as a guideline of things that you should not do during the recruitment process at other firms and try to improve yourself day by day. These situations can happen but I do believe that you can learn from them, and now what you know is that you are not well suited for that firm, and that is okay.

Good luck with the process!

Hi Axel
It’s really shocking that there are even worse stories out there. But how could that change in your opinion?

Most firms are already boasting about using rare recruitment, not allowing applications from an employees family member, blind CV interviews etc etc. Is that just all marketing?

 

[Flavius Aurelius]

Anyone heard back from Stephenson Harwood post-test??

 

[jplaw1010]

Anyone heard back from Stephenson Harwood post-test??

Did you apply for the WVS?

 

[Flavius Aurelius]

Did you apply for the WVS?

yep, I selected both winter and spring to be exact.

 

[LegallyBrown]

Would like to know your thoughts on this... I attended an AC at a Silver Circle firm two weeks ago and I learned that X candidate (a successful candidate) on the AC was best friends with the assistant grad rec. The grad rec assistant and the senior grad rec were with us the whole time whilst they were taking us to be interviewed individually by partners/associates. I fully understand that personal connections exist so this did not really bother me much at the time, especially as X themselves revealed that they were best friends after the AC.

Anyway, X learned they were successful right after the AC and told me right away. I waited a couple of days, then received the PFO from the assistant grad rec (the friend). I also received very detailed feedback (about 4 pages long) on each interview giving me 'insight into [my] performance' and 'observations of [my] behaviour'. At first, I thought the feedback seemed very odd because it didn't accurately describe how my interviews went (one of them went amazingly well but this was described as completely the opposite). A bit concerned, I asked another candidate what they thought of their feedback, and to our surprise, we learned that we received word-for-word identical feedback (basically copied and pasted the whole document), and this was also sent to them by the assistant grad rec (the friend).
At this point I was very concerned, so I sent a kind email to grad rec addressing the situation about the identical feedback and asking politely for a more individual assessment of my performance, one that truly reflects my performance for my personal development. It has been nearly 7 days and I have not received a reply.
Should I just forget about it, or should I try to make sure my concerns are properly addressed?
thank you for reading and please let me know your thoughts on this.

As annoying as it is, I honestly would let it go.

These things cannot be changed, and although it seems quite weird that the grad rec assistants best friend was successful - I wouldn’t be 100% confident that this was a contributing factor to their success. At the end of the day, that candidate would have had to apply and assess like anyone else - which they would have had to do themselves. Even more so, unless my firm treated me like a PA - it’s often the advisors or seniors that would pipeline and double check candidates not assistants. The only weird thing would be if they gave them additional insight into the answers and etc.

I have a few friends in grad rec, and actually worked in the industry for a while - things like this were very frowned upon and regardless of how close you are with someone, I don’t think anyone wants to risk losing their job and getting a lawsuit.

Regardless, it is annoying that the assessor was allocated to that candidate which in my opinion should have been mitigated against by keeping them separate if they declared their relationship. Like isn’t there a “contact at the firm” question on the application forms anyway. BTW these are declarations that we had to do in the firm I previously worked at - even for an insight scheme.

As for the feedback, I had the same experience with Macfarlanes. I got the opposite feedback than what I was expecting - apparently great interview and written exercise and awful case study (eventhough I thought the opposite). I flagged this and asked grad rec to check that the feedback wasn’t switched - they checked with the assessors to confirm and the assessors confirmed their feedback was correct.

Sometimes we can think things went better than they actually did, or maybe we touched on points that they weren’t actually marking for - which is the feedback I got for the case study I thought I smashed - apparently I said a lot of things which were good but they weren’t in the mark scheme.

I really hope they give more detailed feedback, but remain polite so as to not damage your potential applications with them in the future.

Good luck and I’m so sorry this was your experience xx

P.S - I was distraught after losing out on Macfarlanes earlier this year, I even DM’d Jess screaming conspiracy. I recently got a vac scheme at another silver circle firm. So take the hit, and carry on - there’s always something right around the corner xx

 

[kmo20]

Mishcon VI invite!!

 

[axelbeugre]

Hi Axel
It’s really shocking that there are even worse stories out there. But how could that change in your opinion?

Most firms are already boasting about using rare recruitment, not allowing applications from an employees family member, blind CV interviews etc etc. Is that just all marketing?

That is a good question, and honestly I genuinely do not know how they can change. I suppose that we will need to wait when the new generation is in charge to change things, especially at the recruiting level. I think that firms are going in the right direction (not all of them though) however there is still a long way to go to make sure that the sector becomes as diverse and as accepting as it should be!

 

[axelbeugre]

Mishcon VI invite!!

Congratulations!!

 

[kmo20]

If anyone has experience with the Mishcon VI I would really appreciate any advice as this is my first VI experience

 

[axelbeugre]

If anyone has experience with the Mishcon VI I would really appreciate any advice as this is my first VI experience

There are some posts on TCLA that might be helpful, I will include some links here: https://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/threads/how-to-prepare-for-a-law-firm-video-interview-a-step-by-step-guide-⭐️.8346/ and https://www.thecorporatelawacademy....ns-discussion-thread-2023-24.8037/post-151491 I hope these are helpful and good luck with the assessment! and Congratulations for getting it in the first place!

 

[kmo20]

There are some posts on TCLA that might be helpful, I will include some links here: https://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/threads/how-to-prepare-for-a-law-firm-video-interview-a-step-by-step-guide-⭐️.8346/ and https://www.thecorporatelawacademy....ns-discussion-thread-2023-24.8037/post-151491 I hope these are helpful and good luck with the assessment! and Congratulations for getting it in the first place!

Thank you so much, this is really helpful!