TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26

[corporatebaddie1506]

Is yours due today at 12am?

 

[Ijustwanttobealawyer]

may I ask, whether V&E is for spring or summer? thanks!

I may be mistaken but I don't remember getting to choose whether it was spring or summer?

 

[corporatebaddie1506]

Manchester – I emailed recruitment and she said we will know in February with whether we got into the AC or not.

 

[Jessica Pearson - Managing Partner]

They changed it! Did you not get an email about it?

Further to our recent emails I am writing to let you know of a change to the structure and format of your upcoming virtual assessment centre.

The exercise that you'll be completing has changed from a research exercise and presentation to a commercial interview. In place of the preparation time you will be given all the required information 5 minutes before your interview starts. We appreciate that this is a change from what you were expecting; it has been introduced to allow us to assess your own real-time reasoning and to give you a greater opportunity to showcase your analytical skills, knowledge of Osborne Clarke and the legal sector, verbal communication and business awareness and understanding.

This change also reduces the amount of time that you need to allocate to the virtual assessment centre.

My guess is they had a much higher volume of applications this year (each AC I’ve been too they have said they had at least 1,000 more applicants than normal, thanks AI) and they want to halve the time to screen more people.

Edit: to add, I think we will see these short prep time exercises more to overcome the AI issues. The job really does demand us to be able to think on our feet after all!

I think more than AI though, I think that there are just more people in the pool. Career changers, people who have been applying for x number of years, new grads etc.
It seems like there are just so many people applying for jobs & I don't know if this is a reflection of the job market or the economy or what

 

[Jessica Pearson - Managing Partner]

Who’s gna take it for the team and message one of R&Gs future trainees to see if they used headings for their R&G response. I feel like grad rec would tell us the opposite of the truth lmao. Makes their job to filter apps so much easier too.

This is something that was told to me second hand guys! Don't stress - I'm just saying it because R&G has given *mixed* signals

 

[trainee4u]

Crap, I unironically used that a couple of times (I read the phrase a couple months back in an article and liked it, now I'm guessing it was an AI article.)... just my luck! My fault for not using better writing though.

Just doing my last minute Hill Dicks VI

ChatGPT:
Your ambitious, international platform
It's not a side offering — it’s a core identity.
Hill Dickinson’s ... fits how I work best: A, B and C.

 

[johnsmith]

I think more than AI though, I think that there are just more people in the pool. Career changers, people who have been applying for x number of years, new grads etc.
It seems like there are just so many people applying for jobs & I don't know if this is a reflection of the job market or the economy or what

Agreed, but AI certainly makes applying easier for those who may not be confident writers.

 

[trainee4u]

they use Copilot.

 

[Gr33ntea]

Womble bond and Dickinson test felt like i was playing a game

Hiya, can you give any tips for prepping for it please?

Was it timed and was it a watson glaser style with numerical reasoning too?

 

[PFO Final Boss]

Which office did you apply to?

London!

 

[clbtchnhl]

re WBD test, they say in the email it takes 5 mins, and it genuinely does. im not sure what the point of their test is, SJTs as they go barely are a representation of ur personality, let alone like 10 questions

won't complain too much though, at least its not an amberjack where I will spend an hour and be aired by grad rec (cough cough Simmons)

 

[trainee4u]

Did we ever decide if it's:
* pass/fail based on minimum score
* pass/fail based on minimum score with separate sub-score minimums as wel
* some kinda ranking system, so 36 is better than 30?

 

[Nimaj]

They changed it! Did you not get an email about it?

Further to our recent emails I am writing to let you know of a change to the structure and format of your upcoming virtual assessment centre.

The exercise that you'll be completing has changed from a research exercise and presentation to a commercial interview. In place of the preparation time you will be given all the required information 5 minutes before your interview starts. We appreciate that this is a change from what you were expecting; it has been introduced to allow us to assess your own real-time reasoning and to give you a greater opportunity to showcase your analytical skills, knowledge of Osborne Clarke and the legal sector, verbal communication and business awareness and understanding.

This change also reduces the amount of time that you need to allocate to the virtual assessment centre.

My guess is they had a much higher volume of applications this year (each AC I’ve been too they have said they had at least 1,000 more applicants than normal, thanks AI) and they want to halve the time to screen more people.

Edit: to add, I think we will see these short prep time exercises more to overcome the AI issues. The job really does demand us to be able to think on our feet after all!

I never got that email, only the link to book an interview slot. Thanks so much for responding, that's really helpful.

 

[jamsparkle]

Just doing my last minute Hill Dicks VI

ChatGPT:
Your ambitious, international platform
It's not a side offering — it’s a core identity.
Hill Dickinson’s ... fits how I work best: A, B and C.

unrelated but it genuinely irritates me when I open linkedin or something to see a post by someone who's claiming to be knowledgeable in a subject but who has clearly copy and pasted the whole post from chatgpt... if you claim to be an expert, surely you can cobble together a few words yourself?!?! also AI has a tendency to drag out posts that could've been one or two paragraphs into whole pages of writing, which means that most of the post is saying nothing of substance

 

[radicaloptimist]

For Faegre Drinker, they have a question 'Please provide any additional information that you think is relevant (Max 400 words).' This is in addition to asking for work experience and a question asking for hobbies or sports. What do they want us to talk about??