Episode 118: How Saffy got 2 training contracts with top law firms

July 21, 2021 Podcast

For the 118th episode of the Graduate Job Podcast, I speak with a listener of the show Saffy, as she shares her experiences of how she managed to secure offers of training contracts from two top legal firms. Saffy is an alumnus of the How to Get a Graduate Job course, and we explore how she balanced training contract applications while finishing a dissertation in lockdown, and the trials and tribulations of dealing with rejection and overcoming setbacks. We also cover all stages of the application process for a training contract, from 500 word written competency questions to recorded video interviews, legal case studies, assessment centres and the dreaded partner interview. She shares what went well, mistakes she made along the way, what you need to do to stand out from the crowd as you apply for a training contract, and also why she recommends that you sign up for the How to Get a Graduate Job course. No matter if you have never heard of a training contract or even thought about a career in law, this episode is packed chock full of advice that holds true no matter what type of graduate job you are applying for. Now the only link you need to remember today is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Saffy where you can find the shownotes with links to everything we discuss and a full transcript you can download and also details for the relaunch of the How to Get a Graduate Job course, and the special early bird bonuses it will be coming with.  But, without further ado, let’s head on over to my chat with Saffy.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • What you can expect when you apply for a training contract
  • What you need to do to impress law firms through the application process
  • The biggest mistakes candidates make when they apply for a training contract
  • Questions you will face in the assessment centre for a training contract
  • Why you should expect to be in it for the long haul when you apply to law firms
  • What you can expect from a legal partner interview
  • Why Saffy joined the How to Get a Graduate Job course, and why she thinks you should too.

SELECTED LINKS INCLUDE:

Transcript 118 – How Saffy got 2 training contracts with top law firms

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James Curran: Hello, and welcome to the show today, I appreciate you joining me for what is a very special episode, as continuing my recent episodes with listeners to the show, I am today joined by recent law graduate Saffy as she shares how she managed to secure, not one, but 2 highly competitive training contracts with top legal firms. Now Saffy is just like you, a listener to the show who got in touch with me over a year ago now for one-on-one coaching, and then signed up to the first launch of my How to Get a Graduate Job course back in September last year. In today’s episode, she shares her experience of balancing job applications while finishing a dissertation in lockdown, and the trials and tribulations of dealing with rejection and overcoming setbacks. We also explore all stages of the application process for a training contract, from 500 word written competency questions to recorded video interviews, legal case studies, assessment centres and the dreaded partner interview. She shares what went well, mistakes she made along the way, what you need to do to stand out from the crowd as you apply for a training contract, and also why she recommends that you sign up for the How to Get a Graduate Job course. No matter if you have never heard of a training contract or even thought about a career in law, this episode is packed chock full of advice that holds true no matter what type of graduate job you are applying for. It’s another inspiring episode today, getting a graduate job and especially a training contract can be hard and dispiriting, but Saffy shows you how it is possible, and how if she can do it, you can do it too. Now the links to the show notes today including a full transcript you can download and links to everything we discuss can be found at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Saffy which is SAFFY.  Make sure you listen to the end of the episode as I share details for the relaunch of the How to Get a Graduate Job course, where it will be coming to you with lots of extra bonuses and extra coaching time with me, so if you are serious and want to turbocharge your search for a graduate job and you want to get it the first time around, then make sure you stick around to hear the details for that. But, without further ado, let’s head on over to my chat with Saffy.

James: Hello and welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, with your host James Curran. The Graduate Job Podcast is your home for all things related to helping you on your journey to finding that amazing job. Each episode I bring together the best minds in the industry, speaking to leading authors, graduate recruiters and career coaches who bring decades of experience into a byte size show. Put simply, this is the show I wish I had when I graduated.

James: I am very pleased to welcome to the show today, listener to the show, and of course, alumni of How to Get a Graduate Job course, and also the holder of two amazing offers for training contracts in her back pocket at the moment. Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, Saffy.

Saffy: Hi, James.

James: Saffy, thank you for joining us today. Let’s start off at the beginning. Do you maybe want to just give the listeners a little introduction to who you are?

Saffy: I’m Saffy. I did my law degree at the University of Liverpool, and then I did my master’s at Durham University in law again, and so very law-focused. I’ve been working for a paralegal for the past six months, and recently just finished last week actually. Yes, as you mentioned, James, I have been applying to training contracts for the past year, and now I am hopefully looking to start the LPC in September.

James: Amazing, and I was looking back through our emails. We’re recording this beginning’ish of July. You got in touch, initially, the end of May last year, so deep into lockdown territory, to reach out and ask about coaching help. What made you reach out and get in touch?

Saffy: It feels like ages ago, actually. I think, for me, I started to apply for training contracts around that time last year, and training contract applications, for anyone who knows, they are really long, they require a lot of effort to go into them, and sometimes the answers for questions need to be 500 words each. I was feeling a bit lost with it all, to be honest, and I had been listening to the Graduate Job Podcast. Of course, you mentioned you did coaching, so that’s when I really decided that I would just drop you an email and find out a bit more because I felt like, on my own, I wasn’t really sure how to steer the applications to be able to stand out, and I know, of course, with law, it’s such a competitive field that these law firms receive thousands of applications, and you’ve really got to make yourself stand out amongst all of these law graduates that have done so much, and all pretty much have mainly high grades, or the extracurricular things they do on the side as well. Of course, I dropped you an email, and just thought it would probably be best to invest in myself and get going with that really.

James: Definitely, and listeners who aren’t as au fait with the legal application process, similar to all the other applications for graduate jobs, but as Saffy said, really, really competitive. Firms don’t take on as many people as some of the other big graduate schemes. It’s uber, uber-competitive, and they’re looking back to — from the applications that we did, Saffy, they’re looking for all of your university grades throughout the years to see what you were getting. They don’t just want you to get a good final grade at the end. They want to make sure that you were getting them all throughout your time and not just pulling it out the bag in the final years, so really competitive, whereas other graduate employers have been, over recent years, especially last year and the year before, moving away from these questions of, “In 500 words, tell me about a time you led a team.” It’s still the case with all the legal applications that we did in other eight to nine of those questions where you’ve got to really put the time, and energy, and thought into them. We did spend a lot of time going through that.

In terms of the coaching, you went initially for the three-month intensive coaching package that I offer where it’s sort of just unlimited time together. Why did you go for that over, say, just working on an hourly basis?

Saffy: I think that it was because it was the time I was really knuckling down on those applications, and I felt like the unlimited support was something that would really be beneficial for me. I was also doing my dissertation for my master’s at the time as well, so I was trying to balance that, and I do think that having the support from you, James, would have been something that would steer me along the right path in terms of where I was going with the applications and with the interviews. That was why I really wanted to go for that, and I think that actually allowed my applications to stand out so much, and just really allow myself to get a first step in terms of where I was going with my applications in making sure that I could stand out, because as we’ve both mentioned, law is so competitive that I think having that coaching is something that really allowed me to just know where I was headed, really, because I think I was lost at that point when I first emailed you.

James: As you said, you were deep in the middle of lockdown when it was a proper lockdown. You were still doing your master’s, but the libraries, university shutdowns, you go back at home, doing your dissertation, or trying to do your dissertation remotely whilst also applying for all these jobs with the deadline, as I said, we started working at the end of May. There was quite a few of them when the deadline was the end of June, and there was quite a few more when it was the end of July, and then that was it. There wasn’t really anything that you were interested in applying to post-July.

Just setting the scene for the listeners in terms of the companies you were applying for, we weren’t going for the big Magic Circle firms. You were going for these big international firms below the Magic Circle level that were a mix of private client and commercial. Why didn’t the Magic Circle type firms tickle your fancy?

Saffy: That’s correct. I think that I wanted to go for those types of firms first for the private client and commercial because of the real mix that you get. Especially, being at Durham, you get a lot of these Magic Circle firms coming to do talks, and to entice graduates to apply for them, but really I think I’ve been put off by the horror stories that I’ve heard over the years in doing a law degree about people never leaving the office, and not having a social life. Of course, the pay and the salary’s fantastic, but I enjoy a social life and a good time with my friends. I wasn’t really sure about signing up to give my life away for the next five years or so.

For me, I think that I really wanted a law firm that I would get a good responsibility and good support and training, but it was still a good level of work and great clients. It wasn’t your standard high street firm or anything like that. I wanted to find somewhere that was good, but it also had a good social and work-life balance. That’s what I really was looking at mostly, and I think, with these Magic Circle firms, they do take on quite a lot of trainees compared to other firms, but I knew that the firms that I wanted to apply to had quite a small cohort of trainees every year, and with that, I think that you get a great responsibility, but you also get to know partners in the firm quite a lot. You’re not just one cog in a big part of a machinery. You get to really cut your teeth on these cases and work with clients quite closely. That’s why I decided to go for those types of firms instead of the huge Magic Circle firms that put me off of it.

James: That makes sense. Having identified the firms that you were interested in, what were the biggest challenges at the beginning, the initial phase. There’s lots of applications. How difficult did you find it, A, to narrow down who you wanted to apply to, and then to get the applications in.

Saffy: I found it really difficult, actually, because there are so many law firms out there, and when you are first applying, I don’t think — I wasn’t really sure in terms of where I wanted to go, and I think that, through research and talking to people, you find out where you’re headed. Definitely, James, your tip of reaching out to fellow graduates from your university who work at the law firms on LinkedIn, and just dropping them a message, and asking for a chat was something that I found really beneficial, and actually way more people replied to me than I thought that they would. That was great because I got to actually speak to someone on the phone and find out a bit more about the firm and their experience, which meant that you hear it from a trainee themselves, and most of them are really honest as well. They weren’t trying to sell the firm to me like graduate recruitment would, or a partner, perhaps. They were just telling me honestly in terms of what they thought. That allowed me to narrow it down a little bit, and also it really helped with my application in terms of name-dropping people that I’d spoken to at the firm and what they had said, so it looked like I’d really gone the extra mile to research the firm rather than just copying and pasting something from the website.

In terms of what I would say with finding it difficult, I found it really hard because, in March of that year, everyone kind of had to go home, and that was it, from uni, and I felt like I didn’t really have the support in terms of my dissertation from the university very much. I was struggling a bit with that, and these applications are really, really demanding, and time-consuming. Of course, the first time I applied last year, I was cutting it really fine with the deadlines, so I think that, juggling all of that, I did find it quite difficult, but of course, I think that it really helped when I applied the second time around this year, so you’re trying to catch up.

James: Definitely, and that was one of the things that we talked about, and you were making it more difficult for yourself by the fact that, as I mentioned, we were doing these applications in June and July for deadlines that were June and July, so we were, if you think about the piles of these thousands of applications coming through, we were the tail end of that. That’s one thing that we’ve certainly improved on the second round of applications this year was that, as soon as they were open, you were in, and you were ready, and you were getting your application in early, so you would have been the first people that they would be looking at the application for as opposed to being application number 4,500 that they’d read that year. That’s certainly something that we worked on.

Just looking back now, one of the first applications that we did was a firm called Withers. You mentioned some of the questions were up to 500 words, so Withers was one of the really tricky ones because their questions were 60 words or less that you had to answer these competency answers for: Describe a time you demonstrated excellence in commercial awareness, client focus, communication, teamwork, initiative, and describe a significant non-academic achievement, and you’ve only got 60 words to do this, so you’ve just got to be so punchy and so snappy. I remember we were just bouncing these different drafts back and forward just tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, all the time, just tweaking, just making sure we’re really adding value.

One of the things I could remember working on, initially, with the applications, is just really trying to play up your unique selling points, the things that I’d identify that really made you stand out from the crowd, and hopefully these have been drilled into you over the course of the process, do you remember what are the three I picked out you were for?

Saffy: I think it was academics. Oh gosh, why can’t I remember the other ones? You’ll have to remind me.

James: Definitely academics, certainly your work experience, and I can’t remember the third one. It was obviously memorable for us, but it was just making sure that you’d really bring these to the fore, and we did a lot of times where you were, or I think it was your university volunteering. It was your third one. Coming up with the bank of questions, and then we kept playing with, “Okay, is this the best questions for –” sorry, “Is this the best answer for this particular question?” and we’d write an answer, and then sometimes we’d end up changing it and having them.

I think one of the advantages of spending so long on the questions and coming up with answers for these questions was that, when you got to the interview stage, you had that bank of answers already up your sleeve for every type of competency that you were going to be asked about. Do you have any recollections about how this process went, the initial process of getting the applications written in? How painful did you find it?

Saffy: It was definitely very painful. As you mentioned, of course, we’re writing these sometimes 500-word answers for competency questions, and then for Withers, we had to whittle it down to 60 words. Every firm was different in the way that they wanted things, and of course, you had to, in your competency answers perhaps, play up the strengths that we’ve listed on the firm’s website to what they look for in trainees, so you’re really tailoring it to each firm specifically, even though we had, I suppose, the skeleton answers of my academics or my volunteering.

The reason that training contracts, I think, really takes so long is because you really have to tailor it to that specific firm because it’s drilled into you at graduate recruitment fairs for law that they are sick of seeing people copying and pasting answers and they’ve left in the law firm’s name in the answer.

James: Which you did do in a few of them when you sent it to me, anyway. It’s easy to do.

Saffy: Yeah, that’s true. I think it’s really important to just keep an eye out on those types of things because, as you mentioned, in non-law graduate jobs, nowadays, it’s more just an online testing part first to sift candidates through, whereas graduate recruitment, if they read your application, of course, at all, it’s going to be what they see on paper, and that is going to be your answers for those questions that they want you to really narrow down why that firm is for you and why you’re a good fit. It was tough. It was really tough.

James: As you said, even when the questions were similar, they were still different. They had a particular flavour on it. It might be a question about teamwork, but then it was just looking at a different application here, and the question was you’ve got 250 words for this question, “Please give an example of a situation where you’ve worked as part of a team to achieve a specific objective. What was your contribution to the team? What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them? What was the outcome and what did you learn from the whole experience?” You had 250 words for that, so five parts to it to squeeze into 250 words.

You’ve got to put the time in, you’ve got to put the attention in. If you’re just doing a cut-and-paste answer, you’re not going to be ticking off all of those five different parts, and I thought that’s what you did brilliantly. You put the time in. We put the work in, and there were so many emails back and forth, but you did really, really well, and I was really pleased with the applications when they went in. I thought they were brilliant. Although, as I said, at the beginning, I think the lateness for some of them really held us back, just the fact that we were getting them in not too far from the deadline, because from the initial application phase, we didn’t have a huge success rate.

Saffy: That’s correct. I suppose for the people who are listening to this, when I applied last time last year, I got one interview down to the final assessment centre, but I wasn’t offered the training contract, and I received a lot of rejections overall. Then of course, this year, I speak about this kind of school academic year, so when we started the application cycle again in 2020, we were really, really early in terms of when the training contract’s application windows had opened. I felt like, of course, we’d kind of recycled the answers from the first round of applications, but really refining them, adding to them, making sure that it was really honed in on what the law firm was looking for, and it was a much better result. I think getting your applications in early and just making sure that you really spend time refining your applications and your answers allows you to stand out so much more. Of course, it’s been great. Now, I have two offers, but I think that there are some factors that are really important in allowing me to get those offers this time around.

James: I think it’s with law, they almost want to see you have the — it’s so competitive; that’s why the questions are so long, that’s why the questions are so difficult is they get so many applications. Part of it is like, “Okay, let’s see who can be bothered to answer the question properly. Let’s see who can be bothered to actually fulfil the work, let’s see who can bother to answer all the eight competency questions,” and that’s just the initial application stage. Of course, they’re really drilling you on all the other stages.

Maybe before we move onto this year, let’s just follow through with how that initial application went. As I said, the application’s were really good, and you got through to the first telephone interview with Withers. Do you remember how that initial telephone interview went?

Saffy: I remember being really nervous because it was really the first kind of interview that I’d done for a training contract, really, I think I can remember. To be honest, I do think that I let the nerves get the better of me a bit, so I was really shocked when I found out that I had gotten through to the assessment centre. Of course, the two people that interviewed me for Withers in the initial stages were lovely and really friendly, so that did put me at ease quite a bit.

I think, to be honest, the first time around, I recognized that I wasn’t the strongest candidate, and I think that I could have done much better on my answers to know that you don’t always have to let the nerves get the better of you. I know it’s a nerve-wracking experience, but just having that confidence and the ability to big up your achievements. That’s not in a cocky way, but that’s just in a way that you know yourself and you can back yourself, really, and I think that I was kind of missing that in the first application round because I think that I wasn’t as keen to show off my achievements of what I had planned, and that’s something that I really, really tried to do in the second round of applications and just come across as a confident candidate that can stand their ground when they are challenged, because sometimes you will find that in training contract interviews, the partners who are maybe interviewing you will push back on your answers because they want to see if you can think on your feet and back yourself when you’re challenged. That’s something really important, I think, to keep in mind if any law graduates are listening to this and are preparing for any training contract interviews.

James: Completely agree. A part of it, though, is as well just practice. You said this was your first interview, and we put a lot of time, we did a lot of mock interviews, and your answers were really good, and we had a really good range. You had a really good range of answers to all of the different questions we worked on. We practiced all the different competencies, so you had at least two answers to all these different competency answers, so you were ready for any eventuality. One of the feedback I gave you was, and how I think you’ve improved a lot from the last year to this year, was last year, you tried to over-memorize the answers, but this year, you were a lot more natural. Do you think that would be fair to say?

Saffy: Yeah, definitely. I think that I was so worried about the interviews that I would memorize entire competency answers, or just answers in general, to be honest. I think that I was so nervous that I wouldn’t remember what to say, or I’d just freeze up that I started memorizing things. I think it just made me come across not as conversational or as relaxed, and I think that when I would forget what I’ve memorized, you could probably see the panic on my face in the interview. I think that, as I’ve progressed and become more confident, especially in the second round of applications, my best interviews have been the ones where it’s just a conversation. We were talking about crypto, or what’s been on TV last night, or something like that with the partners at the law firm who are interviewing me, and it seems to be that when I can just have a conversation with the partners and really get along with them, that’s when I’ve done best and that’s when I’ve got the offers coming through.

That’s something I think to bear in mind. You don’t have to come across as really formal and feel like you can’t speak to the partners in a conversational way. Of course, you maybe have to gauge it in terms of how formal they’re being with you, but I think that’s something to bear in mind that sometimes they just want to chat. They’ve probably interviewed a lot of people over the past week, they’ve probably had enough of hearing about why someone wants to do law, and they just want to have a chat with you about Love Island or something really silly.

James: ‘Tell me more about why or how Brexit is going to impact the legal profession’, yes please. Completely, and that was your ability for your personality to come through was definitely one of your strengths. We worked on that quite a lot. You’ve been far too hard on yourself there about the initial interview stage, because if you hadn’t have done well, you certainly wouldn’t have gotten through, and you got through to the assessment centre. That was your first assessment centre. How did you feel going into this?

Saffy: I remember being really stressed because it was two weeks before the deadline of my diss going in, and I felt like, to be honest, in a mental state, I was a bit all over the place. I’d really worked myself up about my dissertation because my supervisor kind of asked me to change things last minute in terms of my structure, so I had all of that going on in the background, and then it just got to the point where I think I was a bit frazzled, to be honest, and I was really stressing myself out. I think the assessment centre’s fine, but I don’t think I performed my best, and of course, I didn’t get the offer in the end, and I think that it came down to a mixture of nerves and that I wasn’t in the right head space for it.

I think the worst I had prepared, perhaps I over-prepared in a sense. I was memorizing things, and when the partners are pushing back on my answers a little bit, I didn’t really know what to do. I was a bit taken aback by the way that they were acting in the interview. That’s not to say that they were rude or anything like that, but I think that they were just seeing if I could think on my feet. I think that I wasn’t really expecting it, and those are sort of the downfalls. It was a range of things. I don’t think I could pinpoint it to one thing that I didn’t do very well, but I think, looking back and how I’ve progressed over the past year and how I perform in interviews now, there’s a massive change, and I think, to be honest, that’s really just down to building confidence as well, which is really important.

James: You don’t have to say it, but I can say it. I thought they were — from the feedback, I thought one of the partners was rude. He didn’t look at you the entire time. He just kept his eyes on the table in front of him, asking questions, and just giving you no eye contact at all, which is unsettling. It’s really unsettling, and that’s why he did it, just to try to unsettle you and see how you react, which I think you get it a lot more with law firms. You don’t tend to get it as much with other companies, particularly at the partner level. They tend to be a lot friendlier, but you know, law is its on beast, so you have to play the game.

I think you’ve been far too hard on yourself. As I said earlier, it’s about practice, and this is your first experience of an assessment centre. They are super-stressful, they are completely unnatural things, and you were doing it remotely via Zoom. They are hard and stressful days. It’s one thing after the other, and you did really, really well.

One of the things that I think might have thrown you a little bit – you’ve talked about the confidence there – was the fact that you were, by some degree, the youngest person there. Do you maybe just want to tell listeners a little bit about that?

Saffy: Yeah, that’s true. I was definitely the youngest person there, and I think one girl was actually a paralegal at Withers. She was doing the same assessment centre with the rest of us. To be honest, I do think, looking back, it just gave her an advantage. We had to do a group task, and it was a scenario where a potential client was looking to expand his hotel business, and in terms of the different sectors that Withers could advise the client, so then you’re looking at real estate, but you’re also looking at the corporate side, and those elements of employment, and there’s a range of factors, but of course, if you’ve worked at the firm, you kind of know so much more about it. I do feel like, looking back on that, I wasn’t perhaps strong in that sense. A few of the other people who were working in paralegal jobs, or policy, and things like that. I was still at university and I felt like you could perhaps really, really tell, and maybe I came across as not as knowledgeable in that case.

That’s one thing that, of course, being the youngest person, seeing other people have paralegal experience is something that I really tried to work on over the past year. In January of this year, I got myself a paralegal role, and I felt like that really allowed me to stand out in terms of my interviews and the vacation scheme that I did with one of the firms that I got a training contract offer with, because I think it just gives you a bit more experience in how to deal with clients, and I think that that’s something that really allowed me to develop my confidence as well and to really prove to the partners why I wanted to do law. I think that something that allowed the people at Withers to really shine through in the assessment centre, and hopefully I think that that’s something that was a factor that allowed me to get two training contract offers this year.

James: Exactly, just building on that. Looking at the answers that you gave to the questions for the initial application, they were asking about, “Give an example when you were working in a team, challenges that you’ve faced, these types of competency questions, why do you want to train for us?” and all the answers you gave were really good. We worked on them a lot, and they were really, really good answers, but they were talking about university experience, they were talking about work experience from university. They were quite university-focused, whereas flip to the recent applications, and you’ve got that experience of working as a paralegal, and your answers are completely changed. You were talking about, “Well, working as a paralegal, I was doing X, Y, and Z,” and again, they were really strong answers, but they were stronger for the fact that they were law-specific work experience examples as opposed to university societies and things like that, so the paralegal experience just really, really did help to give you the edge of the applications this year, but we’ll come back to that shortly.

The feedback you got from the assessment centre, though, was still really, really positive. You didn’t have any howlers. There wasn’t anything where it was you made that many mistakes, and the feedback for the interview was, again, really positive. You even did better for the questions that maybe you weren’t expecting where you were thinking on your feet. As we talked about earlier, that probably just came across more naturally. It was positive all around, but it wasn’t top marks for any of the different written exercises or the group exercises. You did well, but you didn’t blow the doors off. Was it a surprise, then, when you didn’t get the role?

Saffy: No, definitely not. It wasn’t a surprise at all. I think, as I’ve mentioned, it was a range of factors for me, and I kind of knew it wasn’t a virtual assessment centre that I hadn’t done the best. I think I’m also quite hard on myself, and I know how competitive the legal industry is. For me, I think when I logged off, I was like, “Okay, that wasn’t my best, and I don’t think I’m going to get it,” and I wasn’t surprised when I got the rejection, but I think that kind of taught me a lot of things in terms of experiences of assessment centres and just how to conduct yourself in interviews and really stand your ground if you are challenged by one of the partners. I think getting into the application round 2 just allowed me to be a lot stronger, and I’d kind of done it before, so I knew what to expect and I wasn’t as nervous going into the second round.

James: Definitely, and you are too hard on yourself. For a first attempt, you did really, really well. The fact that you got to the assessment centre just shows how well you did for this ultra, ultra-competitive training contract. For me, it was just all positives for you to take away. You did really, really well. You were quite hard on yourself, and I know you took it — you didn’t take it badly, but your confidence was knocked. Is that fair to say?

Saffy: Yeah, definitely. I think I am really, really hard on myself, and I pushed myself throughout university, and I always did a lot of things in the background, extracurricular and volunteering, and things like that. Of course, I did enjoy them, but I kind of always knew that when you’re going into law, it’s so important to be able to allow yourself to stand out and have all these other things because you’re up against people, as I said, that might be older than you, more experienced. This isn’t me trying to put anyone off. I just think me, going into it, I didn’t underestimate it. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t know how much of a mental stamina test it was going to be. Sometimes, people apply for training contracts for three, four years in a row, so I was kind of gearing myself up for rejection, but when they come, they’re still horrible and no one can really prepare you for that.

For me, I was doubting myself, “Is law what I really want to do? Do I even want to get a training contract, became a lawyer?” because it was really tough, and I put so much pressure on myself, and then when I got rejected, I was just kind of like, “Okay, I’ve done all this work, and have invested time in doing applications alongside my dissertation.” I was like, “Should I have done that?” I was really doubting myself. Of course, I took a few weeks out and readjusted, and that’s when we started with the second round of applications in September 2020.

James: As a coach, of course I’m here to help and get you ready for the assessment centres, and make sure that your answers are brilliant and help the applications, but a big part of it is that confidence and giving you confidence, making sure that you’re being positive when you’re finding it tough, and keeping you going. As you said, there were times when, in September, October 2020, you were like, “Should I apply for this company?” or, “Do I really want to focus on law?” and I was like, “100%. You’ve got this. Don’t worry,” and I always said to you at the time, “You will be getting multiple offers,” and you thought I was mental. You just didn’t believe me. I was like, “Saffy, look. Don’t worry. They’ll come like buses.” You’re like, “Yeah, okay,” but they did.

You just needed to keep going, just being confident, but it’s hard, right? When you’re not getting the results that you want, it’s really, really tough. That was, I think, the Withers came back to you end of August time. It was quite late in the summer, wasn’t it? Then, around September time, I kicked off with the How to Get a Graduate Job Course, which you joined, so there was yourself and six people. How did you find that then? Because, you were the only person who was applying for law training contracts. How was it being in that sort of cadre with different grads?

Saffy: I actually found it really helpful in a way because, of course, it was a support group. In a way, everyone’s in the same boat in terms of applications, and it’s really stressful, and as you’ve mentioned in episodes, there’s a time when we were all waiting around for people to get back to us in terms of people meaning graduate recruitment. It was nice to hear everyone else’s experiences as well and what they were applying to and how different their applications were to mine in terms of a lot of them were prepping for online tests whereas I was rereading drafts of 500 words or less for the seventh time that day.

I think that it was a great aspect in that way, but of course, as well, everyone started to hear back a lot sooner than I did. With law applications, you can perhaps put your application in September, but you won’t hear until May, June time the following year.

James: Absolutely crazy.

Saffy: I was really in it for the long haul, and everyone had started to hear back in terms of December time, and getting into assessment centres, and I was like, “Okay, I’m here for another six months, probably.”

James: That’s tough, right? Jack got his first offer before Christmas, so two, three months, and it must have been tough, but I just kept on saying, “You’re on a different cycle than them. You’re on a different time scale than them. Law moves in slower ways and is different than other companies.” Was it hard not to compare yourself against them?

Saffy: Definitely. I compare myself so easily in the graduate recruitment process or when you’re applying for training contracts, or even non-law jobs. It’s so easy to compare yourself that you really need to try not to. I was comparing myself to people on the course, I was comparing myself with my friends, and I just got myself, again, into a bit of a downward spiral, unfortunately. It hit second lockdown in November. It was dark, it was cold, I just got a job in retail at that point, and I was really, really hitting the wall, and I remember you were being really encouraging, and I was just like, “I don’t really know if I can do this again. I don’t want to put myself through the rejections,” and then you just have to keep going and chipping away at it, and of course the results will come if you’re putting the work in, but at the time, it feels like it’s endless, and it’s so easy to be hard on yourself, but you just got to keep going and keep pushing with it.

James: Completely, and you did that really, really, really well. With the course, how useful was it doing, say, the mock group exercises that we did and also where we look at each other’s video interview questions.

Saffy: I think they were both really useful because, especially with the group exercise, I’ve done a few now in assessment centres for training contracts, and I found that it was so much easier having done a practice one in a non-intensive environment. It was just you who was marking us, and I knew the other people on the course, and it was kind of a great way to do that because it wasn’t as formal as, perhaps, you’ve never met these people before in your life, “Here’s a virtual assessment centre. You have an hour to do this exercise.” I think that it just allowed us to — because you gave the feedback at the end of the exercise as well, so I was listening to everyone else’s feedback and kind of picking up tips, like mentioning people by name instead of just being like, “What do you guys think?” Dropping in people’s names is a big one and just bringing other people into the conversation if they’ve been a bit quiet.

I think that’s been really useful, and especially on the other hand, video interviews, you’re just on your own and you’re staring at a screen, and it’s a bit strange, and you don’t have facial expressions from the person who’s interviewing to gauge how your answers are going. I think, for me, just having that opportunity for you to analyze them with me and pick up what I can improve on was really useful because, often, I think people undervalue practice, and just kind of think, “Okay, it’s fine. This video interview’s really short. I’ll just go into it and it’ll be fine.” Actually, just having a bit of practice under your belt just allows you to stand out so much more.

James: I’ve got the initial video interviews that you did, so maybe offline, Saffy, we can just watch them back and let’s just see how much you’ve improved over the course of a year. It is invaluable. If you’re going into the first time you’re doing it, a recorded video interview, if the first time you’re doing it is in the actual thing, then you’re setting yourself up to fail. You need to make sure you’re practicing and practicing in exam conditions, so to speak, so you’ve got the time in it there, you’ve got the question popping up for 30 seconds or whatever it might be just so that you can do it as you’re going to do in the day, because otherwise, you’re not going to be ready for when it really comes through.

Let’s fast-forward then. You mentioned it was November, you were working away before Christmas in your retail job, and it was a grim time of year, and then in January, we started focusing on trying to get you the paralegal job whilst we were also, A, doing applications where they were open. They were open at random times, and just generally waiting. How did getting a paralegal job help your confidence once you started there?

Saffy: I think it really helped because you get an experience of working with clients, so it boosts your employability, I guess, in that way. Not walking, because everything’s virtual, but going into these assessment centres, I had background knowledge of how law firms work and how you should deal with clients. When I would get asked certain questions in interviews, I could back myself. I wasn’t just talking about being at uni. I had real-world experience, and of course, it allowed me to think more in a commercially-aware kind of way, which is so important in law firms. It’s a big aspect I really had to work on was commercial awareness because I wasn’t always the strongest in terms of business aspects, but just acting as a paralegal really allowed me to develop that, and also I think just getting used to talking to people on a screen.

When I first did my assessment centre with Withers, I found it really, really hard to do a good interview with just my laptop, so with having that and building up relationships with the partners I was working with, it didn’t seem so scary when I was going to assessment centres a second time around. I think that gave me an advantage. I was used to it, and it was something that I’d got my head around in terms of just being able to hold a good conversation via Teams or something like that and be able to let my personality shine through when you’ve just got a laptop in front of you.

James: Yeah, that’s a challenge. It is difficult, but video interviews, even in a non-COVID world, they aren’t going away just because they’re nice and cheap for companies to do. People don’t have to travel, they don’t have to pay your expenses to go down somewhere. They’ll still be around for some time.

We mentioned that you’ve got two offers in the bag, because you’ve not 100% decided which was going to be the winner yet, so let’s call them firm A and firm B, both private client commercial mix firms. The initial interview for firm A, what can you remember about this one? How did that one go?

Saffy: First off, I had a video interview with just a HR member. That was great, actually. It was very informal, mainly competency-based. It wasn’t as scary. I’d kind of got a bank of competency answers that we’d worked on together, and then I had to do a written assessment in the middle of all of that. Again, I think this is where my paralegal job really helped because it was drafting a letter to a client, which that’s not something that’s so scary to me anymore, and issuing — not issuing, but preparing a claim form, and that’s something that’s pretty big in the work that I do in my paralegal jobs, so I just looked at a claim form the day before my written assessment because I had an insider tip from another fellow paralegal that I was working with who’d done the same assessment process as me for the same firm, and she’d done the written assessment a couple of days earlier.

I guess it’s kind of a sneaky way of getting some insider tips and making sure I had a clear idea of what was going on. That doesn’t happen for everyone, but I guess I was lucky there, and then for the final interview, it was the same HR member and a partner, and that was great in a way, and it sounds strange. I actually enjoyed the interview. It was quite intense. I had to prepare a presentation beforehand. I only had 45 minutes to do that, and I was given the topic on the day. It was intense, but I really got along with the both of them, and I think that’s where I let my personality shine through and we had a bit of a laugh just about general things that were going on that week or in the media or something like that. I think I even mentioned Kim Kardashian at one point, but it felt easy to talk about those things. It wasn’t something that was so formal and scary. It was a great way for me to just get to know them as well because interviews are a two-way thing.

James: Definitely, and that’s what really separates the good candidates from the exceptional candidates is where you can change the dynamics so that it’s not almost like a parent-child relationship. It’s two peers having a conversation as opposed to them asking the questions and you just answering them. If you can get into that conversational nature, then it really does make you stand out. Was there a group exercise element to this one, or was it just an interview?

Saffy: No, that was just an interview and a written assessment.

James: Then, the next stage after that one, or was that the final stage?

Saffy: That was the final stage, and then I was offered the training contract a few days after that final interview.

James: That was happy days, so that was amazing. When you got the offer, did you think, “Right, that’s it. I’m done. This is it. I’m going to pull out all the other ones,” or were you like, “Let’s see, keep going, see what else is out there”?

Saffy: I was really over the moon because it’d been a long time coming, as you know, James. I genuinely didn’t think I was going to get a training contract offer this time around. I was thrilled, and it was with a firm that I really liked, firm A and firm B. I really like them both. I feel very lucky to have got offers from them, but I kind of knew that I was still going to go ahead with the other interviews if I got any because there’s no harm in just going along with things and giving it your best shot. I think you never know what’s going to come out of another interview. Of course, I got the offer from firm B, and after firm A, and now I’m choosing between them, but if I hadn’t gone ahead with the interview process with firm B, then I wouldn’t have known that I would have ended up with two offers.

James: One thing you’ve mentioned quite a few times is the word “luck”, saying how you’re lucky, and I completely disagree. It was a famous golfer said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” and you worked really, really hard. Yes, the person you were working with mentioned that they’d done the interview previously, but that’s part of the networking. That’s part of letting people know what you’re applying for, the firms you’re applying for, and a lot of people don’t do that. They just keep it really secretive, and they’re enclosed, and they don’t share these things, and as a result, they’re missing out on these serendipitous opportunities that are out there.

I can remember before, one of the interviews, we were practicing, and we were thinking, “Okay, what are the current news stories?” because a really common one that you often face in legal interviews is, “Tell us a recent news story and how it’s going to impact the firm,” and we’d been chatting about which one was the best one, and I think we went for — as we were doing the research on Hong Kong immigration into the UK, which was a big current news story, and then the question was specifically about Hong Kong immigration into the UK or it came up in topic of conversation and you were able to say, “Ah, yes,” because you put the work in, you practiced. All of this work, it makes you lucky.

Saffy: Yeah, I guess that’s true. I think it’s important, maybe, not to downplay your achievements as well.

James: Definitely, and you had a million achievements to fall back on, so it was. It was getting you to be more confident about talking about them, and as Brits, we tend to be quite reserved and don’t blow our trumpets so much as some other people, but if you can’t do it during interview, then when can you do it? It was something that you really need to do throughout the interview process. Maybe then, let’s move onto the final stage, then, with firm B. Run us through what the interview and assessment process was like for this one.

Saffy: With firm B, it was a little bit different because I actually got offered a vacation scheme with them. For anyone that doesn’t know what that is, it’s a one or two-week internship with the law firm, and you get interviewed for the training contract at the end of the week, so they get a feel for who you are, what your strengths are, and how well you get along with the people in the firm. With firm A, I didn’t have that. I just went straight to the training contract and assessment process. With firm B, to get to the initial vacation scheme, I had to do an assessment centre, so I had a written task, a group task, and an interview with two partners. Having done the practice group task with the rest of the How to Get a Graduate Job Group allowed me, I think, to really stand out in that, and written exercises, it wasn’t so scary. It was just to do with the firm, so that was okay.

Again, the interview, I really enjoyed. It was more of a conversation, and I felt like, with firm B, they really tried to get to know you as a person and see your personality, so that was fantastic. I actually ended up really enjoying that interview. Of course, yeah I got the vacation scheme, and I really enjoyed the vacation scheme week, had a great time, really enjoyed getting to know people at the firm, and my interview is on a Friday at the end of that week. Again, I think it was just more of an informal thing because they get to see how you progress over the week, and here you are, and it’s not a formal thing where you’ve met them for the first time, and that’s it. Then, I found out a few days later that I’d got offered the training contract with them as well. I think having a vacation scheme with firm B really allowed me to meet people at the firm and just get a feel for who they are over that week.

James: Amazing work, absolutely brilliant. That is no mean feat at all. We talked about how competitive it is, and anyone listening who’s going through the process, who’s been applying, who’s studying law, they’re going to know that that is the case. For you to come away with two offers for training contracts is unbelievable, so you should really, really be proud of yourself.

With that second interview then, we talked several times about confidence, and nerves, and things. How important do you think it was by the fact that maybe it didn’t really matter for you because you already had an offer in your hand. How important do you think that was in the interview?

Saffy: Definitely. I’m glad you mentioned that, actually, because before the vacation scheme, I think that I got to a point in the summer, it was a few weeks ago where I was just a bit drained, it had been an intensive year of applications and working full time, and then I was just kind of like, “Well, I already have an offer from firm A. I’m not really that fussed to be honest. I do love firm B, but it’s not the end of the world for me if I don’t get the training contract offered because I already have one.” I’m just going along and just seeing what will happen, but actually I loved the week. I really enjoyed the vacation scheme, and on the first day, I gave myself a bit of a kick and was like, “Okay, now you have to give this your best shot because you really like this firm and everyone seems lovely.”

On the Monday of the week, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to give this my all now, and I’m really going to put effort into it.” Of course, it paid off, but going into it, I was kind of like, “I’m not so sure. I already have one training contract offer,” but I’m really glad that I just gave it my best shot, and it’s worked out for the best now.

James: Yeah, and now you’re in the enviable position of being able to choose between two firms that you really like. You’re in a brilliant position. All credit goes to you, you’ve made it happen, so well done. Final couple of questions. Just conscious of time. What do you wish you’d known? If you could give yourself advice to the Saffy of a year ago, last May, what advice would you give yourself?

Saffy: That’s a good question. I think hindsight is a wonderful thing. I just remind myself that things do work out. I put so much pressure on myself last year and at the beginning of the application round two that I’d kind of forgotten why I wanted to work in law. Just giving that advice to anyone else who’s going through the process and my younger self that things do work out. If you’re putting in the work, then you will get the results. I didn’t expect to get an offer from those two firms, but actually I love them and I think they’re both great places to work. I think that just reminding yourself that things might seen a bit bleak at the moment when you’re applying for jobs, but it will work out in the end, 100%.

James: If it doesn’t, then give me a shout, and I will give you a hand. Saffy, time is running away with us, so let’s move on to our weekly staple questions. I’m interested to see your responses for this one. Question number 1, what one book would you point listeners towards that would help them as they look for a job?

Saffy: I would say Failosophy by Elizabeth Day. It’s a very short book, but it deals with failing and why it’s a natural part of life, and how you come out of it, that’s the thing I really learnt from my rejections in the legal industry. When you’re applying for training contracts, you will get rejected. When I was listening back to previous episodes with the rest of How to Get a Graduate Job members, when you’re doing online testing, you may find that you’re passing through a lot of them with non-law grad schemes, but when it comes to training contract applications, it’s so hard, and I think that me reading that book just really helped and gave me a different perspective on failing and rejection.

James: Amazing, and I will link to that in the show notes, which I’ve not mentioned yet, but you can find over at GraduateJobPodcast.com/Saffy, which is S-A-F-F-Y. Next question: what internet resource would you point listeners towards?

Saffy: For this, I would definitely Watson’s Daily. As I mentioned, strengthening my commercial awareness and being able to talk about it competently in interviews is something I really had to work on. Watson’s Daily is a daily newspaper, and I think the guy who wrote it used to be an ex, I would say, stockbroker, I’m not quite sure, but he used to do something in the financial world. He breaks down around 14 news articles that day, and writes about them in little bite-sized chunks, so you get your head around dense topics in terms of commercially difficult topics, and in the business world, I suppose, it can be quite hard to understand at times, and I think it’s a great resource because it’s a subscription process, but I think it’s really useful for any law graduates that want to work on their commercial awareness.

James: As we know, commercial awareness is key. You will be pushed on your commercial awareness, so excellent. I will link to that one in the show notes. Saffy, we’ve talked about unique selling points and making sure that you push yourself. She’s far too modest there. One thing we’ve not talked about yet is that Saffy is Instagram-famous, so listeners, check out Saffy’s Instagram account, which is @dearbrowngirl. Do you want to give it a quick plug and let people know about that?

Saffy: Oh yeah, @dearbrowngirl is just an account I have to discuss issues in the South Asian community, especially South Asian kids in the UK in terms of growing up here and having to deal with cultural differences and clashes. Mainly focusing on in terms of racisms and issues like that, so definitely check it out if that sounds interesting to you.

James: It was something that certainly worked into quite a few of our competency answers. “Tell us about something you’ve done outside of work, tell us about something you’re proud of, tell us something you’ve done since lockdown.” That was always a staple up your sleeve that you could go back to for that one. When you gave that answer, how did it go down? Did it go down well? Were they interested in it?

Saffy: Yeah, I think everyone that I’ve told is interested in it because it’s something a bit different. Also, I felt like with law interviews, it’s always good to put a spin on it, so in terms of really developing my communication skills and written skills, that was the way that I could show that it would benefit me as a future lawyer, and it’s just something that I find interesting and to do for fun because, of course, I felt like the law firms I was applying to, they want to know about you as an individual and what you’re interested in outside of work. They don’t just want a robot who can’t communicate with people, so it was a great conversation just to have with the partners, and I felt like it was a good way to show off my personality as well.

James: Definitely. It was a really good one to have. Final question. What one tip would you give listeners that they can implement today to help them on their job search?

Saffy: I would say what really helped me was reaching out to people on LinkedIn. That’s something that you taught me, James, is definitely just hearing the experiences of people who were working at the firm at that particular moment. It’s so important. Of course, you can just read what’s on the website, but that’s not going to get you so far, and I think just hearing from someone and hearing about if they’re passionate about the firm that they’re working at or not and why is really important, and it just allows you to stand out in your applications and your interviews, to be honest, because it shows you’ve gone the extra mile and you’re really interested about learning about the firm or the company that you’re applying to.

James: That’s a great point, and as Saffy said, it just makes you stand out. If you can talk, honestly, about why you want to work there, and you’re not just regurgitating stuff from the corporate blurb, you are immediately putting yourself in the top 5% of candidates straight away. Check out the show notes at GraduateJobPodcast.com/Saffy where I link to my free guide you can download, which tells you, in step-by-step detail, just how to do that on LinkedIn. It gives you a script of what to message people so you can ask them for their help just to take away all the hurdles to stop you from doing it. Check that out in the show notes. As I said, GraduateJobPodcast.com/Saffy. You mentioned earlier, Saffy, it was more people came back to you than you thought would, didn’t they?

Saffy: Yeah, it’s not as scary as you would think. People really want to help. I’ve actually had someone message me about the law firm that I worked at as a paralegal, and they wanted to find out more about working as a paralegal in my kind of job role and I was able to give back what people have done to me over the past year, which is great, and it’s not a scary thing reaching out to people. People really want to help. Even just a fellow graduate from your university, or your school, or something like that that works at the company or the firm that you are applying to, just doing that, it puts you miles ahead of everyone else because you’ve really reached out and you’re already building your network as well, so when you turn up for the assessment centre and there might be trainees helping out on the day, then you can be like, “I spoke to the –” whoever, because that actually happened to me. I had an assessment centre with the firm, and I’d spoken to a couple of the trainees who were helping out on that day, so that was a great way for them to know who I was already and really put myself ahead of the others.

James: Definitely, because if you can remember their names, keep in touch with them, especially with law as well. They really do ask, “Do you know anybody at the firm who you’ve spoken to?” or you can put their names, they will ask them what you’re like. It is a good way, again, to stand out from the crowd. Saffy, all that remains for me is to say we’ve been working together for over a year now, and it has been an absolute pleasure. I’ve really, really, really enjoyed working together with you, I really looked forward to our coaching sessions, and I am so happy for you, I am so proud of you. You’ve done an amazing job. As I said, getting two offers is absolutely brilliant. You deserve all of the success, so congratulations again, and all the best with I don’t know who it’s going to be: firm A or firm B. You can tell me offline when you make the decision.

Saffy: I will do. Thank you very much.

James: Thank you so much for coming on the Graduate Job Podcast.

Saffy: Thanks.

James: Many thanks to the brilliant Saffy for sharing her insights today, and congratulations again on your success with the two training contracts. So there you go, another successful and satisfied member of the How to Get a Graduate Job course. We had Jack in episode 115, Callum in episode 116, and Athavan in 117, and Saffy today in episode 118. Now the How to Get a Graduate Job Course worked for them and it will work for you. Like you they were listeners to the show, nothing different about them, they were where you are exactly one year ago, only difference is that they decided to invest in themselves and get my expert help to get themselves ahead, and it worked, the last 4 guests from the course shared 7 graduate job offers between them, and wait till you hear my interview with fellow course member Sibrah, on how she managed to get 5 graduate scheme offers….yes, you heard that correct, 5 graduate scheme offers, so stayed tuned for that episode next week. So what can you do if you want to follow in their footsteps to success? Well luckily for you, The How to Get a Graduate Job course is relaunching with some brilliant special bonuses on the 1st of August. By extra goodies I mean hundreds of pounds worth of additional one-on-one coaching time with me, and also additional recorded video interview practices, so that you can take advantage of the coaching that Saffy talked about as being so beneficial in the episode today. This is in addition of course to the weekly webinars, practice group exercises, and over 16 hours of video tutorial coaching content and private Facebook group to name but a few that come as standard with the course. Put a note in your phone as these goodies will only be available for a very short time so make sure you are checking them out from the 1st of August. So what should you do if you want to follow in Saffy’s footsteps? Visit the show notes at graduatejobpodcast.com/saffy where I will link to the course, the free guide you can download and also where you can sign up for a free 30 minute coaching call, yes that’s completely free coaching call where we can discuss your applications, the course, and getting you set for success. Completely free and no strings attached. So that’s graduatejobpodcast.com/saffy. Right, I’ll leave it there, I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly, I hope you use it, and apply it. See you next week.