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Step 4: For any job, get our advice on applications and work experience

The LSE can offer insights into a huge range of careers

Before making an application for ANY job, you need to be confident that you are what they might want, and that their job is right for you. Both of these will be tested in any application process!

Skills employers value

A few jobs require very specific knowledge from the applicants – but most do not. Thousands of UK training contract offers are made to non-law grads each year. Similarly, no applicant to the Civil Service requires you to have studied politics or bureaucracy, and many FMCG marketing graduates have not studied marketing. Employers are looking at much more than your degree.

You will need to demonstrate a genuine interest in where that job fits into the world and an ability to fit right in. This means the application process for any professional career concentrates not on your degree knowledge, but rather on your motivations and your soft skills. Many of the skills needed for a job are universal – communication, resilience, teamwork, problem-solving, initiative to name a few. All will require you to draw on opportunities beyond the classroom.

One key skill for most legal jobs and many others besides is Commercial Awareness. Elizabeth Holden leads weekly 30-minute conversations on commercial topics and current affairs and if you are at all anxious about this area, do drop in and join her. You do not have to be applying for law jobs to find this useful.

Improving your applications

It’s all about tailoring you to the job. Demonstrate your suitability for that role. Ask yourself these questions. Do you really know about the organisation you’re applying to? The requirements of that particular job? Why you want that job? And why they’d want you? If so, then highlighting the right things in your CV and explaining your reasoning in an application shouldn’t be too tricky. You will tell a convincing story.

If though you are struggling to answer these questions, do more research, or ask yourself whether that job is right for you after all. Book an appointment on MyCareer with a consultant to check through any application or your CV if you’re unsure whether it suits.

Interviews and Assessment Centres

Here, preparation is key. That DOES NOT mean you should learn your answers by rote, but rather spend time understanding how you will be tested and practicing those things that don’t come so easily to you. This takes time, and cannot all be done in the immediate run-up to an interview. We offer many training sessions during the year so you can practice what’s required for many types of interview, not just legal ones. These cover:

  • Commercial awareness
  • Case studies
  • Pre-recorded video interviews
  • Presenting alone
  • Group presentations
  • Negotiation exercises
  • Writing to clients
  • Dealing with a commercial article
  • Competency and motivational questions

Make time too for a practice interview - by booking a normal careers appointment with Elizabeth Holden in the Law School and letting her know which particular elements you would like help with, or by booking a practice interview with a central Careers Consultant.

How to get the right work experience

Remember that all work is useful experience – hospitality and retail work allow you to demonstrate many more skills than a week shadowing a lawyer. Juggling paid work alongside your studies demonstrates even more. And the work does not have to be paid work to be useful for your CV. Any caring responsibilities or social outreach can be just as important when describing your abilities.

Getting legal work experience (in the broadest sense) remains crucial though, if you want to pursue any legal career. To become a solicitor, this does not have to be a traditional vacation scheme. Finding work where you gain an insight into the work of a solicitor, whether in a business team which regularly employs lawyers or as a summer receptionist in a legal consulting firm, can be just as valuable and often much easier to come by. Similarly, a week or so in a high street firm offers good insights into client care, juggling client demands, and working for different bosses, all of which is valuable for aspiring solicitors or barristers.

For help on applications for any of these roles, book an appointment on MyCareer with Elizabeth Holden, or any other careers consultant centrally.