Aspiring lawyer seeks readers’ thoughts 🤔
In the latest instalment of our popular Career Conundrums series, an aspiring lawyer is wondering whether to chase graduate recruitment for an update on her vacation scheme application — but is that the right move?
“Hi team. The subject line probably explains enough but essentially I want to get people’s thoughts on following up with law firm graduate recruitment teams about applications? I’ve applied for a few vac schemes and still waiting on responses from a couple despite them saying we’d hear back by the start of this month. There seems to be conflicting opinions online about what to do, so thought I’d ask you!”
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Chasing grad recruitment won’t change the outcome of your application. So you may as well if you feel they are taking too long to get back to you. It’s a good idea early on to ask them how long everything takes and when you can expect to hear back after each stage. That way at least you might feel you have more reason to chase.
Grad recruitment follow a very specific scoring framework so if you will either secure the role based on that or not, within the timeframes they set.
I also think putting your energy into other things helps in these scenarios. Sometimes a watched kettle never boils, so there’s no point in worrying and overthinking about the applications once you’ve completed the relevant steps. Unfortunately you’re just not the one in control and that’s fine!
This person may not get it maybe they will. But you know that time during peak gaming life of the PS1 or PS2 when you inserted the game and it was loading, and you had to look away and pretend you dont care to make it work. Take same approach. Go outside. It happens or it doesnt.
Unfortunately, grad rec (and similar teams in general) are quite work shy so all you can do is just enjoy life and see what happens. There’s no point in chasing because they won’t read your emails anyway.
Based on what? In my professional experience this isn’t the case and a broad generalisation otherwise is just snobbery.
Yes but don’t just chase them virtually chase them in person too. Camp outside the law office if need be.
Grad rec in a City firm here. It’s fine to send a friendly email following up on your application but if you haven’t heard back yet, it’ll be because they’re still reviewing applications and want to let all candidates know their outcomes at the same time.
I don’t know if this is the same everywhere, but we had an enormous increase in applications this year compared to last and so the amount of time taken to review them all has also increased.