The youth unemployment in the United Kingdom is currently set at a staggering 20%- a figure that many commentators dream of quickly dismissing as a waking nightmare.
The above, however, represents the horrific situation that graduates are currently in.
Alas, law graduates are no exception. A recent study shows that there are about sixty- five applicants for every training contract vacancy every year (<http://l2b.thelawyer.com/65-students-chasing-each-training-contract-vacancy/1008370.article >). It must also be noted that that number excludes those graduates who have taken a fancy in law, have undertaken the GDL conversion course and have decided to go down the solicitor/ barrister route.
In the end of the day, however, most graduates realise that, rather than going through statistics and despairing themselves, it would make a lot more sense to start applying for training contracts or pupillages.
Training contract application forms can be quite tedious and lengthy and tend to involve between six and eight essay- type questions, about three- hundred words each. This amounts to a total of 1800- 2400 words per application form.
Back in 2010, I myself applied for a training contract with forty firms- most of them magic and silver circle. Even though I was not called to a single interview back then, there was something that I found even more disheartening.
I had spent about three days on a ten- page long application form for a training contract at a magic circle firm and had, rather content with and proud of myself, submitted it at 08:00am via email.
At 08:06am, on the same day, I received the following reply:
“Dear X,
Further to your recent application for a training contract with us, I regret to inform you that having carefully reviewed your details, we will not be taking your application any further on this occasion.
May I take this opportunity to thank you for the interest which you have shown in our firm, and wish you the best of luck in securing a training contract in the near future.
Yours sincerely
Further to your recent application for a training contract with us, I regret to inform you that having carefully reviewed your details, we will not be taking your application any further on this occasion.
May I take this opportunity to thank you for the interest which you have shown in our firm, and wish you the best of luck in securing a training contract in the near future.
Yours sincerely
Miss Y Q
Graduate Recruitment Manager”
At the time, I was quite mystified by the above email as I could not quite grasp how anyone could have carefully viewed a ten- page application form in six minutes.
The only way in which that could have happened, I thought, was for my application form to have gone through some sort of software which had sieved through all application forms and quickly dismissed those who did not satisfy the firm’s criteria.
I then decided that that was a rather ludicrous and far-fetched idea.
Alas, I recently stumbled upon an article on the BBC website which proved my fears.
I had previously heard of companies using such software but it had, to the best of my knowledge, never been publicized or made official; until now.
On its own, the above article provides invaluable advice on how to tackle the ‘recruitment machines’ by using the correct template, words and even font and paragraph styling for your CV.
Further, on the face of it, from an employer’s point of view, using such software to hastily dismiss irrelevant CVs is quite time and cost- efficient.
On the other hand, however, it is quite worrying that smaller companies, including law firms, are starting to use the above for the their convenience.
Such a policy is likely to directly affect the already- struggling law graduates in their search for a training contract.
To begin with, the article mentions that such software often looks for certain keywords in an application form. The example given is that the software often looks for ‘marketing EXECUTIVE’ and not ‘marketing ASSISTANT’, automatically dismissing applications which have used the latter.
It would be nearly impossible for a graduate to know whether the software used by law firms will search for ‘litigation ASSISTANT’ or a ‘litigation EXECTUVE’ or a ‘LEGAL assistant’ or a ‘PARALEGAL’ as those job roles are often used interchangeably.
Also, the search for keywords begs the question whether the use of such methods and software is ethical, moral and fair. Let us assume that one applicant is familiar with the key words that a certain firm is looking for whilst another applicant is not. Albeit a mere speculation at present, such a scenario is not unlikely and might grant the former a rather significant and unfair advantage over the latter.
Finally, it must be noted that there are currently no companies that are formally offering advice on how to tackle such software as it has only recently been publicized as widely used for recruitment purposes. This makes it quite difficult for law graduates to learn how to effectively deal with them.
The use of ‘recruitment machines’ is anything but unexpected. On the other hand, it is quite unnerving and unbelievable that such software has been introduced without informing graduates, let alone providing them with some training on it.
Once more, law graduates have been presented with yet another hurdle which they will need to overcome before they can even go on to an interview.
It would, however, make sense to equip them with the required tools and skills which would allow them to efficiently tackle the challenge.
After all, graduates are the children of today; you cannot possibly expect a child to learn how to walk on its own.
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