Careers Advice
Furloughed? Spend an hour updating your CV – a guide
Whilst you are sat at home potentially twiddling your thumbs (or redecorating the lounge) what could be a better time to spend an hour or so improving your CV? So many people have CVs that could be dramatically improved – they are too short, not enough detail, not up to date, not enough factual information,…
Legal Job Market Report April 2020
Welcome to possibly the shortest legal job market update I have written in over 15 years of writing monthly legal job market reports for Ten Percent Legal. In a nutshell the permanent job market has shuddered to a halt, locum work has dramatically dropped, but the law firm sale market seems active still (whether or…
Getting More Work
We took a call a few weeks ago from a sole practitioner specialising in employment law and some other forms of litigation. He explained that his caseload was such that although he had enough work for two or three days per week he was looking for a way of increasing his working week and his…
What type of law pays the most?
Rule of Thumb for Pay A simple rule of thumb is that corporate and commercial law fields pay well, personal service law fields pay not so well. Corporate and commercial solicitors can be earning £100k and upwards, personal service law fields (aka high street solicitors) earn up to around £50k in most cases. Local authority…
Interview Question 38 – Did you increase sales or profits in your last job?
Advice This is a difficult question if you have not worked in a senior managerial post or sales and profits did not increase in your last job. This is also difficult if you are applying at a time of recession rather than at a time of boom because sales and profits do not necessarily increase…
Interview Question 37 – Did you feel you progressed satisfactorily in your last job?
Advice This is a loaded question, if you say anything negative about a former employer it immediately makes the interviewer think you are likely to consider them in a similar fashion in a few years’ time. If however your application to the firm has been on the basis that there has been a lack of…
A third class degree and re-entering the law
A graduate has recently written to us to ask us for advice on what to do with a third class degree and a potential legal career. The graduate finished at university in September 2017 with a third class law degree and his query to us also stated the fact that he had not got any…
Legal Job Market Report 12th March 2020
Legal Recruitment – busy market Each month we run a comparison between the last calendar month and the same time period in 2019 to see if there has been any noticeable difference. In January we saw very little change from 2019 to 2020. So how was February 2020 compared to February 2019? We saw a…
Interview Question – did you enjoy university?
Interview Question 36 Advice This again is a fairly simple question with a fairly straight forward answer to it. Remember at all times in interview you must stay positive. Failing to stay positive will result in firms unnecessarily considering you to have negative thoughts. Negative thoughts in interview indicates someone who may be overly critical…
Interview Question – Did your (university) course live up to expectations?
Interview Question 35 – Did the course live up to your expectations? Advice This relates specifically to somebody who has just left university and has very little work experience for the interviewer to discuss and explore. It will rarely be asked of anyone who has been out of college or university for a number of…
Choosing the Spec for In House Lawyer Vacancies
Companies often call us up with their specifications for in-house legal posts, and this invariably involves a little bit of negotiation on what is essential and what is desirable. Quite often companies start with the idea that certain particulars are essential, but after reviewing CVs for a little while, realise that actually a lot of…
Interview Question 34 – Describe your strongest and weakest colleagues – how do you cope with such diverse personalities?
Advice This is a difficult question because it is asking you to in some way criticise work colleagues and to perhaps idolise other work colleagues. This is a question potentially loaded towards the interviewer as opposed to the interviewee. At its rawest form you could end up giving an answer that indicates to the interview…
Interview Question 33 – Describe the project or idea that you were most satisfied to sell to your management.
Advice This is another question where you need to have a stock of answers ready to be tailored according to the particular question that is put to you. This one gives you the chance to demonstrate something of quality that pushes your case with the company in relation to the role you are applying for…
Improve your CV in 5 minutes
How to change your CV and improve it dramatically with this simple hack. Simply change your profile at the top of your CV so that is actually reflects who you are and not the usual nonsense that 90% of CVs seem to contain. By this I mean including factual information rather than a load of…
Inappropriate interview question – are you the type of person to cry if someone shouts at you?
We do see some gems of interview questions coming our way, and this one is our favourite at the moment. Are you the type of person to cry if someone shouts at you? What a question, and perhaps the person asking it was really testing the interviewee to see how they would respond. Would the…
Interview Question and Answer – describe a time that you failed to sell an idea that you knew was the right one.
Advice This is a negative question and one that wherever possible should be avoided. It does not matter how you answer the question, the answer you give will have to result in you providing the interviewer with evidence of a negative point. Wit this in mind it is worth trying to avoid answering the question…
Interview Question – Describe a time when you had a number of conflicting demands on your time and how you dealt with this.
Advice This question is quite an easy one, but it is important not to fall into the trap of giving a general answer instead of a specific one. The question has asked you to describe a time, not a circumstance that you regularly find yourself in. Try to think of a specific occasion when you…
Recruitment agents hardly do anything other than send CVs – why should we pay you?
Today we had an email from a law firm who owe us a reasonable amount of money and following a letter before action we received a detailed response from one of the directors at the solicitors firm explaining his understanding of the fee and how it should be paid. Part of this explanation and discussion…
Interview Question & Answer – Describe a time when you failed to engage at the right level in your organisation. Why did you do that and how did you handle the situation?
Advice This is a competency based interview question which again if you do not practice interview questions it is very unlikely you would be able to think of an answer on the spur of the moment. This needs to be one of the selection of scenarios you have stored in your head ready to use…
Interview Question & Answers – Describe a situation where you worked as part of a team.
Advice This is a completely open question and one that everyone attending an interview should have a stock answer ready to use. Team questions are almost always best answered using a work environment and anyone who has worked in any capacity is able to give a situation or example. If you have not yet worked…
Legal Job Market Report dated 7th November 2019
Legal Recruitment – busy market Each month we run a comparison between the last calendar month and the same time period in 2018 to see if there has been any noticeable difference in view of the extreme political uncertainty. In September 2019 we saw a 22% fall in the number of new permanent vacancies. We…
Interview Question & Answer 28 – Describe a situation where you are asked to do something you had never attempted previously.
Advice This is a competency based interview question and should be one that you are able to put forward a positive strength and experience that relate specifically to the post you are applying for. so for example if one of the requirements of the post you are going for is that you have experience handling…
Interview Question & Answer 27 – Describe a situation where you had to change your approach half way through a project or task following new input into the project.
Advice Another particularly difficult competency based question which will almost inevitably result in you needing to have an example in your head before you go into the interview that you are able to use. Without having something pre-prepared it is almost impossible to think about something that quickly when asked these types of questions, which…
Legal Job Market Report October 11th 2019
Legal Recruitment – still an uncertain market Each month we run a comparison between the last calendar month and the same time period in 2018 to see if there has been any noticeable difference in view of the extreme political uncertainty. In August 2019 we saw a 38% fall in the number of new permanent…
Can I apply for jobs without a CV?
This is often a question asked by fairly elderly or semi-retired solicitors who approach our legal recruitment consultancy Ten Percent Legal Recruitment. They have probably worked in the same job for the last 30 years and know just about everything there is to know about the work they do. This is invariably conveyancing or family…
Interview Question and Answer – Describe a situation where you had a disagreement or an argument with a superior – how did you handle it?
Advice A very difficult question indeed. Firstly because if you have ever had a disagreement with your superior it clearly indicates that you are someone who maybe a little awkward at work. Not only that but you are introducing a negative into the interview process which is not recommended. However if you don’t answer the…
Interview Question: Describe a situation in which you have led a team.
We have recently reintroduced our popular CV review service. We review CVs free of charge if you consent to us posting your CV and our comments live onto the website as a blog article (we remove your contact details of course). You can also pay for the service – details here: https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/cv-advice-and-reviews/ You can also…
Negotiating for the sake of negotiating – the risks of haggling on salary during the job offer process
A couple of job offers recently have ended up in a stalemate situation between the employers and the employees. The employees have asked for a higher salary and the employers have taken umbrage at the fact the employees have asked the question. Here are our top 10 pieces of advice when considering negotiating on salary…
15th September 2019 Legal Recruitment Job Market Report
Legal Recruitment – still an uncertain market Each month we run a comparison between the last calendar month and the same time period in 2018 to see if there has been any noticeable difference in view of the extreme political uncertainty. In June 2019 we saw a huge increase of 77% in new permanent vacancies…