in Careers Advice, Interviews

Legal Job Interview Question and Answer – Are you willing to travel?

Advice

This question is one of the easiest to give a response to and does not appear to carry any risks at all with the response. Quite obviously you do need to indicate that you are willing to travel as if this was not part of the job then presumably the employer would not have asked you the question. It is important not to imply that you are a free wandering spirit who tends to spend considerable amounts of time travelling but it is important to indicate flexibility and confirm a willingness to travel should the job require it. If you know the job is desk bound in one particular area it may be worth clarifying with the interviewer whether this is the case or whether they anticipate there being external travel involved.

Examples of Answers

“Yes, should the need arise I am more than happy to travel.”

Or:

“Yes. You can see from my CV that the former posts I have had travel has played a fairly important role and I am quite comfortable spending time visiting clients or sites.”

Or:

“I understand that this particular role is based in Chelmsford. I was not aware that travel would be part of it and wonder whether you could clarify this for me.”

Jonathan Fagan

Jonathan Fagan LLM FIRP is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment. He has been recruiting solicitors and legal support staff for law firms and in house legal departments for over 20 years and handles roles from junior fee earners through to partners and law firm sales/purchases. A non-practising solicitor on the Roll since 2000, he is also the author of a number of legal career books, which are available at www.ten-percent.uk. You can contact Jonathan at cv@ten-percent.co.uk