Acing the Training Contract Interview: Proven Strategies for Success

Apr 20, 2023

Written By Alyssa Gibbons

The Training Contract interview can be all that’s between you and securing that coveted training contract, so it’s understandable that it can be equal parts nerve-inducing and exciting. However, the following strategies have helped many training contract hopefuls secure their training contract offer. Keep these techniques in mind, and you could be adding “future trainee” to your LinkedIn headline before you know it…

Preparation is key

It’s important to have an understanding of how to prepare for a training contract interview to maximise your potential. While many law firms use similar approaches when recruiting, it’s important that you take note of any pre-interview information from the law firm regarding the format and the content of the interview. It’s a good idea to let this guide the strategies that you employ.

Suggestions such as being well-rested, dressing smartly, and ensuring you arrive in good time (or taking the interview in a quiet environment if it is remote) may sound cliché, but they are important steps to putting yourself in the best position to secure that trainee solicitor role.

If you’re having an in-person interview, it’s a good idea to remind yourself of your route to the office the day before, and plan to leave your home with time to spare, to account for delays or getting lost. You should also make sure that your clothes are clean, ironed and fit well, and that you have an easy-to-access list of the timings for the day.

If your interview is online, then it’s a good idea to tidy your interview space in good time, and let anyone you live with know the times that you’d like them to avoid disturbing you. You may also wish to keep the phone number of graduate recruitment handy if your internet goes down. All of these steps ensure you present yourself as organised to your interviewer, and help with your peace of mind too.

Training Contract Application Season | Virtual Event Series on AllAboutLaw

Looking to secure a training contract? Attend a range of informative presentations with training contract application experts.

Reserve Spot

Revise your application

Some training contract interviewers will spend time asking you about the answers you wrote on your online application form. It might be quite a while since you sent in your application, so you may not remember the exact details you included.

To avoid being taken by surprise in your interview, read over your application form if you have it, or spend time thinking about what you said. Think about ways the interviewers may ask you to expand on your answers beyond the form’s word limit. Some of these follow-up questions might be quite challenging, so be prepared to be pushed further on your previous answers.

Know the firm’s competencies

A law firm’s list of “key competencies” are the skills and characteristics that they look for when recruiting their future trainees. So, it makes sense to think about how you align with these ahead of your training contract interview. These competencies can often be found on the firm’s graduate recruitment site or in their graduate recruitment brochure.

It’s important to think about how you could demonstrate that you have these competencies in your training contract interview. Your interviewer may ask when you’ve demonstrated one of these competencies. You could draw upon experiences from a part-time job, volunteering, or a leadership position within a student society.

The STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) technique can be a useful strategy for answering these sorts of questions, helping you to outline why you’ve got what it takes to take on the tasks of a trainee solicitor. Aligning your experience with what the firm is looking for also shows your interviewers that you’ve thought carefully about why their firm is the one for you.

For more information on how to approach competency-based questions, check out our article by Amy Ruff, Graduate Recruitment Officer at Shoosmiths, which digs deeper into the best strategies when approaching these questions.

Keep your Commercial Awareness fresh

Commercial Awareness is a term that’s everywhere in the legal graduate recruitment world, and for good reason. Demonstrating an understanding of current affairs not only shows that you are aware of the latest innovations and developments in the business world, but that you also know how the latest events can have an impact on a law firm’s clients.

Your interviewees want to be reassured that, should you accept a training contract with them, your commercial awareness will inform the work you do for clients. So, when you’re preparing for your interview, it’s a good idea to consider how recent developments will impact the firm’s clients and how a lawyer could help a client with any problems that arise as a result.

Take a look at our Commercial Awareness Guide, a great place to start or grow your commercial awareness.

All that is left to say is best of luck for your training contract interview. These tips are sure to put you in a good place to ace that training contract interview and successfully pursue a career that you have worked hard for.

Selection & Assessment