Firms braced for flood of applicants in 2010
Selection criteria ramped up to cope with expected graduate backlog. Firms are toughening already tight graduate recruitment criteria in a bid to stem the expected flood of candidates returning from gap years following the legal market’s biggest-ever trainee deferral programme.
Claire Evans
Despite predictions earlier this year that training contract applications would soar as a result of the investment banking industry scaling back graduate recruitment programmes, many leading law firms said they received a similar number of applications in summer 2009 as in previous years, but that they expected a rise next year.
A graduate recruitment partner at a top 15 firm said: “We didn’t get the massive rise in applications we were expecting last year because I think people were put off due to the deferrals and increased competition.
“What we also noticed was many of the weaker candidates just didn’t bother applying this year.
“It’s a bit like a pressure cooker at the moment, and next year we’re going to see application numbers shoot up with the big backlog of students who’ve decided to delay their applications.”
A graduate recruitment manager at another firm said there could be a massive bottleneck of candidates.
She warned: “Conditions could potentially be a lot worse as gap-year students go head-to-head with penultimate- and final-year students against the backdrop of a contracting training contracts market.”
As a result firms are making students jump through more hoops, with extra testing and tougher selection procedures.
Herbert Smith is the latest firm to add an extra layer to its online application process after piloting a verbal reasoning test on its spring and summer vacation scheme candidates earlier this year.
Herbert Smith graduate recruitment manager Peter Chater said: “We get so many applications through nowadays that adding this online test will make sure that we’re picking from the best talent pool possible. We want quality not quantity.”
Berwin Leighton Paisner has added two new exercises to its selection procedure to test for ‘intellectual ability’, while LG is in the process of overhauling its entire recruitment process.
DLA Piper has introduced what it calls a “visual accuracy test”, whereby students who have successfully completed an assessment day are given a contract to correct for spelling and grammatical errors.
DLA Piper graduate recruitment officer Claire Evans said: “If a candidate’s prepared to jump through hoops like this then you know they’re much more dedicated to a career in the profession.”
Readers' comments (11)
IHateBPP | 14-Dec-2009 2:24 pm
I would imagine the number of applicants in 2010 will be the same as it ever was, the predicted rised in applications in 2009 didn't happen and neither will this one.
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Anonymous | 14-Dec-2009 3:27 pm
And yet some candidates spout forth on Roll on Friday against firms on the nature of the selection and interview process.
Do they really not think that firms will check ROF and trace candidates and their comments? If they don't then they show a particular lack of judgement and I certainly wouldn't give them house room in my firm.
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OMG Anonymous 14/12 3:27 pm is dumb | 14-Dec-2009 3:43 pm
That is one of the dumbest things I have ever read. I can't believe you're allowed on the internet.
(1) Do you really think a firm is going to waste the time and money to trace posts on the RoF forums?
(2) By what magic would they trace a comment which is effectively anonymous anyway? Most people aren't so stupid as to publicly display their email addresses. Do you really think RoF would hand them over to any inquisitive law firm. Sweet jebus.
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No substitiute for experience. | 14-Dec-2009 7:06 pm
I just find it laughable that a top 10 law firm thinks that introducing a verbal reasoning screening test to their online application process will weed out anybody. Most people with a reasonably competent grasp of English breeze through such tests, for example, the largely indistinguishable candidates with 2.1's from top universities.
There is far too much reliance on penultimate year students. Personally I've had to "drop down the leagues" as it were to gain experience with a small firm which enabled me to talk the talk far better at Training Contract interviews. This ultimately helped me to secure one. I would have been far too arrogant had I switched straight from a top university to a top law firm. Humility and experience plus commitment to the profession exemplified by somebody going somewhere that many would not go, to me, displays a clear distinguishable feature in any applicant.
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Anonymous | 15-Dec-2009 1:18 am
OMG LMFAO
Some people ...
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Clergham | 15-Dec-2009 8:46 am
heh
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Anonymous | 15-Dec-2009 3:06 pm
the notion that anyone who reads roll on friday should even be considered for employment at a law firm is absurd in the first place. Kudos to the guy who invented roll on friday he gets advertising money from the big firms, yet he supplies no content whatsoever save for 2 paragraphs of drivel once a week, firm reviews that are completely out of date if they were ever correct, and forums whose main purpose it seems is for qualified associates to either discuss matters wholly unrelated to law or to give them an opportunity to look down on aspiring trainees
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Anonymous | 16-Dec-2009 4:53 pm
Anonymous | 15-Dec-2009 3:06 pm -
Are we to assume with your knowledge of the content of roll on friday that you were never considered for employment at a law firm?!
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Anonymous | 17-Dec-2009 9:26 am
Wow human resource departments at the top law firms must be running at no capacity for the the last two years i hope these new measures give them some breathing room for that morning catch up coffee with friends.
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Anonymous | 17-Dec-2009 3:57 pm
I think the comment that there will be a flood of applications in 2010 is wrong. As someone who graduated in 2008, who then worked as a legal secretary for 16 months before being promoted to a trainee position, I was on the verge of giving up, and I know many of my other friends have.
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Anonymous | 13-Jan-2010 10:45 am
I totally agree with the above post - it is such a shame that so much talent is going to waste. Many have now been forced into other professions after years of trying. The comtempt expressed in some of the other posts is truly shocking...
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