Five tips to stay organised in your search for a training contract

It’s not easy to juggle your career research and applications with university studies, extra-curricular activities and other work/life commitments. Researching law firms and making applications is undeniably a time-consuming process, with one City firm recruiter telling us recently that each application should take between eight and 10 hours. While it’s easy to get overwhelmed, there are small things you can do to ensure that you stay up to date and organised in your search for a training contract, and to make things easier for yourself along the way.

1. Keep all your information in one place

One way to do this is to keep a diary or notebook of all the careers events you’ve attended, law firms you’ve encountered and people you’ve spoken to. This will be invaluable when it comes to making applications and reminding yourself of when you attended a firm’s on-campus presentation, or if you would like to follow up on a notable conversation with a firm contact. Another way to keep all your research together is to create a MyLCN account on LawCareers.Net. It’s a great resource to keep track of all the firms you’re interested in/are applying to, and to make notes on them. You can even save external articles and links to your hub page, so everything is easily accessible in one place.

2. Work out your strengths and weaknesses

Talking about MyLCN, did you know that the self-analysis tool MySelf is the best way to take an objective look at your past activities and work experience, and see how to insert them successfully into job applications? You can rate your experiences by a range of skills that recruiters look for – from teamwork and leadership to commercial awareness – and build up a portfolio of things to mention in application forms. It’s also a really useful way to gauge your strengths and weaknesses, and work out where your application might be lacking in certain competencies.

3. Don’t miss a deadline

You can use LCN’s MyCalendar tool to ensure you never miss an important event or deadline again. Use the Diary search online to find firm events that you are interested in and add them to your calendar. MyCalendar also displays upcoming deadlines at firms or chambers that you have added to MyLCN. You will receive a weekly email to remind you of what events and deadlines are coming up in your MyCalendar, and you can even export the calendar to your phone so you’ll be up-to-date when on the go.

4. Sticky tabs and colour codes

If you’re a bit old-school (like me!) in your research methods and physical books are more your thing, it’s very easy to get a good system going for marking up your copy of The Training Contract & Pupillage Handbook with firms and information that is particularly relevant to you. We’ve colour coded each section for ease of access. And with the training contract index (starting on p205) you can narrow down firms by location and practice area as a starting point for your research.

5. Keep track of who you’ve applied for

My final tip might sound simple, but there is nothing more important than remembering which firms you’ve applied for and what you’ve said in your applications. The easiest way to do this is to print off a hard copy of your application before you submit, especially as you might not be able to access your application afterwards if it’s on an online portal. When called to interview you will be expected to know your application inside out, so make sure you’re familiar with what you said!