Jemima Asinwo is an early careers assistant at HFW. She’s worked at the firm for two years and is based in the London office.
How important is the vacation scheme as part of the recruitment process?
For HFW, it's very important. We really value the opportunity to see candidates on the vacation scheme. We run three vacation schemes: a one-week scheme in spring and two two-week schemes in summer. We think it's a good way for the candidate to see if they like the firm and to understand the work we do. It's a two-way interview.
We appreciate that not everybody will have the time to dedicate to a vacation scheme so we still recruit via direct training contract applications, but the majority of our training contracts are offered through the vacation scheme.
What advice would you give to anyone interested in a career at your firm?
Candidates underestimate how much it stands out when someone’s applied early. Our applications open in October, which is early in the recruitment cycle, so I can understand why people might want to wait before applying. However, you know your work experience and academic achievements will be necessary, so those are things you can start preparing early in the process.
We review applications on a rolling basis, which means we offer places on our vacation schemes and assessment centres as soon as we can. We don't close applications early because we don't want to miss someone exceptional and some candidates may not be able to apply until January. That said, I’d really encourage people to apply as early as possible if they can.
My second piece of advice is to be selective. It's essential to research firms and understand what they do. Focusing on a smaller number of firms will allow you to tailor your applications properly, and a well-researched application is always likely to be more successful.
Another positive sign is authenticity. We read a lot of applications, and anyone can visit our website and summarise what we do. Drawing on your own experiences and perspectives helps your application stand out and gives us a better sense of who you are.
Things that stand out negatively include small mistakes such as grammar and spelling errors or using the wrong firm name. We get so many strong applications and it's getting harder to filter them down!
What is the most common way that candidates let themselves down in their applications?
Writing what they think we want to see. At HFW we want different types of people from different walks of life, especially as trainees. We have career changers, people who have some legal work experience and people straight from university. The thing that makes you stand out is your individuality; you need to demonstrate the unique skills you’ve developed.
Applicants often don't value their non-legal work experience enough. Almost anyone can learn how to pass law exams, but to become a good lawyer you need the skills that are harder to teach, like resilience, communication, organisation and time management. If you can demonstrate those transferable skills from other work experience, it's good to highlight them. We recruit roughly equal numbers of law and non-law students, so those other experiences are very valuable at HFW.
How important is diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) to your firm?
It's really important. We work closely with our DEI team and want to make things accessible and transparent for everyone. Throughout the application process, we ask how we can support individuals. The legal term is ‘reasonable adjustments’, but we think of it more as ensuring we support you to perform at your best.
We care a lot about diversity of thought and want to foster a workplace where people from various walks of life and with different experiences feel empowered. We don't have minimum grade requirements because we recognise that people’s academic achievements may not reflect their ability for various reasons. We work with a contextual recruitment system to contextualise people's grades, which helps to broaden our talent pool. Social mobility is important to us, and building that wider network helps ensure we have a diverse group of applicants.
How does your recruitment process work?
The first stage is the application form, which needs to be filled out in its entirety. At this stage, we're looking at written communication, evidence of the key competencies expected of a trainee solicitor, transferable skills from work experience and extracurriculars, and a good knowledge of and genuine interest in law and HFW.
If you’re successful, you're then invited to an assessment centre. We assess through a Watson Glaser critical reasoning test, a written exercise, a group exercise and then the associate interview. It's a full day, from about 9:30am to 4:00pm, and during that time we're assessing written and verbal communication, teamwork, organisation, planning and commercial acumen. Successful candidates then progress to the vacation scheme, which involves a work placement, negotiation exercise, research project and a partner interview. If it's a direct training contract that you’ve applied for, you go straight from the assessment centre to the partner interview.
If you're overthinking and trying to behave in a way that you think is what we want to see, that's when people tend to trip themselves up. We give feedback, so if you’re unsuccessful you know what to improve on for next time.
I think people might not realise that we're assessing the same thing repeatedly. While you may think, ‘I said this in my associate interview. I'm not going to say it again in the partner interview’, the associate doesn't speak to the partner that interviews you. You need to evidence the skills again because we're looking for consistent achievement across the whole recruitment process.
Does your firm attend university law fairs in the autumn term? What is your main objective when you go to a law fair?
Yes, we attend both virtual and in-person law fairs. We visit a range of universities because we want to target different types of students. However, we're a small team and can't go everywhere, which is why we work with different legal careers platforms to reach a wider selection of students.
Our aim is simply to speak to students and broaden awareness of the firm. We're now seeing more first-year students attend law fairs, which is good because we get to see some of them again at our virtual insight days and open days. The vacation scheme and training contracts are obviously very important, but there are these other touchpoints through which people can get to know HFW.
Are there opportunities for trainees to go on client secondments?
Our USP is that we offer a guaranteed international secondment. All our trainees get the opportunity to spend time in one of our international offices. We’re a very international firm; often our trainees work in teams made up of people from different offices. We send our trainees abroad so that they can build their networks and develop a greater understanding of our global clients. We have secondments in locations such as Paris, Geneva, Monaco, Greece, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, Australia and Singapore. As with all secondments, opportunities depend on business needs and different locations can come in and out of the programme from one rotation to the next.
Who doesn't want to go abroad for six months fully paid for by the firm? I know I do!
What is your dream job (other than this one!)?
To be a lady of leisure. I want to do all the different things that I enjoy in my own time and develop my skills and hobbies. I also wanted to be a wedding coordinator. It seems like fun to go to weddings for a living!
