Tertiary and Continuing The Law Thread

[checkraiseulite]

I can't see how recruiters don't find these grads devious when they blatently lie in applications though.

It's obvious they volunteered to give them an edge in the recruitment process, but they'll never admit that is the underlying motive for doing it. Instead, they'll say how they wanted to give back to the community etc.

Volunteering in a legal context is different and I have actually done this at Victorian Legal Aid for a substantial period of time. Not to look good, but it's a first port of call for gaining legal experience and I learned from it (not that it'll be relevant to the areas I want to practice in) and enjoyed the hands on nature of it (though it was eye-opening and depressing at times).

People don't shy away from unglamorous work when there's a carrot at the end of the day. When they get a grad role and you have them down filing/shitkicking out in Ringwood 12hrs a day for a couple weeks, I believe that'll be the true measure of whether they're as committed as they say they are.

To give you an example of some ECs of mine. I've recently done an advanced MS Excel course at TAFE which has consumed one night a week for a couple of monhths because my excel skills were lacking and I know such skills are sought after in the industry. I could have saved money and gone and volunteered at a lost dogs home, but I thought my time would be better spent gaining marketable skills than pretending to be interested in dogs so I can bs a recruiter about how ethical and concerned with animal welfare I am.

 

[Caesar]

People aren't hired for their motives though. They're hired for their skills and experience. Volunteering does give people certain tangible advantages that are often lacking in university grads. That's why it's a sought-after trait.

I can assure you that people with volunteering on their resume aren't hired over people who don't have it because of some perceived greater moral worth.

People don't shy away from unglamorous work when there's a carrot at the end of the day.

Some people do. As you've said yourself, you're not inclined to put in the effort to do certain stuff even though that carrot is demonstrably there.

 

[checkraiseulite]

I am generally lazy/unmotivated in academic pursuits because I have previously found it easy to consistently score in the top 10% without a substantial amount of effort. The return on effort just generally isn't there academically (unless I'm genuinely interested in the content which is unusual).

To clarify I haven't shied away from volunteering b/c I am too lazy or unmotivated to do it. I haven't done it because I think it's unethical to do it with ulterior motives (unless you are completely up front about it, and then you're unlikely to get a volunteer position anywhere) and I haven't found an organisation I am passionate enough about so as to devote my free time to it. I also was unaware of the importance of it until recently, so I may very well have to suck it up and go out and do some.

Also are you able to expand on the skills/experiences that I would gain by volunteering in a non-legal context that would be useful in landing me a position as a corporate lawyer or business analyst?

These recruiters always talk about wanting to secure 'balanced candidates'. It seems they are often going for quantity of achievements/extracurriculars over quality.

TL;DR. I'm just tilted at not having a lot to write in the volunteering/community work sections of job applications

 

[fairdinkum]

Everything Caesar has said in this thread has made perfect sense to me.

Colour me cynical but >75% of the people I know doing community volunteering or whatever are doing it with ulterior motives.

Can't speak for others but I openly admit that I took the Treasurer's gig in the student association I am involved in at uni to make my resume look better in a year or two. Well, that was one motive. The other was to aid me in talking to the ladies involved in the association. Pure self-interest? You betcha!



That said, I was once upon a time the President of my local cricket club for a few seasons. Taking up that gig had NOTHING to do with my future employment - I simply loved the club and wanted to make it better. I am certain that no matter where I end up working post-uni, the experience I gained in that role will serve me very very well indeed.

 

[jonoman89]

The amount of extra curricular law grads need is getting quite insane. I know a few people who have dropped down to part-time because of their work/volunteer demands taking so much time and effort.

I can't help but feel cynical about a lot of stuff people do to "pad their resume". Ulterior motives are rife. As people have said, it demonstrates motivation and initiative. But I can't help but feel queezy hearing about countless people who apparently save the world every tuesday night etc.

I've done some volunteer work in a few non-profit places but mainly in a legal/admin role. It's gotten to the stage of my degree that if I get involved in any noble cause it will look like nothing more than what it actually is....a resume boosting exercise.

That said, there are countless people of relatively high intelligence (let's face it, you can't be a complete dead shit in law and get passes or credits or whatever) and great personal skills, but have very little resume padding. I'd hire them every day of the week over someone with a better academic transcript and 3 years experience at St Vinnies yet way worse personal skills.

A fair proportion of persons I know with paralegal jobs at firms etc. have gotten them through nepotism rather than merit. That kind of experience is 100x more useful than working for Greenpeace.

Easiest and most useful resume padding exercise would be to join a student society in a portfolio with firm contact. I know a lot of people who have gained a lot through working well with HR reps etc.

 

[checkraiseulite]

But I can't help but feel queezy hearing about countless people who apparently save the world every tuesday night etc.

This, this and this. The sad thing is that I think some of them (inevitably the least intelligent) actually believe it.

An interesting conversation I had a few months ago with a friend I knew who graduated from Melb Uni and went to work with JPM in Sydney on $XXX,XXX + bonus first year out.

He lasted 18 months and quit, went to South America and developed a fascination with helping those poor South American Children.

He liked pontificating about it to all and sundry and looked down on those of us still looking to enter the corporate world.

One day over a beer before he returned to South America to continue with his volunteering I'd had enough and said surely you'd make more of a difference if you went back to IB and donated 75% of your salary to helping the children, and instead of yourself going over there, you could fund 10 people to help them or buy something useful for a particular township or whatever. I told him that he was probably getting a greater benefit in doing the volunteering than the people he was purportedly helping.

For a very smart dude he had no rebuttal.

 

[Caesar]

Also are you able to expand on the skills/experiences that I would gain by volunteering in a non-legal context that would be useful in landing me a position as a corporate lawyer or business analyst?

It really depends on the role. To take one example, the treasurer of a volunteer organisation is often someone who has access to cash with very little oversight. If I see someone who has been treasurer of his cricket club for several years, then that tells me something about how trustworthy he is seen by people who know him pretty well. It also tells me something about his sense of responsibility, since it is typically one of the least glamourous and most onerous roles. It tells me that he takes an active interest in his cricket club, so he is clearly at least a moderately sociable guy. And so on.

In contrast, it is hard to read too much about someone's personal character from their university transcript and the fact they've done the standard professional internships at legal aid or whatever.

The volunteering side of your resume might seem trivial in comparison to those things, but they are one of the only areas where you can put your personal twist on your CV with the things you enjoy doing - make a statement about yourself as an individual, rather than just another faceless grad. That may sound silly but it can be those little things that count.

'Balanced candidates' is more than just a catchphrase, by the way. It costs companies a lot of money when grads get burnout. That's always the worry when you see the resume of an academic high achiever who seemingly does very little besides career-focused stuff.

That said, there are countless people of relatively high intelligence (let's face it, you can't be a complete dead shit in law and get passes or credits or whatever) and great personal skills, but have very little resume padding. I'd hire them every day of the week over someone with a better academic transcript and 3 years experience at St Vinnies yet way worse personal skills.

The thing is it's usually the people with the volunteering experience who have the better interpersonal skills than those who don't. You don't work in a Vinnies shop for 3 years without learning how to deal with a huge range of people from very different backgrounds, sometimes in quite difficult situations.

 

[checkraiseulite]

I understand what you're saying. However I think the positions you're expecting people to get are a lot harder to get than you're making out.

For example the treasurer of the cricket club where I used to play when I was a kid and my brother players now is the same guy that's been doing it for 10 years and he actually is a qualified accountant. Unless you have a family association or are a longstanding member you're not getting with 100 metres of the clubs money (especially given how regularly I dealt with people in similar positions of trust at Legal Aid who had stolen the clubs money to fund their own vices.

I'd also be more weary of burnout occurring in someone that has never had any downtime since year 11, consuming every waking hour with some sort of bullshit activity designed to get them a shitkicker role at a top-tier law firm or a management consultancy or whatever.

Personally, I'd much rather have a professionally competent person who does the standard things when they're not at work. He's less likely to be drained by other activities or concerned with Japanese whaling activity when he comes in on a monday morning at 8am.

Also, I take your point about experience with social interaction across different social levels, but realistically how often are you going to be dealing with people that are vastly different in their communication methods than you are? Hell, for the first couple of years I'd say you're unlikely to have a lot of contact (representing the firm) with anyone.

 

[Caesar]

I understand what you're saying. However I think the positions you're expecting people to get are a lot harder to get than you're making out.

For example the treasurer of the cricket club where I used to play when I was a kid and my brother players now is the same guy that's been doing it for 10 years and he actually is a qualified accountant. Unless you have a family association or are a longstanding member you're not getting with 100 metres of the clubs money (especially given how regularly I dealt with people in similar positions of trust at Legal Aid who had stolen the clubs money to fund their own vices.

I'd also be more weary of burnout occurring in someone that has never had any downtime since year 11, consuming every waking hour with some sort of bullshit activity designed to get them a shitkicker role at a top-tier law firm or a management consultancy or whatever.

Personally, I'd much rather have a professionally competent person who does the standard things when they're not at work. He's less likely to be drained by other activities or concerned with Japanese whaling activity when he comes in on a monday morning at 8am.

I'm not talking about people who spend every minute of their lives resume stuffing. I'm talking about normal people who have some breadth and variety to their resume. Stuff that shows some interest, experience and competency outside of a very narrow path.

Also, I take your point about experience with social interaction across different social levels, but realistically how often are you going to be dealing with people that are vastly different in their communication methods than you are? Hell, for the first couple of years I'd say you're unlikely to have a lot of contact (representing the firm) with anyone.

Grads aren't hired to be grads. Most of the work grads do in their first couple of years at most places could be done quite competently by admin staff without university qualifications at a fraction of the price. You're hiring essentially an empty vessel - it's not so important what it's filled with, but how well it's constructed. when I hire a grad I want someone who I can realistically see doing my boss's job 5-10 years down the track.

Communication skills were just one example, but a good one so let's run with it. Once you get above a certain level, communication skills are vitally important. You may not be talking to the same kinds of people you were talking to at Vinnies, but the skill - adjusting the way you communicate depending on the audience - is exactly the same. You need to talk differently to your boss to the way you talk to your subordinates, which is different to how you talk to a supplier, which is different to how you talk to a client, which is different to how you talk to someone from accounting... and so on.

They're subtle differences and you may think they're easy but it's one of the most important skills in business bar none. An awful lot of very intelligent (even socially talented) people struggle with it.

I'm rambling a lot in these posts, but do you see what I mean? There is more to hiring an employee than just professional competency for the job on offer. I don't have a lot of time for HR flacks, but there is more to this stuff they go on about than just fuzzy talk.

 

[checkraiseulite]

Perhaps I have a warped view of things (owing to the fact that I am obviously quite invested in the issue) but to me a 22yo treasurer of a cricket club is either a pretty wierd dude or is doing it with an ulterior motive. As a member of said cricket club I wouldn't want my treasurer waltzing into a role he will do sloppily for one year and perceives as gravy for his resume. I'd rather it go to someone who genuinely loves the club and is acting without any ulterior motives.

I agree that communication/management skills are probably more important than actual technical knowledge once you pass a certain point in professional services or whatever. I just can't link volunteering with an increase in someone's perceived communication skills.

From personal observations too I find that people (especially males) who lack social confidence/awareness often overcompensate by diving headfirst into activities like this instead of growing their interpersonal/communication skills organically.

I hate the fact that they are potentially using volunteer activity as a method of culling otherwise worthy candidates. Yes, there is more than technical competence, but I think technical competence should be required first to get through the door, and soft skills should be evaluated on an interview/on-the-job basis, rather than guessing about someone's communication skills by reading a 250 word (often 100% fabricated bs) speel on someone's contribution to community organisation xyz.

 

[Caesar]

I agree that communication/management skills are probably more important than actual technical knowledge once you pass a certain point in professional services or whatever. I just can't link volunteering with an increase in someone's perceived communication skills.

From personal observations too I find that people (especially males) who lack social confidence/awareness often overcompensate by diving headfirst into activities like this instead of growing their interpersonal/communication skills organically.

What do you mean growing your skills 'organically'? To me that is just meeting people and talking to them, which is what you do in a lot of volunteer jobs.

Honestly, and I say this as someone who has done the grunt work of sifting through an awful lot of first round grad interviews, people who get involved in activities that involve social interaction with a wide demographic are usually more adept at those skills than the ones who have just hung out with a few mates and played a bit of organised sports. Even the ones who would generally be considered to be 'good' socially by their peers - and who probably consider themselves to have good interpersonal skills.

There is nothing like being forced to interact with people from well outside your normal social sphere for honing and adapting your communication skills. It takes a great deal of ability to (for example) convey a complex concept to someone with no prior understanding of it in a way that they grasp it, yet do not feel patronised. Or (conversely) have an intelligent and insightful conversation with someone vastly more knowledgeable than yourself on a topic you know very little about.

I hate the fact that they are potentially using volunteer activity as a method of culling otherwise worthy candidates. Yes, there is more than technical competence, but I think technical competence should be required first to get through the door, and soft skills should be evaluated on an interview/on-the-job basis, rather than guessing about someone's communication skills by reading a 250 word (often 100% fabricated bs) speel on someone's contribution to community organisation xyz.

To be brutally honest - the value of technical competence in a grad is pretty limited. It wouldn't make sense to hire people on that basis. You want a base level of competence but anything above that is pretty superfluous.

I would even go so far as to say that academic/technical achievement isn't the most important factor in hiring grads. Any intelligent grad can be taught any technical topic with relative quickness and ease. Soft skills are the hard thing to instill. The grads with the best marks will often get hired, but that is more of a side effect (i.e. the people you want to hire will usually have good marks, rather than the good marks meaning you want to hire them).

If you're saying you're going to get culled before the interview stage because someone washed dogs for a few years in university and you didn't, well that's not how it works. But if an applicant can convince me that washing dogs has taught them something that makes them an asset as an employee, then by all means it will stand in their favour. Just as your Excel course will stand in yours.

That's all that it's about.

 

[DTRAIN87]

The HR people are good at choosing the right people. That is why often people with high grades but little or no interpersonal ability are overlooked often. I am going to go into HR and think it would be far more interesting careers.

 

[jonoman89]

The thing is it's usually the people with the volunteering experience who have the better interpersonal skills than those who don't. You don't work in a Vinnies shop for 3 years without learning how to deal with a huge range of people from very different backgrounds, sometimes in quite difficult situations.

Of course, volunteering will better your interpersonal skills. But to a certain degree your networking skills, ability to chit-chat and capacity to engage with a wide variety of people comes down to personality. It's nearly impossible to change your personality, no matter the volunteer work you have done.

Some people are naturally more charismatic and affable than others no matter their intelligence. Those are the kinds of people clients would want to talk to. The experience you get in a lot of volunteering environments would be no different and no better than many part-time jobs nearly every kid in AUS has had one time or another.

I can safely say I learnt more about life working in a large shopping centre as a retail assistant for 3 years in my teens than I did last year volunteering in non-profit organisations. But there's no way those 3 years would be looked at more highly than the other things on my resume.

 

[Caesar]

Of course, volunteering will better your interpersonal skills. But to a certain degree your networking skills, ability to chit-chat and capacity to engage with a wide variety of people comes down to personality. It's nearly impossible to change your personality, no matter the volunteer work you have done.

Some people are naturally more charismatic and affable than others no matter their intelligence. Those are the kinds of people clients would want to talk to.

Edward de Bono would disagree. Speaking as someone who was highly introverted up until my early teens, I'd say that the degree of predetermination is pretty low. It's like anything - practice, you get better.

There is also a big difference between being charismatic and being a good communicator. In my experience people who are the former assume they are the latter - often quite unjustifiably so. Socially, being charismatic can often compensate for communicating poorly.

The experience you get in a lot of volunteering environments would be no different and no better than many part-time jobs nearly every kid in AUS has had one time or another.

It really depends on what kind of volunteering you are doing. Serving people at McDonalds or stacking shelves at Coles teaches you very different things to (for example) being involved in home visits for the elderly.

 

[checkraiseulite]

To me it's definitely easier to communicate with someone when you're forced to do it or have some sort of explicitly known mutual interest (even if you aren't really interested in the subject matter). I believe people who are naturally good communicators don't necessarily have to seek out opportunities to practice their communication skills, especially with people who are pretty much required to engage them.

FWIW I'm not the greatest communicator and my interview experiences have varied pretty drastically depending on the interview style used. I do in my everyday life though talk to people from all backgrounds and ages, so it's not necessarily something that can be helped a great deal by practice, as I believe it may be down to pressure.

I also agree that technical knowledge learned at uni is next to useless. However I believe people should be judged by their aptitude to learn things, not by what they have managed to learn by studying 6hrs a day throughout the entire semester. If this were used more frequently (rather than just as a culling mechanism for some jobs) I would be at a pretty significant advantage relative to the field.

I don't think I'll be culled solely b/c I haven't volunteered, but I think a pretty high number of organisations devoting up to 25% of the pre-interview questions to it gives it some degree of significance in the culling process. FWIW I have removed my Legal Aid internship from my professional experience section and put it into my volunteering section, together with listing my society memberships (non-committee obv) to try and fill it out a bit.

 

[jo172]

It's pretty big in America. I'd never heard of it over here until I talked to someone from Monash. Sounds like an even more transparent wankfest than Junior Chambers of Commerce, tbh.

Oh god this.

Ultimate show of idiocy combined with vanity

 

[jo172]

Also, checkraiseulite you seem to be falling into from what I've observed is a standard law student trap.

Despite what has happened so far in your life, life is not a meritocracy. Lawyering is about far more than your academic record. Honestly interpersonal skills are just as important as knowing the law. Particularly in a jobs market where there is a massive flood of graduates.

 

[checkraiseulite]

Also, checkraiseulite you seem to be falling into from what I've observed is a standard law student trap.

Despite what has happened so far in your life, life is not a meritocracy. Lawyering is about far more than your academic record. Honestly interpersonal skills are just as important as knowing the law. Particularly in a jobs market where there is a massive flood of graduates.

This is not news to me, and I'd say interpersonal skills would have equal weight in establishing merit, too.

What is idiotic to me though is the quality of someone's interpersonal skills being judged by HR after skimming over their verb-heavy 250 word summation of their contribution to student society x and charity y.

 

[Caesar]

What is idiotic to me though is the quality of someone's interpersonal skills being judged by HR after skimming over their verb-heavy 250 word summation of their contribution to student society x and charity y.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that this happens.

The application stage is just to weed out the obviously unsuitable candidates. Anyone with a remote chance of getting the job is going to get a first-round interview. You're not going to get canned without an interview on the basis of not having enough extracurricular activities unless the rest of your application is pretty average as well.

Anyway, half the reason they get you to do that spiel is because they want to see your writing skills. The content is almost secondary.

 

[checkraiseulite]

I'm exaggerating, but obviously they're getting a substantial amount of applications and need some method of culling the pool before they can give people interviews.

They have some standard 3-4 questions which are obviously designed to test your teamwork/leadership/interpersonal skills. 1 of which will normally be oriented towards community work/volunteering etc, so it's obviously a fairly important component for them in deciding whether you're the sort of 'balanced person' they're looking for.

I also disagree with your statement about anyone with a remote chance of getting the job getting a first round interview. To give you an example (admittedly over a pretty small sample) I was looking for some vacation work in a big4 accounting firm a couple years ago. I applied for all 4, got interviews at 3 and offers at 2. At 1 firm I was rejected without even progressing to testing.

My answers to the application questions were almost identical leading me to believe that my answers were judged. The positions I applied for were all in the same service line, in the same city and were submitted around the same time. I think you are underestimating the amount of culling/HR involvement that is involved in between application submission and first-round interviews.

 

[Caesar]

Perhaps the quality of the applicants was higher at the place you didn't make it to the first round?

First round interviews are my area. Let me tell you, we cast a pretty wide net. We take all the probables and all the the possibles. You only cut the ones who you can already tell don't have a chance of landing the job.

Obviously when you're culling by application there's room for error. Do I think that we cut people who may have been better than some of the guys we granted interviews to? Almost certainly.

Do I think we cut anyone who could have landed the job if they'd got an interview? Possible I guess, but in my view highly unlikely.

 

[checkraiseulite]

I doubt it considering it'd be standard for most people interested in this particular area to apply to all 4 (this is not a market for people to be selective).

Also, the firm that rejected me outright was Deloitte, which is by far the weakest in this particular service line in Melbourne. Perhaps the particular applicants they accepted were perceived to be stronger in particular traits as judged by HR reading the application questions.

Do I think we cut anyone who could have landed the job? I seriously doubt it.

What do you actually do? I think that is a pretty huge call to make and is what I hate about the whole recruitment process.

 

[Caesar]

Perhaps they were simply looking for different things than what you offered.

I work in-house for a large resources company, mostly doing procurement contracting. It's exciting stuff.

Believe me, first-round interviews have a lot of applicants and a large proportion of them are completely unsuitable for the role. You get them in basically to check you aren't missing anything special. It's why shitkickers like me get the job.

The application culling process isn't nearly as arbitrary as you seem to think. If you're missing out on interviews for jobs you think you have a serious shot at, then consider retooling your resume / applications.

 

[checkraiseulite]

Perhaps they were simply looking for different things than what you offered.

is hard to reconcile with...

The application stage is just to weed out the obviously unsuitable candidates

and...

Anyone with a remote chance of getting the job is going to get a first-round interview.

unless they have judged my answers and decided at that early stage that I'm not in keeping with what they're looking for as an organisation.

 

[Caesar]

No it's not. If they were looking for different things they may well have dismissed you on the basis of your application because you lacked the things they were after in an applicant, and they knew that even if you got an interview you wouldn't be seriously considered for the position. The fact you lacked those things may conversely have not bothered the other firms.

Look, if you want to believe that the application process is arbitrary and has dudded you out of interviews you deserved then I guess that's your prerogative. I'm not trying to have an argument with you, I'm just telling you how it works from the perspective of someone on the other side of the table in order to hopefully help you in your future applications. Take that for what you will... or not. It's up to you.