Purpose of an interview

This is your chance to bring your CV and cover letter to life and impress the organisation in person. This is about them meeting you and finding out if you’re the right person for their job.

The interview has a few purposes. For the employer, they want to assess if you meet their requirements and obtain evidence of your skills and suitability. For you, you get to make a good impression on the firm, persuade the firm that you meet their requirements but equally important, to find out more about the job and employer and ensure that they are the right fit for you! This list is not a comprehensive list of the potential interviews that you might need to do. Responsibility lies with you to ensure that you know what to expect out of any interview.

• 2 pages maximum.
• Presentation counts. Your CV should have a clear layout and be easy to navigate.
• Make sure there are no spelling mistakes, and that punctuation and grammar are used correctly.
• Explain any gaps in your CV.
• Build skills and achievements into your previous experience.
• Most firms and organisations will have tips their application process on their website, make sure you look at these before you apply.
• Tailor your CV to the opportunity that you are applying for.
• Make sure that you use the careers service at your university to ensure you get all the support available for everything to do with your career.

Interview Questions

The interview will usually have 2 types of questions; discussion based/personal experience questions and behavioural based questions.

Discussion based questions – These questions will focus on you. Examples include (but are certainly not limited to);

• Tell me about yourself
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• What makes you want to work for us?
• What makes you think you’ll make a good lawyer in our firm?
• Why should we hire you over all the other people we’re interviewing today?

Behavioural questions – These will focus on your previous experience and often start with ‘tell me about a time you…’. You need to know your CV inside out and draw upon your most relevant and recent examples from your previous work, achievements at university and your extracurricular activities.

Behavioural questions are often when students start rambling. Take a moment to think about what you want to say (silence is OK) and answer the question concisely and completely.

A Google search of interview questions will give you plenty of questions to think about and practice but remember that the interview should feel like a professional conversation without sounding rehearsed. This is a chance for you to build rapport.

Make sure that you have questions for them. These questions should be genuine questions that you have about the firm, the work they do and the people that work there. Asking the interviewers about what they like about their jobs, their area of expertise, previous cases they have worked on or the culture of the firm are just some of the things you might consider asking.

Types of Interviews