Vacation Scheme Review

I thought the two weeks were very enjoyable. This being my first VS I have no direct comparison to make but I was not bored for any period of time. There were some parts of the scheme which were more enjoyable than others- the presentations with the different areas were very good.

In the first week I felt particularly valued. This was partly because I don't think this team had had a VS student before. As such they were willing to match my appetite which was great. In the second week as it was broken up with the assessment day in the middle it was difficult to take on a great deal of work. However it was still useful and insightful.

The firm is very supportive and lots of different people were available to give feedback and guidance throughout the fortnight. This ranged from HR, through trainees and right up to Snr associate and partner level. I did not make use of any of the business support taem but I have no reason to doubt their supportiveness as well.

As a postgraduate, the skills developed were mainly around how a law firm works. These skills are invaluable for me as I have not had this insight into a city firm before. There are plenty of opportunities to get involved and use soft-skills. Additionally it's great to see that these are effective actually in the workplace as well as the literature.

I thought having the assessment day in the second week gave us an opportunity to develop answers we would give based on the experience we had. It also gave a good indication of whether we would actually enjoy being at the firm. The talks were all excellent and relevant and the day was clear. It may have been useful to have diarised start/end times other than business need to support supervisors.

Fantastic. I wouldn't describe it as fun... but definitely enjoyable and engaging. The firm lives up to it's reputation in this regard and everyone I spoke to was switched on, enthusiastic and appeared to be genuinely interested in what they were doing. This reflects very well on the staff and the ones I interacted with are a credit to SH.

Firm put on a session in the first week which was dseigned to identify the skills which would be used in the second week. These focussed on group exercises, negotiation but also thinking quickly. This was a very useful session to give some skills about how to handle the assessment day.

Everyone I interacted with was very happy to discuss their experience at the firm and what a full time trainee at the firm would be doing. This was really useful as it gave an opportunity to discuss what differentiates the firm from it's competitors and also departments. This was very insightful.

Without this insight it would have been very difficult to get an understanding of what life at the firm is like, both day-to-day and across the arc of a training contract. Additionally being able to work on some live projects indicated the amount of responsibility which the firm gives to it's trainees which is something really exciting.

I have not been put off the career path that I want to take- which is great.

There were plenty of opportunities to get involved in networking. The events put on by HR and graduate recruitment gae an opportunity to understand how the other trainees did networking and some of the opportunities there would be there. Additionally there were a couple of departmental drinks which were fun to get involved with and meet some parts of the department which I hadn't worked on before.