Recruiters are busy people

In fact, if you assume that every person who considers your training contract applications is an extremely busy person this will stand you in good stead when you are preparing them. The ultimate decision makers will often be partners in law firms who, as well as being practising lawyers, will be managing staff and most likely playing some other part in the running of the law firm.

You must therefore help them and make it easy for them to say yes to you, or at least put you on the ‘Maybe’ pile. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. If you were a busy law firm partner who had several hundred applications to go through, what would you prefer?

Would you prefer to be met with a covering letter with short paragraphs of text and plenty of white space or a covering letter with large blocks of text in small font which is set out in order to get as many words on the page as possible?

Would you prefer to see a three page CV with lots of long paragraphs of text or a two page CV broken up into sections and with the information arranged with the use of bullet points and plenty of white space?

As a former ‘busy recruiter’ I know which one I preferred. This may seem obvious but there are still far too many people who forget this as soon as they face the challenge of getting all their relevant information into their applications.

This is an extract from, “10 Insider Tips For Making Successful Training Contract Applications” by Matt Oliver and the Trainee Solicitor Surgery. You can get a free download of the Training Contract E-Book.