Vacation scheme facts: some firms recruit entirely from their vacation schemes

Vacation schemes are more than just a great opportunity in their own right—they could also be your ticket to qualifying as a solicitor with a given firm. In fact, for some firms, vacation schemes are the only route onto their training contract. 

Clyde & Co, Dechert and Shearman & Sterling are just a few of the firms that use their vacation schemes as their sole means of recruiting trainees. There are several more which say they recruit most of their trainees from vacation schemes, with a few direct training contract applications alongside these. 

If you have a particular firm that interests you, it's worth doing some research into its recruitment process. A vacation scheme might be your only route to a training contract at that particular firm, and if that's the case, it's better to know sooner rather than later. 

Even if a firm does recruit from outside its vacation scheme, it's certainly an advantage to spend two weeks making an impression on a firm via its vacation scheme before applying for a training contract. It might just give you the edge against other candidates. 

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