We’ve all heaved a sigh at the latest lockdown.

“Again?”

“For how long?”

“If I have to stare at these same four walls for much longer…..”

It’s grim, but what if, on top of everything else you’re trying to get a job and were just ready to get a bit of work experience? There is no denying that getting experience right now is really difficult. During a complete lockdown you can’t go into an office to see what goes on, and let’s face it, for the whole of last year we were living under restrictions which meant that it was pretty difficult for anyone to give you the opportunity of work experience.

So, no work experience on your CV? Is that going to be fatal for your chances of getting a job?

No! Of course it isn’t! Employers aren’t living in some parallel universe. They know that you haven’t been able to access the opportunities usually open to students. So what’s the best thing you can do now to make yourself more employable?

Ask yourself why employers like you to have work experience. If you want to get a training contract at a large firm will it be keen to recruit the trainee whose had a couple of weeks sitting in an office watching a mega merger transaction come together? Does that experience make the firm feel confident that you’ll be able to hit the ground running? No! Of course it doesn’t. They are going to take trainees on and train them – they don’t expect knowledge other than that which you gained from your professional qualifications. So why do they want you to have work experience? It’s to show that you’ve done your research and you know what this career is actually about.  

It’s a bit different if you want to work in a smaller firm where it’s going to be really important that you can make an effective contribution to the work from day one of your arrival, but even so the small firm is looking for transferrable skills rather than detailed knowledge of how to handle a divorce transaction.

Work experience is about showing that you understand what the job will be about or potentially being able to demonstrate that you know how to manage in an office environment. Once you’ve got that clear in your head it’s easier to work out what you can do now to boost your employability.

There are plenty of virtual opportunities around where you can sign up and find out about legal professional practice. Definitely worth engaging with one or two of those. Start by looking on places like Lawcareers.net or Legal Cheek but lots of law firms have opportunities on their websites too.

Then what about being work ready? Look out for our next blog. We’ll be covering that in a bit more detail there.