Withers training contract – May 2022
What was the full recruitment process?
Apparently Withers has since introduced an additional assessment centre at the end of the process.
Which aspect does this report cover?
Interview
Where did the interview take place?
Online, via Microsoft Teams.
What did the interview involve?
Competency, motivation and commercial questions (90 minutes, with a partner and a member of the HR team)
During my interview (which should have been an hour long, but went over by 30 minutes), I encountered a diverse range of questions that delved into various aspects of my background and motivations.
The interview began with questions about my academic journey, including:
Following this, I faced competency questions. They were:
I think they had a list of questions to ask as they had a paper with the questions in front of them. They also had a copy of my application and asked questions based on my answers.
As I shared my interest in wanting to practice IP law, they also asked me questions such as:
It was perhaps the most difficult commercial questions I have received, and I struggled to provide satisfactory responses.
At the end, I was asked questions including:
What was the outcome?
The firm emailed me a week after the assessment centre to tell me I had been unsuccessful.
Do you have any specific advice on how to prepare?
The scenario questions are straight forward. For the motivation questions, prepare answers (without scripting them) for why law and why withers, and you will be fine. For the commercial questions, I think it is important to choose an area that you can confidentiality discuss with the partners. I mentioned IP during the interview and that led me to commercial questions around IP. I wasn’t prepared to answer commercial questions and legal questions specific to IP and this was the reason I wasn’t successful. Choose one area of law and delve deep into it.
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