Law firm practice areas

We've launched a dedicated Law firm practice areas course, offering comprehensive insider insights into the work carried out by 30+ law firm practice areas - as well as why each area can be interesting and fulfilling - from leading lawyers in their fields.

Non-legal careers

For an insight into non-legal careers that align well with the transferable skills, attributes and experience often developed by law students and lawyers, check out this video series in our Alternative careers in and outside of law course.

Advice from certified career coach and ex-Magic Circle graduate recruiter Hannah Salton

For this lesson, we’ve teamed up with ex-City graduate recruitment manager and acclaimed career coach Hannah Salton, who has set out her thoughts on the importance of self-reflection in the context of graduate recruitment processes. 

Over to Hannah…

Our career preferences are complex and tend to balance a range of different (and sometimes conflicting) desires and needs. Our preferences can also be deeply affected by external factors such as the opinions and experiences of friends, family and society more broadly. Some of these influences may be subconscious, meaning it can be hard to detangle precisely what it is that you want. 

Sometimes it may feel that everyone else from your university course knows exactly what they want to do in life. It may also feel as if everyone around you already has a graduate job in place and it’s therefore only you that is still looking. In reality, it’s rare for an undergraduate to have clear, fixed career objectives. And of those that think they have found clarity early on, it’s likely that many will find that their choices do not quite align with their expectations. 

Many who have strong opinions about what they want to do very early on can end up limiting themselves by not taking the time to explore alternate career paths. This can sometimes lead to them following a career path based more on the most obvious or common choice, rather than making a well-thought out and suitably researched decision. It might sound clichéd, but remember you’re not in competition with anyone but yourself. Feeling intimidated by your peers’ success (or even motivated by their failures) presents an unnecessary distraction. Don’t get side-tracked by comparing your journey to the journeys of others.

How can “knowing myself” help me find the right career?

So, how exactly will knowing yourself help you to find the right job? Firstly, being aware of your values, strengths and drivers can help you to identify and articulate what is most important to you. Equipped with this knowledge, you can try and focus your research and applications towards companies and roles that are more likely to align with you, which will increase the chances of finding a job that will give you higher levels of day to day satisfaction. 

Secondly, having greater self-awareness will provide you with an invaluable toolkit that will help prepare you for success during graduate recruitment processes. Throughout a typical job selection process, you will be expected to demonstrate a solid understanding of yourself – including your skills and strengths – and to talk effectively about any professional or voluntary experience that you have accumulated.

Your values and drivers are also likely to be explored or assessed, along with your motivation for choosing to apply to the specific role or industry. Your ability to clearly articulate answers to questions such as “why do you want to work here?” or “what has motivated you to become a lawyer?” is imperative, both on application forms and during interviews. 

Values are personal and deep-rooted, so can strongly affect whether or not you enjoy your work. For this reason, it is important to take your values into account when deciding which careers and employers to pursue. If a type of career or an employer’s values do not align with your own values, you could find yourself becoming frustrated and disillusioned with your career and lose the motivation to maintain high standards of performance over time. At the very least, it is essential that the companies you apply for do not violate or contradict your most important values.

How can I tell what a company’s values are?

The first place to look is the company’s website or careers portal. Companies – particularly larger ones – are much more open and transparent about their values than they were 10 years ago, as they recognise the benefit of attracting candidates whose values align with those of the company. This is because values often drive culture, and working environments have a huge influence on how happy and successful we are at work. 

Manifestations of these values can sometimes be obvious in the language and wording used by firms when talking about their businesses on their websites. For example, if a company shares a lot of insights around training and professional development - along with clear examples of how staff have benefited from its internal training programmes - the company is likely to value the professional development of its employees.

Newer companies with more informal cultures may try to get this across by using a friendly or informal tone of voice in their communications. It’s not uncommon for smaller companies - when wanting to come across as friendly and approachable - to have employer profiles that include “fun facts” such as employees’ favourite crisp flavours. In a similar vein, many new tech start-ups try and create the image of a light-hearted and inclusive culture by sharing details of an office games room or company pet. 

How might your interests be relevant?

You may have some interests that are more obviously linked to certain types of careers, in which case linking your own interests to a particular career paths may be fairly easy. In many cases however, you may need to reflect a little deeper to work out how your interests could help point to a possible career direction. Think about your interests in broad terms. For example, what subjects or modules have you enjoyed most whilst studying? Which industries, sectors, products and companies do you most enjoy reading about? If money were no object, what type of work would you love to do? 

While certain interests may not yield many direct employment opportunities (being a cheese and wine taster doesn’t yield too many entry level job opportunities!), recognising that you have a strong interest in politics, travelling or fashion may well steer you towards exploring a career path that enables you to discover roles you didn’t previously know existed. It’s unlikely that you will find a job that is 100% encompassing of your hobby; but certain career choices may be more aligned to your general interests. 

It’s also worth recognising the difference between a hobby that you enjoy sporadically for pleasure, versus one that you would be happy to pursue in a structured way on a daily basis. For example, some people love doing yoga once a week, but doing it every day as a yoga instructor and relying on it as your main source of income may well eliminate the fun! 

To help work out what you are looking for, it can be useful to create a shopping list of your most important career ingredients, as knowing which elements are important to you will help when you start to navigate the vast and complex job market. Once you have identified these, you should start to consider the types of role that might suit you best, as well as the types of employers that appeal to you the most.