Mother in Law: Back to 'basics' - honing your CV

I’m pleased to say we have new colleagues training with us in a variety of ways. For the first time since I’ve been in practice, some of them are very young. Our apprentices start when they finish their A-levels, which means that a number of them will be 17 when they apply. I thought it would be worth going over the ‘basics’ of what makes a good application. 

The first point is that we know you won’t have done much and, as a result, your CV might be short. I remember taking my Record of Achievement to a mock interview in Year 10 and there was nothing in it apart from a couple of piano exam certificates. I know it is difficult – both because you haven’t had time to put your mark on the world and because you are probably spending most of your time studying.  

I’m not an expert, but I do see CVs. If you don’t have much employment history – or lots of anything – I would be interested in a paragraph or two about what you are like as a person. You don’t need to use AI to write this – you know what you are like as a person. If you don’t, ask your nan. While you don’t need fancy words, you do need to blow your own trumpet, which is why I’ve specifically said to ask your nan. 

I feel like a dying breed, but spelling, grammar and punctuation are very important. If we’ve got 100 CVs to look through and you’ve put an apostrophe in the wrong place, you have made it easy for us to put you on the ‘no’ pile. According to my 13-year-old, it is perfectly acceptable to use the wrong ‘your’ in a WhatsApp as a kind of shorthand. This is not the time for a 13-year-old’s shorthand. 

Your academic results (or predicted results) should be good. I hope this isn’t a shock. Particularly in litigation, English language skills are of the utmost importance. If reading and writing are not your favourite things, perhaps your attention-to-detail skills show through from your maths results and you can draw our eye to them, and how this might suit a career in company law or something similar. I just thought I’d mention it, because people like Richard Branson are always talking about how you can thrive without exam results, but it really is easier to thrive with them. 

When I was starting, I had it in my head that any time on my CV spent paralegalling or in other office work would show future employers that I’d been struggling to find a training contract. There’s nothing less appealing than someone not in demand, right? Having recently dealt with some apprentices fresh from college, I would wholeheartedly recommend having some office work on your CV. If you come into your apprenticeship knowing how to use Outlook and a printer, how to stay awake past 3pm and how it is NOT OK to watch TikTok when you are supposed to be working, you’re ahead of the masses. 

If you are applying without office-based work on your CV, what other work have you done? It doesn’t really matter what it is as long as you can talk about what you learned from it, the most obvious one being customer service. 

In terms of other interests, I suppose you are looking to ‘stand out’. Again, you should be ready to talk about them. If you are literally a ‘team player’, employers will definitely want to know. I cannot overstate what a good thing scouting (and similar) is on your CV. It shows leadership, independence, a keenness to try new things, resilience – the list goes on. If you are not on a sports team or in the scouts, what are you passionate about? How are you pursuing that passion? Don’t vaguely say you enjoy ‘reading, watching films and travelling’. I’d prefer you to say you were committed to maintaining your Animal Crossing island’s 5-star rating than that. 

Perhaps you don’t have time for Animal Crossing because you are working two jobs and looking after your little sister three nights a week. That’s great and shows a huge amount too.

Without wishing to sound old (again), I reiterate that there is no need to use AI for any of this. Employers want to hear your voice jump off the page, not Siri’s. 

I think I speak for myself and most of my colleagues in the profession when I say that we would always be happy to read over a CV, so if you know someone, or know of someone, or your neighbour’s friend’s dog knows of someone, who works in a law firm, do ask for their help. 

Finally, remember this is all just to catch someone’s eye to get a foot in the door, if you’ll allow me to mix my metaphors. If you have read many of my columns, you will know that the most important thing (to me, at least) is to actually be a decent person that people want to sit with every day. Don’t be disheartened if you do all of the above and your CV still gets overlooked – you also need a little luck, which you will get eventually if you keep trying.

Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article