And it’s not just the guaranteed vac scheme interview
Ahead of the Hogan Lovells‘ campus ambassador application deadline on Friday, Durham University second year law student Rhianna Eden explains what she has got out of her year so far in the role.
1. Access to useful networks
Being a campus ambassador has enabled me to spend time with various Hogan Lovells partners, graduate recruitment staff, associates, trainees and future joiners. During your training at the firm’s headquarters, and subsequently while helping to organise events, you work together quite closely with some of these individuals. In doing so, you get a real sense of what being a commercial lawyer is like. I have also got to know campus ambassadors at Durham representing other law firms and other Hogan Lovells campus ambassadors around the country. I’m actually going to be renting a flat in London with my counterpart at York University during our vac scheme this summer.
2. A vac scheme
On successful completion of your campus ambassador role at Hogan Lovells, you have the opportunity to gain a place on the firm’s summer vacation scheme. Subject to you completing fully the requirements of the role, you are fast-tracked to an interview — an invaluable opportunity in the competitive market of prospective lawyers.
3. An understanding of how the firm works
If I hadn’t been a campus ambassador I probably would not have realised how the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s withdrawal from the graduate recruitment code last year would have affected law firms’ recruitment strategies. This sort of thing gives you a wider insight into how firms operate and similarly helps to boost your awareness of the firm from a commercial perspective. I have been involved in the organisation and subsequently attended various commercial awareness events — including Chris Stoakes’ recent ‘Demystifying the City’ workshop — through the campus ambassador role, which have been really useful. Allied to these experiences you get to spend a significant amount of time with the firm’s lawyers, which helps you build on the knowledge you are developing.
4. Experience of responsibility
Being responsible for promoting campus networking events, and ensuring that they run smoothly, is great experience which also looks good on your CV. Helping to run the firm’s drinks reception in the autumn encouraged me to consider how factors like location and timing are very important. Fortunately we were able to attract 60-70 students on the night, with the event oversubscribed. The skills I have learnt will hopefully translate well to the project management aspect of working in a law firm.
5. A way to steal a march on the competition
Most students don’t begin to fully engage with law firms until the summer of their second years when they complete their vacation schemes. So by being a campus ambassador — which you apply for in your first year and then start from the beginning of second year — you are gaining very useful experience at an earlier stage. It’s a good alternative to first year work experience. Plus the £600 you are paid — £300 at Christmas and £300 at Easter — is very helpful as a hard-up student!
The application deadline for Hogan Lovells’ 2016-17 campus ambassador roles at the universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, KCL, LSE, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, UCL, Warwick and York closes on Friday 11 March. You can apply here.
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