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Interview Answer 10

Legal Interview Question 10 - What is your alternative career, should law not be the avenue for you?

This is a loaded question really - on the one hand you can say - well, I don't expect to be anything but a solicitor, and I always get to be what I set out to be, and on the other hand you may feel this smacks of arrogance, and say that you would like to be an accountant, as you are pretty good with numbers. Hard to give a definite response to the question - you could try the humour route, and say you would like to play for Aston Villa or be a rock star, but interviews with lawyers tend to be pretty humourless experiences, and some partners have a very peculiar sense of humour! My best advice is to aim for something fairly vague - to try and avoid giving too much indication that you have thought much about it (ie you think you may fail to get work as a solicitor) and go for either something business related (eg set up a small business) or lighthearted - eg a legal secretary!

Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency - save time, skip the legal job boards and let us do the work - register online at
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