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Technical Questions in Interviews

Asking technical questions in a legal job interview

As recruitment consultants, we are not sure that this is good practice. Firstly, at an interview a candidate is nervous and slightly wary, secondly partners of law firms are notorious for asking questions that no-one on the interview panel knows or understands, and thirdly the questions tend to be so long that the interviewee has forgotten what the start of the question was before you get to the end! We think the better option is to have a file of work ready, hand it to the interviewee, and ask them what they would do in a particular scenario. You can then keep adding extra tasks or problems as you go on. You can also ask the interviewee to explain particular matters arising from the file, and assess their abilities to interact with clients, handle files, deal with their caseload, and how they deal with a stressful situation.

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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