Legal Recruitment Blog

How to review your own CV We recently received a CV from a candidate with the following advice placed at the bottom (would this fit into our CV Blooper series? Quite possibly..). I have edited it for a bit of content - eg the writer recommended 2 pages max but we think a CV can be as long as it needs to be for someone with experience. The remainder is a very effective and useful guide to reviewing your own CV. CV Guide 1. Check and recheck for spelling and grammar. Attention to detail is absolutely key so ensure dates, names of companies etc are all correct and never use abbreviations or colloquialisms. Ask someone you trust to proof read your CV as a new pair of eyes can often be useful in identifying mistakes. 2. In order to demonstrate a professional image it is best not to use fancy fonts or include graphics, photos or colour of any kind. Ensure spacing, alignment and font style is consistent throughout the documen...

CV Blooper(s) of the Month This is taken from a law student's CV: "I went to watch a court case in the old bailey where a young man was being cross examined (a term I learned there ) for a drug charge. He represented himself without a lawyer and I was surprised by the strength of his rebuttals (another term I learned there) and also by how eloquently and respectfully everybody talked in the court. When leaving I decided that I was a bit more sure that I wanted to ingeniously use a thorough knowledge of the law as a career. I decided to enter a Cambridge Law essay competition where the question was “Should we repeal the human rights act 1998 “. The effort and private study I put into this essay was proof enough for me that I was compatible with a law career. I naturally feel I gravitate towards law, I love writing, studying and thinking about it. I haven’t been able to get an opportunity to explore any fields of law which I hope to do in summer." You couldn't ma...

Minimum Wage and the Legal Profession Over the last few months we have posted fairly junior job vacancies for a couple of our member law firms (ie firms who have signed up to TenPercentUnlimited - google for further info). One was for a receptionist at a salary of £13,000 and the other a paralegal for £14,000. We received a couple of responses, one of which is below (and quite fair I thought!): "I [have] reported you for offering a low salary of £13000 which is under [the] minimum wage. A person who needs to pay rent, transport, food and try to save, will never be able to live a decent human life with that salary. Shame on you for offering slavery! You are disgusting." I sympathise entirely with this thinking (who on earth can live on £13,000 in London?) and had a look into the regulations in a bit more detail. We often get confused by the hourly rate translating into annual salary levels and as a result thought it might assist to publish our understan...

CV Blooper of the Month - May 2017 CV Blooper of the Month: References section from a CV of a Paralegal applying for a job:

The Cure Parkinsons Trust - charity supported by the Ten Percent Foundation 2016-2017 Our criteria and policies for donating to charities can be found here – https://www.ten-percent.co.uk/charitable-trust/ This year we have written a piece about each charity we have considered and explained why and what we are funding. We have also included any information the charity have sent us including updates from last year on our ongoing donations. We discovered the existence of The Cure Parkinson’s Trust whilst researching alternatives to Parkinsons UK. The cure or treatment of Parkinson's is of particular interest to us as we have lost a family member (and former trustee) to the disease. In 2016 we wrote an article about high salary paying charities and were surprised to discover that Parkinsons UK were on the list (we have donated to them in the past). 10 staff at the charity were earning between £60,000 and £130,000 in 2015. Total amount paid to the se...

CV Blooper of the Month- spotted on a legal CV sent to Ten Percent Legal Recruitment in March 2017. Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals . Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.

We have received notification that Jonathan Fagan's "Legal Recruitment" Blog is in the top HR and Recruitment Bloggers 2017 List. Always nice to find out someone has read some of our ramblings (they have been likened to those of a madman in the past!). You can view our blog on the site, together with lots of other interesting blogger websites at: http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/articles/2017-03/recruitment-hr-bloggers-2017.htm   Agency Central have very kindly reviewed the site as well with the following entry:  Jonathan Fagan  - Legal Recruitment http://legalrecruitment.blogspot.co.uk/ Who is the author? Jonathan is the MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment - a UK-based consultancy serving solicitors and recruiting for permanent and temporary roles within the legal sector. The company famously donates 10% of its profits to charity. Jonathan has also taught legal CV writing and interview practices to postgraduate law students at Huddersfield University. ...