Case Study: From 4 Years of Rejection To Corporate Lawyer at Elite PE Firm Paying $225,000
This article is written by Hassan Akram, the CEO of City Careers Coach. We help students enter the world’s most elite finance careers through our experience as elite finance recruiters. Hassan has spoken at Harvard, MIT, and Yale on this and writes in the Times of India on getting into elite careers. He’s recruited for elite corporate careers, including investment banks, corporate law firms, and venture capital funds. He has also interviewed 1,000+ professionals from Goldman Sachs, Kirkland & Ellis, and McKinsey. 100% of our clients are successful at the CV stage. 95% secure at least one corporate career. Our highest client starting salary is $180,000 at 21. We have an in-depth understanding of passing recruitment processes for elite, high-paying, and prestigious finance careers.
Check our case studies of clients securing offers in corporate law. Here’s a client from China with CCD at A level secure a vacation scheme at one of the world’s most elite firm, Ropes & Gray, here’s a client from also from Malaysia, securing multiple training contract offers, and here’s a client from Switzerland securing a training contract with the elite US law firm Sidley Austin
- THIS ARTICLE IS AIMED TOWARDS STUDENTS LOOKING TO PURSUE A CAREER IN CORPORATE LAW AS A CORPORATE LAWYER ***
City Careers Coach provides world-leading 1–1 career development programs to help individuals get into the world’s highest-paying and most prestigious corporate careers, such as investment banking, corporate law, and venture capital. We are internationally recognized for the quality of our work, with clients from over 20 countries and speaking requests from around the world, including at Harvard and MIT.
We work with students from some of the world’s most elite and prestigious universities, such as Harvard, the University of Cambridge, and the London School of Economics (LSE). This case study focuses on how we helped a Master’s student from LSE secure an internship with elite US law firms such as Sidley Austin.
The challenge: The student, referred to as Jess, was a high-achieving law student predicted to achieve a distinction grade. She had excellent grades at the undergraduate level, having graduated with a first-class degree from an elite British university. Despite her academic achievements, Jess struggled to gain success in the highly competitive recruitment process for corporate law. With acceptance rates of less than 2%, the industry is notoriously difficult to break into. Jess had applied to numerous firms over four years, but failed to receive any interview offers. She was stuck and knew she needed help.
Solution: When Jess came to us, we immediately recognized her potential and knew we could help her. We paired her with one of our ex-corporate law recruiters, who had previously recruited lawyers from Sidley Austin and had extensive knowledge of the recruitment process. He had interviewed 1,000+ corporate lawyers, reviewed 10,000 corporate law CVs, and had an intimate understanding of elite recruiting processes for corporate law. They worked together over a period of several months, focusing on three key areas:
1. Profile Development:
Firstly, the recruiter worked alongside the client to develop their brand and position themselves as strong as possible to excel in the recruitment process. This included making a number of strategic recommendations that would highlight both their strong candidacy and their strong interest in a career in corporate law. We used our proprietary framework at City Careers Coach to help build and design this. This proved successful as the client was ultimately able to land multiple interview offers.
2. CV and Cover Letter Review:
Next, we assisted the client through our world-leading cover letter and application writing modules, which boast an 85% success rate for elite careers. Here, we first showed Jess examples of prior successful cover letters and application forms for elite corporate law firms, such as Freshfields, Akin Gump, and Kirkland & Ellis. Through seeing these, she was able to benchmark her own application writing style and gain a strong understanding of the level of analytical quality required.
From here, we helped the client draft their cover letter, giving feedback on a completely line-by-line basis to ensure exceptional quality to pass the initial screening process. (This is the hardest part of the recruitment process, as up to 95% of applicants are rejected at this stage.) We gave detailed feedback on sentence structure, syntax, and word choice, and made an average of 303 edits per application form. We also used our proprietary City Careers Coach formula for cover letters, which has been created over 2.5 years and has been contributed to by 20+ recruiters. We averaged 8 redrafts of each application form, but this level of granularity proved dividends: the client was now regularly receiving interview offers from the world’s most elite corporate law firms.
3. Mock Interviews:
The next step was to conduct mock interviews with Jess. Our recruiter used their experience of interviewing candidates at Sidley Austin to simulate a realistic interview environment, asking Jess a range of challenging questions to help her excel in a number of areas in the motivational interview. They gave extremely granular feedback across multiple areas. For instance, below is an excerpt of some of the evaluation criteria they used to give feedback on her performance:
- Vocal tonality: Did this convey confidence, interest, and engagement?
- Volume: Was the interviewee’s voice too loud or too soft?
- Fluency: Did the interviewee speak fluently and without hesitation?
- Rhythm: Did the interviewee’s speech have a consistent and natural rhythm?
- Intonation: Did the interviewee use a range of intonation to convey different meanings and emotions?
- Stress: Did the interviewee use stress to emphasize important words and phrases?
- Pauses: Did the interviewee effectively pause to communicate gravitas?
4. Networking:
We also helped our client build a professional network by increasing their networking skills by introducing her to contacts in a number of elite corporate law firms, including Freshfields, Sidley Austin, and Latham & Watkins. These relationships proved invaluable as they helped Jess learn how to approach and build relationships, while also learning insider details about a career in corporate law, as well as the attributes that firms look for in future trainee solicitors.
Jess found it invaluable to learn that attention to detail, teamwork, and strong communication skills are needed to excel as a trainee solicitor. She leveraged these insights in her interviews, which helped her ultimately excel, make a good impression, and stand out from the other candidates in the process.
Vacation Scheme Conversion:
We helped him in each and every step of converting the vacation scheme process. We gave him guidance on networking strategy, how best to approach work, and how best to position themself — including through using executive presence techniques — as someone who would be an effective trainee solicitor.
We had constant calls throughout the process, checking in with the individual at each and every data point to ensure they passed the process. From written exercises, to negotiation exercises, also — through their approach to the work given — showing their motivation to a career in corporate law.
Results:
Thanks to the support of our ex-corporate law recruiter, Jess secured internships with several top US law firms, including Sidley Austin. She was delighted with the results and credited our program for giving her the skills and confidence she needed to succeed. She went on to secure a permanent position at Sidley Austin following her internship.
*We know we have shown this again at the start of the article, but feel its worth showing again!
CONCLUSION
In our firm, we believe that our world-leading 1–1 program is the best way for students to secure a training contract at the world’s most prestigious firms, which pay up to $213,000. By pairing students with ex-corporate law recruiters, we can provide personalized support and guidance that is tailored to each individual’s needs. This case study demonstrates how our approach can help even the most talented and hardworking students to achieve their goals and succeed in the highly competitive world of corporate law.
Please visit our blog on The Times of India for guidance on entering elite careers: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/author/hassan-akram/
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‘Really clear and structured frameworks. Genuinely world-leading. I’m a former private equity investor and was impressed by the depth of their knowledge for elite careers, such as private equity and venture capital. Can’t wait for them to come to HBS again.’
‘I honestly had never heard about City Careers Coach. But they honestly blew me away with the truly personalised nature of the programmes. I got spring weeks at investment banks, hedge funds, and I secured experience at a PE fund. I have a summer internship at an investment bank coming (BNP Paribas). I’m fairly confident I’ll convert this to a full-time offer through the firm’s internship conversion programme.’
‘City Careers Coach was incredibly helpful in my CV recruitment process. I had gathered useful pieces of recruitment information from various sources prior to meeting Hassan, but he was able to bring it all together to help me have a clear picture of what a good recruitment strategy looks like. Beyond being extremely knowledgeable, Hassan, the firm’s CEO, was incredibly flexible, friendly, and willing to help out in any way — I would highly recommend Hassan to anyone looking to break into elite finance careers.’
City Careers Coach is an international network of freelance finance recruiters. We are from investment banking, corporate law and private equity backgrounds. We provide premium, bespoke and personalised 1–1 career development programmes. These are for university students looking to enter elite corporate high-paying careers. We have an exceptionally strong track record. 100% of our clients pass the CV stage. 90% of our clients secure at least one internship or graduate role. And our average client starting salary is £150,000.
Check our case studies of clients securing offers in corporate law. Here’s a client from China with CCD at A level secure a vacation scheme at one of the world’s most elite firm, Ropes & Gray, here’s a client from also from Malaysia, securing multiple training contract offers, and here’s a client from Switzerland securing a training contract with the elite US law firm Sidley Austin
Please visit our blog on The Times of India for guidance on entering elite careers: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/author/hassan-akram/
