Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Vacation Placement Interview Process

Vacation Placement Application and Interview Process

The application process for vacation placements at Freshfields is:

• Online application
• Interview day

Interview Day

Your vacation placement interview day will be as follows:

• Meet with trainee
• Written exercise
• Reading exercise
• Interview

Meet With Trainee

Upon arrival you will be greeted in reception by a first or second year trainee who will take you to a room where the two of you will have a short talk about the firm, your experiences and the trainee's experience of working for the firm. You will then be left alone to do a written exercise.

Written Exercise

The written exercise involves arguing the pros and cons of a particular business proposal. You are required to fill two sides of a sheet of A4 with your argument/opinion.

Reading Exercise

After this, you will be moved to another room where you will have 30 mins to read an old Financial Times article about a foreign industry that you aren't likely to have any prior knowledge about.

Tip: Remember - you are not expected to have any in-depth knowledge of the law. Don't get bogged down in specifics but instead, think about the wider issues raised in the article.

Interview

Next, you will meet one partner and one associate for an interview and to discuss the reading exercise. First, you will be asked to briefly describe the article you read. You will then discuss the article with your two interviewers for approximately 45 minutes. The interview will then switch to your application and CV for a further 15 minutes. The questions asked here will be more straight-forward. Finally, you will be given a chance to ask questions. The interview is reasonably casual and both interviewers should be quite friendly, although their questions may be challenging and should certainly test your intelligence.

At the end of this interview the trainee you originally met with, or another trainee will give you a guided tour of the Freshfields office. Once more, you will be able to ask any question you may want to ask.