Stephenson Harwood

Interview Questions

The Stephenson Harwood application and assessment process is as follows:

• Online application
• Assessment day

Assessment day

Interviewers and HR staff at Stephenson Harwood are usually very friendly to training contract candidates during the assessment day.

The day itself consists of:

• Presentation and Interview
• Written exercise
• Group exercise

Each activity lasts about one hour each. The rest of the day is spent meeting current trainees and taking part in office tours. The day is designed to be straight-forward and should not be too intimidating.

Presentation and Interview

This is conducted by two interviewers, a Graduate Recruitment Manager and a Partner from the firm.

The interview consists of a 10-minute presentation on a subject that may be something like "Tesco Law", "The Effects of the Credit Crunch" or "The Olympic Games". These questions are specifically testing (1) your ability to present, and (2) your legal and commercial awareness. The topic of the presentation will be sent to you a week before the assessment day.

You should fully research your topic to prepare for your presentation but do not try to use over complicated language or over-impress your interviewers when delivering your talk. Keep things simple, talk clearly and try not to waffle. If you can, keep the presentation relevant to Stephenson Harwood itself, e.g. "..the implications of rising inflation as a result of the credit crunch mean that law firms such as Stephenson Harwood may be..".

After you have given your talk, there will be a five minute Q&A session. Prepare for both interiewers to ask you difficult questions about your topic. Make sure you do relevant research around the topic before the assessment day so that you are fully prepared for this. During this interview, your interviewers will not try to catch you out.

After the presentation period, there will be a 45-minute long interview, based on your CV and application form. You will also be asked several competency based questions during this interview. In the past, candidates have been asked:

• Why law?
• Why Stephenson Harwood?
• What was your role when you worked at ....... ?
  • What challenege did you face in that role?
  • What did you do to overcome these problems?
• Tell me about a time when you have lead a team in the past? (leadership)
• Tell me about a time when you have had to organise yourself to achieve a target. (organisation)
• How do you deal with colleagues you do not get on with? (teamwork)
• Are you interested in using your languages in future work?
• What would you do if a Partner hands you work when you are already overloaded with things to do?
• Why have you applied to a mid-sized firm instead of a larger one?

Written Exercise

This exercise involves preparing a memo to summarise a small file of information. It may be in the form of a commercial case study, about a topic such as "Acquisition".

Given the information, you need to write a brief memo outlining the merits and risks, and identify areas for further inestigation regarding an acquisition.

There is quite a lot of information given, but there is more than enough time to read all of it in this task.

Candidates are being tested on their ability to extract key information and structure the memo they are writing logically.

Group Exercise

This exercise usually involves six people. It is usually based on ranking a list of ways to improve work/life at Stephenson Harwood.

Your group will be given a list of about eight ways to improve the quality of work/life at Stephenson Harwood. The concept of the exercise is that the firm want to win a "Best Company to Work For" award, and you must decide the best way for them to go about doing this.

For the first half of the exercise, you will need to work individually, ranking these eight schemes in order of benefit, taking in account all information given such as cost effectiveness, tax, etc.

Just before the second half of the exercise, each candidate will be assigned roles of employees from within the firm (forcing you to reassess your priorities). There will then be a group discussion, during which your group must come to a consensus by the end of the time allowed.

During this exercise your assessors will be looking for:

• Awareness of the legal industry and its challenges (commercial awareness)
• Motivation for law
• Knowledge of the firm
• Time management
• Teamwork skills

It is a good idea to make a few valid points during this exercise, but involve everyone in the discussion. Be confident, but not arrogant or too loud. Talking over other people, or interrupting, is very much looked down upon. Keep an eye on the time during the exercise as it is important to come to a conclusion before the end. Also remember to be flexible. You might think your point of view is right, and everyone else is wrong, but if your group does not come to concensus at the end of the exercise, you fail. Sometimes it can be better to fall in line with everyone else, for the good of the task.

Offer

Stephenson Harwood do not conduct second interviews. Successful candidates will be made an offer within 14 days of the assessment day, although most receive notification of this within 48 hours.