Top 3 Traits for Turning a Vac Scheme into a Training Contract

The Dragonfly team had conducted a survey asking incoming trainees what was the “most impactful trait” that enabled them to convert their vacation scheme into a trainee contract. Interviewees are asked to select 3 traits they felt were most impactful in converting a vacation scheme into a training contract.

It is important to note from the onset that the paper was written from the basis of quotes obtained through the survey. These quotes are not edited and are often unnuanced. Therefore, whilst it is important to bear these in mind during your vacation scheme, it is equally important to contextualise the quotes within what is reasonable.

Below sets out three traits that were considered to be the most impactful and the reason why

Eye for detail / consistency in work quality

Candidates are expected to be able to demonstrate a minimum level of competence so often on-the-job performance matters more than the final interview. It also seems that candidates despite being in different team, are compared to an “objective” standard. For example, whilst you might be the only intern in this cycle, your team probably have a standard expectation for the level of which an intern needs to be able to perform at. So really, you’re trying to beat that expectation. This can range from using organised tables, to short sentences, or being able to follow past templates well.

Some responses have compared the traits eye for detail and consistency in work quality, noting that the two are often conflated — work delegated to interns are not that difficult, but it does require a strong eye for detail and high to perfect accuracy. Candidates who makes small mistakes often place a high burden on the supervisor to revise the entirety of their work, which then becomes quite impractical for them to delegate work to you.

Quoting some of the responses

• I think eye for detail at an intern level = work quality? The work I was asked to do was not difficult, just tedious, but you definitely don’t want to get anything wrong. If its spotted then they’d have to revise your whole work to ensure nothing else is wrong.
• I think it’s important to have a strong eye for detail because it determines how much time your supervisor needs to spend revising what you submitted. If it takes the same amount of time to revise your work than to do it themselves… they’d just do it themselves.
• You gotta be able to produce work better than the other interns. It doesn’t matter how good your final interview is, if you can’t meet their expectations you won’t get it.
• You can be sure that they will take a microscope to your work cause you’re an intern.

Recommendations

• Print your work out and read it before submitting.
• Ask for templates — you want to know the expectation.
• Don’t rush your work. Better to ask for more clarification than to hand in work that they’re unsatisfied with.

Overall likeability by immediate mentor

As one of the evaluation criteria for vacation scheme candidates is their capacity to fit within the existing culture, the ability to integrate well within and beyond your team is important. This is in juxtaposition with overall networking ability as no matter how good your relationship is with other persons in the firm, it is your mentor that evaluates your performance.

Overall likeability by your mentor can allow for more opportunities to demonstrate your competence and presentation ability, and be ranked relatively higher in other discretionary categories like growth potential — often being other criteria of evaluation.

Quoting some of the responses

• I was told I got the return cause I wasn’t annoying…
• I interned at two different US firms, one I was okay with everyone, including people outside my team / the other my mentor really liked me. I only got accepted into the later.
• Needed at least 4 partners to put good words for me, so important for me to impress my mentor
• Way too competitive just to be good at your work. They’re taking 1/3 and ¼. I think all interns perform at a certain level of competency, so it’s just not good enuf to just excel in the technical, actually need someone to standup for you during the recruitment stage.

Recommendations

• Know your boundaries — don’t be too in your face
• Treat your mentor like your boss, not your friend.
• Don’t waste their time by asking them stupid questions, they might be your mentor but they don’t have time to waste on you neither do they have time to babysit

Regularly taking initiative

In essence, taking on more difficult tasks / tasks from other teams is a great way to demonstrate competence and to network. This is especially the case at an intern level since often there is not a fixed set of work that is delegated to you. Accordingly, demonstrating your commitment and willingness to handle challenging / tedious tasks becomes very important to differentiating yourself from other interns. However, don’t forget you need to play to your strength.

Quoting some of the responses

• There are some ad hoc emails from other teams that are delegated on a first-come-first serve basis. Doing well on those tasks opens a new work stream / gets more ppl to evaluate you. Definitely a benefit if u can do well
• Great way to know ppl outside of your team and great way to demonstrate your competence
• Often times senior finds it difficult to delegate tasks to interns, so if you could remind them that you’re around or willing to work on more challenging tasks, they tend to be quite receptive

Recommendation

• You just gotta check your email and hope you’re the first to reply
• Don’t take tasks that you know you won’t be able to do well in? If the partner asks for someone that has good Chinese, make sure you have good Chinese
• Always try to get a big picture understanding of upcoming tasks and ask to be involved. Really good way to cement involvement
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Conclusion

The most important traits to converting a vacation scheme into a trainee contract are eye for detail / consistency in work quality, likeability by immediate mentor, and willingness to take initiative.

From the quotes, there appears to be underlying parallels between these traits, being that it enables:

1. more opportunity to demonstrate competence;
2. obtain more favourable feedback; and
3. overall involvement with the firm.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dragonflyhk/
Website: https://www.dragonflyhk.org

Originally published on December 6th, 2020.
https://www.dragonflyhk.org/law-skills/vs-to-tc-traits