Graduate Schemes, Explained

You can normally start applying to graduate schemes from the summer before your final year of study. Don’t leave starting the job hunt too late though. It’s a good idea to identify a preferred employer and secure an internship, as this will ensure preferential treatment for your graduate scheme application. In some cases, it’s not unheard of for companies to hire for their graduate scheme directly from the previous year’s internship pool.

In the vast majority of cases, successfully reaching the end of a graduate scheme will lead to being offered a full-time role within the company. Whereas you previously moved between departments and projects, you’ll now be tied to one permanently and may get to express a preference for where you’re placed. This is why it’s important to get a feel for the different areas of the business and what the career progression is like in each role you try. If you end up being put in a department or position you don’t enjoy, it won’t be long before you start applying for jobs elsewhere.

Of course, it’s also possible that you won’t be offered a job. It might be that the company can’t afford to keep all of their graduates on a full-time basis, or that you didn’t impress your managers enough to earn a job offer. Whatever the reason, if this is the case you’ll need to start looking for work elsewhere. The good news is that the graduate scheme will have taught you a lot of skills and information which other employers will be desperate for, and unless you leave on really bad terms you should get a good reference.

That’s OK. Having a graduate scheme place doesn’t mean you have to say yes to any job offer you receive, so, if you’ve decided the company isn’t for you or don’t like the sound of the role you’ve been offered, feel free to walk away. Make sure you’ve got an alternative source of employment lined up though, as you don’t want to be starting the job hunt from scratch once you’re no longer being paid.

Law training contracts (which don’t exist in every country so be aware this may not apply) are the bridge between studying to be a lawyer and qualifying as a solicitor. They usually last two years and, like a graduate scheme, involve moving between different departments unless the firm is particularly small. This time is normally broken into four six-month periods, known as “seats”, and it’s quite normal for one of these to be spent abroad or in a satellite office elsewhere in the country.

At the end of your training contract, you may or may not be offered a permanent position within the firm. Because other firms will also be drawing from their own pool of trainees, it can be tough to find work elsewhere if you aren’t offered a job, and this panic definitely contributes to the intense, competitive atmosphere among a lot of trainee lawyers.

Got any questions we haven’t answered? Let us know in the comments below.