GARBRIELLA - Governance Assistant at Grant Thornton UK LLP
ACHIEVEMENT
SITUATION BEFORE COACHING
WHAT WE WORKED ON
COACHING RESULTS
GABRIELLA'S FEEDBACK
Gabriella has been offered a Governance Assistant job role at Grant Thornton UK LLP.
Recent LLM graduate, finishing internship at London Legal Support Trust.
Gabriella reached out to me after spending over 6 months trying to break into legal industry but seeing no success. She spent hours and hours researching the firms she would like to work, then even more time on perfecting her applications but never receiving interview invitations. She felt disappointed to be still financially dependent on her parents while most of her friends already had jobs and were able to enjoy their lives.
The key challenges she was facing were:
• Low A-levels stopped her from approaching top law firms
• Having chosen extremely competitive industry she lacked the ability to make herself visible and compete with top graduates
• She lacked overall understanding of how law firms choose their future trainees
• She didn’t understand how to “sell herself” effectively while writing cover letters and answering application and interview questions
• She had very limited interview experience
Gabriella was certain that a legal career is the one she wanted to pursue, so while we didn’t need to work on clarifying her career direction, we worked on identifying the firms which would be the best fit given the fact that her A-level results could have been better. We also looked outside the box and sought other options to pursue a legal career, such as legal governance and in-house legal positions. This enabled Gabriella to broaden her options which were reflected in the creation of a targeted job search plan to keep her focused.
One of the areas Gabriella struggled the most was answering motivation questions. During my coaching sessions I taught her how to craft a personal story to demonstrate a genuine motivation for a legal profession. In addition to that, I also helped Gabriella to identify her USPs – her “star factor”, which not only helped her to stand out in such an extremely competitive industry but also boosted her confidence.
After improving her CV and revising all applications she made, we worked on developing Gabriella’s interview skills. Together we worked on creating answers on motivational, competency and strength based interview questions. I also taught her how to approach commercial awareness questions and case study interviews.
Gabriella not only doubled her interview invitations during my coaching but she also secured a few short-term paralegal contracts and secured a Governance Assistant job role at Grant Thornton UK LLP. My coaching helped her to identify her strengths and her own “start factor”, which empowered Gabriella to stand out from the crowd and become more memorable at the interviews. She has also developed a deep understanding of how recruitment is being done, which undoubtedly will help her in the future when she will be looking to enhance her career further. In addition to this, my coaching enabled Gabriella to become financially independent and no longer rely on her parents’ financial support, she is no longer sharing a flat and was able to visit a location of her dreams – Sri Lanka.
“As a graduate trying to break into the very difficult and competitive legal industry, I can honestly say that hiring Evelina as a career coach was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Evelina, in particular, through honest, and open discussions, helped me identify my values, strengths and weaknesses, all of which has played into identifying firms to apply to. She also helped me in creating a targeted plan of action in terms of applying, and her actions and outcomes focused approach only motivated me more. She was on hand when I needed her guidance in addressing thorny application questions and in providing any further application advice!
Alongside this, Evelina was immensely professional and knowledgeable about the graduate market, and the processes which graduates have to go through, having assisted me with practice and preparation for every step of the recruitment process including interviews (strengths/competency based), case studies, in tray/prioritisation exercises, and so much more. This has enabled me to successfully navigate all these steps, resulting in more success with my applications than ever, with both law firms and large professional services firms.
Evelina is also understanding, patient, flexible, reliable and a joy to spend an hour or hour and a half with - I always left my sessions feeling even more confident, motivated, prepared and ready to action my career journey. One of Evelina’s main USPs is that she is just so good at helping you identify your USP, and how capitalise on that, yourself. While it sounds small, I do not think it is something to be underestimated. Thank you Evelina - it has always been a pleasure. I can wholeheartedly say that if I decide to change careers again, and feel as if I need assistance, you will be the first and only person I go to!”
