As an international candidate, I was looking to work for a firm with the broader scope and diversity of an international presence. Bird & Bird was a natural choice.

The interview at Bird & Bird was the first real contact I had with the firm. As it also happened to be my first job interview, I was tremendously nervous!  Much to my relief, the interview was simply a pleasant, and at times humorous, discussion about my experiences of living in Asia and Australia, sport, my undergraduate degree and general career aspirations. A stark contrast to ‘horror stories’ relayed by some of my LPC peers.

Since receiving an offer from Bird & Bird for a deferred intake, I have been invited to numerous social events with the firm prior to starting. These events provided a fantastic opportunity for me as a future trainee to get to know current trainees; and the size of each intake meant that it was easy to ‘put a name to a face’ in advance.

In addition to the social events, the Firm maintained frequent contact with me whilst I was doing a language course in Beijing via their extranet site and ‘buddy system’.

My buddy, a trainee in the year above, regularly kept in touch with me, and since I started at the Firm has been an invaluable lifeline of support and a terrific ‘stupid questions’ person.

These support structures are crucial for trainees, as they help reduce the amount of stress during the lead up to starting a training contract.

Now that I have started, I have found that the first month has (unsurprisingly) been dominated by ‘unknowns’. But, the ample opportunities offered to my intake to get to know one another in advance has not only meant that I have had one less contingency to deal with, but at the same time always know I have a wonderfully supportive network to fall back on.