Putting in a convincing performance at a panel interview or other competitive selection forum is largely about preparation.
Here's a small selection of questions to help you role-play and prepare for your next interview.
(This particular set of questions relates to public sector legal provider selection - you'll find lots more useful tools on our website including those relating to other industries.)
- What do you see as our agency's biggest challenges and how will you address them ?
- What strategies do you recommend to minimise our risk exposures ?
- What strategies do you suggest to reduce our legal costs ?
- What succession planning have you done in relation to your relationship with our agency ?
- How will you ensure that fees don't "run away" on some matters ?
- What distinguishes your approach from other firms ?
- What differentiates the approach you take to a "strategically important" matter, as opposed to a "business as usual" matter ?
- How does our stance as a model litigant impact your work for us ?
- How much of the work you will be doing for us will actually be handled by partners ? And what proportion will be handled by non-partner lawyers ?
- You say that you supervise solicitors in your firm. What is the supervision model ? How exactly does it work ?
- What seminars and continuing education will you provide ? What topics do you suggest ?
- How can we improve our management of external legal services providers ?
- If you ever became aware of a departmental officer behaving improperly, what would you do ?
- How will you work with other legal panel members ?
- Given that we plan to appoint multiple legal panel members, how would you suggest that we allocate work ?
- Do you have an equal opportunity briefing policy ? How often do you actually brief female barristers ?
- How do you allocate work across your firm and within each work group ?
- Why would you be a good choice for us ?
- Why do you want our work ?
- What questions have you for us ?
An hour - better, two - spent preparing often makes all the difference to getting across the line as the legal services provider of first choice.
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