applying for a job with us

Diversity and Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do at Browne Jacobson. We want to be a firm where everyone feels a sense of belonging and is valued for their differences and unique strengths.

We believe that, as a truly inclusive employer, we will be able to collaborate more effectively and, by bringing diverse perspectives to our work, create a culture where difference is valued, delivering the best possible service to our broad client base.

We’re committed to making reasonable adjustments to our recruitment and selection processes for applicants with a disability or long-term health condition.

If you need any adjustments as part of your application or interview process, please contact recruitment@brownejacobson.com to let us know how we can support you. Examples of reasonable adjustments include:

• Extra time during assessments
• Completing a written test using a computer, or verbally
• Making changes to the location of the interview or adapting the environment
• Providing an interpreter, for example for a candidate who communicates using sign language

Social mobility has never been higher up the firm’s agenda. We’re proud to be one of the UK’s leading businesses for social mobility. The Social Mobility Employer Index 2020 ranked Browne Jacobson as fifth amongst the country’s leading employers, rising from 82nd place last year - making us one of the highest-ranked law firms in the country.

The Index highlights the employers who are doing the most to change how they find, recruit and advance talented employees from different social class backgrounds. Now in its fourth year, the Employer Index is the definitive benchmark of organisations committed to improving social mobility in the workplace. Despite the progress we’ve seen, the stark reality is that so much more must be done to reduce social inequality.

Why is Social Mobility important?

For each year a child spends in education, the gap between rich and poor grows, with the attainment gap accelerating year on year. Just one in ten students from poorer backgrounds are likely to achieve similar career success as those from wealthy backgrounds. This lack of upward mobility means that talent is often underdeveloped through lack of equal opportunity. Children from more prosperous families often benefit from more support and guidance from home and they can often access resources that their less advantaged peers cannot. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated this discrepancy, as those children from less wealthy backgrounds have struggled to access the technology they need in order to continue their schooling remotely.

Informing and connecting students with available opportunities by linking them with potential employers is essential to improving social mobility. Students whose family members are from a professional background frequently have a far greater knowledge of how to go about finding opportunities and are more likely to have connections to help them secure work experience. Employers and schools are therefore critical when it comes to building alternative support networks for students who don’t easily have access to these advantages.

What are we doing to address Social Mobility?

In 2016, we removed our requirement for minimum A-level grades for our training contracts and now anonymise all application forms and CVs. We recognise the importance of exploring the variety of experiences and achievements that individuals

can bring to Browne Jacobson, outside of traditional academic achievement. We’re delighted to be a member of RARE – an organisation committed to making elite professions more diverse. We use RARE’s contextual recruitment system predominantly for our training contract recruitment. This allows us to contextualise applications and measure against academic performance for a fairer process.

Browne Jacobson have a long-standing partnership with the National Literacy Trust. Whilst the focus is on helping students with their reading and writing skills, this partnership allows us to make the essential contacts between ourselves and students from disadvantaged backgrounds, showing them the career possibilities that are available to them.

We’ve set up FAIRE (Fairer Access into Real Experience) to revolutionise the way law firms recruit future talent and grow an industry-wide culture of inclusivity. FAIRE aims to support social mobility, offering students equal access to work experience and career insights that can pave the way for a career in the legal sector. We recently held the UK’s biggest virtual student law careers event in partnership with Young Professionals, with 7,000 attendees joining on the first day alone, and over 10,000 participants signing up across the UK. The event pro-actively targeted schools in every social mobility cold spot. 62% of attendees were from lower socio-economic postcodes and 52% were from Black, Asian or Minority ethnic communities.

The event was aimed at 16-19 year olds and offered an insight into the working environment of a national law firm, exploring not just law but the various career options available, such as marketing, finance, IT and HR.

This was the first event of many under Browne Jacobson’s FAIRE initiative, which has been devised by our Recruitment Manager, Tom Lyas. FAIRE underpins Browne Jacobson’s commitment to social mobility, offering students from diverse backgrounds a greater opportunity to break into the legal industry. Read more about the initiative via our FAIRE hub.

For more information about our commitment to social mobility and how we’re committed to embedding this across Browne Jacobson, please follow the links below:

• “I didn’t want my future to be shaped by how little money my parents had” >
• Browne Jacobson named one of UK’s leading businesses for social mobility >
• Browne Jacobson and ‘Young Professionals’ deliver UK’s biggest virtual student law careers event >

You can view all of our current vacancies on our careers website - www.brownejacobsoncareers.com. If you see a role you’d like to apply for, please read the job description and person specification thoroughly. If you feel your skills and experience match what we’re looking for, please complete the online application form. You’ll need to submit your CV too.

We review applications and CVs against the criteria outlined in our descriptions, so please detail when and how you’ve demonstrated the qualities we’re looking for. Pay particular attention to the ‘what technical skills are required for someone to be successful and enjoy the role?’ and ‘who would be a good fit for this role’ sections of the job description.

If you have any questions about the application process, please email recruitment@brownejacobson.com

Please note, we don’t accept speculative applications.

If your application is successful, you’ll be invited to an interview. Our recruitment team will contact you, by phone or email, to arrange a date and time.

Due to current Covid-19 restrictions, all interviews are taking place virtually, via Microsoft Teams. Our recruitment team will send you a diary invitation and Teams link in advance. We’ll also let you know who’ll interview you, what to expect, and anything you’ll need to prepare in advance.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a Microsoft Teams account, you can still join a meeting. Here’s some more information on how to get set up. If you’d like a pre-interview Teams test run, let our recruitment team know.

Our interviews typically last 45 minutes to an hour, and you’ll usually be interviewed by two Browne Jacobson colleagues. Our recruitment team will let you know the name(s) of your interviewer(s).

Most of our interviews follow a competency format, so we’ll be looking for specific examples of your experience in relation to the requirements of the role – the more examples you can give, the better. Make sure you always answer the question and that your response is concise.

Our competency framework includes:

• Working with others
• Commitment to our firm and values
• Client focus
• Personal development, e.g. how do you respond to/ take on board feedback, do you actively seek learning opportunities

Remember, an interview is a two-way process. Feel free to ask any questions and take the opportunity to get to know us too.

For some roles, we may ask you to complete an exercise in advance of the interview. This could include:

• Online testing
  • For our training contract and summer vacation scheme opportunities, we ask candidates to complete interactive inductive and deductive reasoning assessments administered by SHL. For SHL practice tests, please click here
• In-tray exercise
  • Mainly used for our legal support roles, the in-tray exercise assesses your ability to prioritise
• Written case study
  • For example, you may be given a scenario(s) and asked to analyse and summarise the information, drawing your own conclusion and explaining your reasoning
• SWOT analysis
  • Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. We may ask you to prepare a short SWOT analysis, so that we can assess your self-awareness
• A presentation – you may be asked to prepare a short presentation on a set question or topic which is relevant to the role

Our recruitment team will always give you advance notice should you need to prepare anything or complete any assessments ahead of the interview and will be on hand to answer any questions.

Sometimes, before making a final decision, we may invite you to a second interview. This could be a formal panel interview or an informal coffee (virtually for now) with another team member. The second interview allows us to further explore your skillset and what you could bring to the role and get to know you a little more. You may have thought of some questions for us following your first interview. A second interview also lets you ask more questions and get to know us better.

For more information about the application and interview process for our training contract recruitment, please click here.