Ask a Recruitment Consultant – questions this month on our chat bot

Questions sent to us via our new Chat service online, together with general career questions emailed across. We do our best to answer all queries, sometimes after a fairly lengthy delay if we are busy!

Hi. My Australian degree has 7 x HD, 9 x D, 2 x C and one ungraded pass. Can you tell me what its UK equivalent would be?

No

Hello. I’m a Brazilian lawyer (just finishing college), no experience, and I would really appreciate to work and live in the UK. How are the opportunities in my case?

Depends what effort you put into finding work but also how you fit into the UK immigration and visa system. Virtually impossible to use a recruitment agency to find work. Do your own research – London best option and particularly any law firms with links to Brazil. Law Society Find a Solicitor directory a good place to start.

I had completed my LPC in 2007 and I have not been successful in securing a training contract. But whenever I see or talk to a solicitor I feel sad that I haven’t reached my goal. I now work in a local government legal department. I have just been offered a position with better pay as a housing officer – should I take it?

Difficult one to answer. 2007 to 2017 is a very long time indeed to delay not progressing through to a training contract. Firstly have you ever checked whether your local authority legal experience is sufficient to count for time in lieu of a training contract? Speak to the SRA and your employer about this. If any of it does count it may assist in finding a training contract elsewhere as your time will be shorter. Whether to take a higher paid job in a non-legally related role is something you need to think through in terms of job satisfaction, personal financial needs and longer term career planning. Sounds like you need to do some of the latter and that it has been sadly lacking for some years..

I have been working for the last 5 years in UK as a Mortgage Consultant . I would love to change my career to become a Residental Conveyancer and would like to ask where I should start to work?

The first question would be why do you want to change career to be a conveyancer? Have you ever experienced the work a conveyancer does? Have you researched what the difference would be in terms of salary? Have you got any longer term plans that tie in – eg opening your own law firm etc? Start with the first query – go and spend a week in a conveyancing department. Contact firms in your local area – Law Society Find a Solicitor service is a good place to start. If you like what you see, consider doing a CLC or CILEX qualification on a part time basis and go from there.