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Draft name field

hi everyone so this video is about everything you need to know when you're drafting your cover letter before i begin you should note that this video contains the advice that i have received from the employers that i was targeting at the time this video is supposed to give you the perspective of the things you should be careful about but not necessarily reflect what the employers that you are targeting are expecting to see in your cover letter so make sure that you confirm with them that you have included everything that they need to see i will begin with some basics that i hope you all know and i will move on to the content focusing more on how you can make your cover letter a story and finally i want to touch on the practice area that you are informing the prospective employer that you want to work in so let's begin with the basics i'm sure you all know that the cover letter should have a header where you include your name your phone number and your email address given the current reality where everyone is working from home you may or may not include your address for some employers this may be a consideration especially if you live far from the office so commute might be an issue in an event if an employer needs to know this they can contact you the next thing you need to include in your cover letter is the date that you have drafted it on the name of the person that you are addressing the cover letter to which usually is either the employer that is leading the recruitment process or an hr person or a student director in an event you can find this information on the website or you can call the firm if this information is not listed on villa portal or the firm's website then you begin the cover letter with the dear miss or mr and the last name of the person who you're supposed to address the cover letter to and after that you include the subject line so regarding a summer student position starting in 2021 or a 2021 summer student position with and the name of the law firm or government branch that you are addressing this cover letter to after that you start your cover letter there are many ways you can start your cover letter try to avoid expressions like i'm delighted to be applying or i'm overly excited you can start your cover letter in a traditional way please accept my application for this position or in a more straightforward way i am and describe your situation either a law student or a foreign chain lawyer and explain a little bit about your background so there are recruiters that want to see in the first paragraph if you tick all the boxes before they continue on and consider your background for example if you're a foreign chain lawyer and you have started the nca process or you are about to write your bar exams some employers want to see this information in the first paragraph so you can list there the universities that you studied at if you worked in a specific city and let them know where you are in the ncaa process a line saying i am an nca candidate and i plan to complete my mca exams by that date and be eligible to article by that date will suffice of course you can include this information on your cv so because the cover letter is supposed to be very concise and not really repeat what recruiters can find elsewhere in your application package you may want to skip this information in an event confirm with the person that will be reading this that they need or they do not need to see this information in your cover letter because you will be including transcripts where you hopefully explain the grading system and how good your university was you may want to skip this information too the first paragraph is somewhere where you usually include the names of the lawyers or articling students that you've met from the law firm or the government branch to show a connection with the firm and why you're interested in applying to them including things that you find on the website will lead to you drafting a very generic cover letter so again a reminder to try to speak with those people so that you can include something more insightful and effectively persuade them why you have a connection with that firm why you are applying to that firm and why you want to work there so after that because the cover letter is supposed to be concise try not to repeat things that you mentioned in the first paragraph when you explain more about your background in the second and third paragraph so let's move on to how you make your cover letter a story the cover letter is not supposed to be a place where you reiterate whatever you have included on your cv on the contrary you pick one or two things that you have listed on your cv things that you can come up with interesting stories about that speak to your personality to your experience to how good of a team player you are how you have exceeded expectations and elaborate on those points another important consideration when you're applying if you're a foreign trained lawyer who is either studying in canada or has moved to canada permanently to work and live it is important to note that on your cover letter as well you don't have to elaborate on that a simple note saying that before i moved to canada permanently i did this and that back home this tells the prospective employer that you've moved here permanently so they won't be investing in you if you're not considering to stay here long term with respect to your experience be mindful that you don't have to include only law related experience if you have more interesting stories to share about something that you did outside the legal profession you should consider including that if that story speaks to your personality to your character to your resilience if that story will make the employer engaged and essentially if that story is going to be more impactful than you listening your legal experience go with that story the third paragraph is again when you elaborate a bit more about your experience or maybe other activities that speak to your community engagement or basically explain some major trips that you've been on were you engaged in volunteering or that changed your perspective maybe you should include those as well to show that you are a well-rounded person and in the last paragraph try to not summarize everything that you have included but maybe speak more to who you are and what you bring to the table without necessarily listing professional experience or reiterate whatever you have already included if you're a foreign chain lawyer applying to the ocis don't forget to include the line at the end of your cover letter that basically directs the employer to contact the ital nca to invite you for an oci interview now an important consideration when you're applying is which areas you are telling the prospective employer that you are interested in working in why is that important you might think that jd students are coming right out of law school and that they don't necessarily have exposure to the legal field they can make them justify an interest in a specific area that's not necessarily applicable to foreign trained lawyers that come to canada with professional experience if you've practiced in an area for a number of years one of your value-adds is that you will bring this know-how to the specific firm so one of the reasons the firms will want to interview you is because of your know-how so they will want to see the type of clients that you serve the practice area with more details and the similarities of that practice area back home with the canadian perspective essentially you're telling them that you will not need a lot of training because you know how to do specific things try to focus on similarities and not on differences because this tells the prospective employer that you'll get up to speed much faster than the traditional law students now it is important that you are specific in your cover letter when you are explaining the practice area that you want to work in but at the same time if you're applying to full service firms it is important that you show that you're flexible and you are willing to try different areas based on what the firm practices in and what the firm's needs are in where they want to allocate the resources including articles students or summer students law firms and government branches in canada hire a year in advance and one of the reasons for that is because they need to know what needs it will have in the following year in specific groups which means that if you're applying to full service firms or government branches that may have the corporate side the employment side the litigation side they want to determine how many students they want to bring in to those groups so when you are being generic you're not helping the firm decide if they want to interview you so when these employers are bringing students in for interviews they have in mind that if they're hiring for five different areas they will bring students proportionately to those practice areas even if you decide to change your mind after your summer or article this is the primary considerations for firm because it will not bring 70 of the students for one specific area when they want to allocate students proportionately to five practice areas so let's say that you have for example an interest in primarily practicing ip because this is what you did back home but you are applying to a full service firm that you know that last year they only hired one student in ip so how you should approach this while you can and you should mention that you're interested to practicing primarily in your area of choice if you are flexible and you are willing to try different things here's a way you can be strategic about it that helped me when i was applying to firms well i had indicated that i had an interest in corporate law again showing examples why i had an interest in corporate law i mentioned in my cover letter that i am interested in gaining exposure to other practice areas including one two three so let me show you how to select those one two three other areas if you don't necessarily know what those areas could be or should be before i show you though just be mindful that you have to include specific examples on why you're interested in that primary practice area so specific examples can be either because you took the course in your jd in your llb or llm studies with examples about what you did during that course that made you fall in love with that practice area another justification can stem from your practice back home if you practice in that area and you have concrete examples about why you liked it the level of depth that you have gained the nature of the clients or the matters that you worked on and you want to continue build on that expertise that can be a very concrete example to show the potential employer that you are really interested in this and not in theoretical realm and again if you can decide examples that are outside your education and have to do more with your professional experience the more concrete these examples are for your employer because you may have loved the subject matter while you did the course but don't forget that you have approached it from a theoretical standpoint and when you start practicing in that area you may realize that your day-to-day interactions with the client or the matters that you will be working on may not be as interesting now let me show you how to choose the other practice areas that can help you show the employer that you relate more with what the firm is doing and the employer feels comfortable that even if you don't eventually like the practice area that you've listed as your primary one you are still open to trying different areas where the firm has a need to allocate the resources on and essentially direct you to work in those areas so for me that resource was not canada and let me show you how to use it and gain helpful insights about the firm and how the firm allocates the resources to different practice groups here it goes