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You are what you tweet
A law firm that is tired of reading applications for summer clerkships has decided to make hopefuls apply for positions in 140 characters or less.In what is believed to be a world first,…
Lawyers Weekly
A law firm that is tired of reading applications for summer clerkships has decided to make hopefuls apply for positions in 140 characters or less.
"Each morning between 29 August and 2 September, we'll post a question on ... our Twitter feed ... You'll need to be following us, and then it's on for the day, tweet all you like. Each day we'll select the six top tweets of the day," reads the firm's website.
"Tweets must be text only, no attachments or links, apart from photos of South Park characters or the Lego Darth Vader."
Managing partner Michael Bradley told Lawyers Weekly the selection method follows last year's campaign which required applications to be completed in a creative art form.
"This year we decided to experiment with an entirely interactive approach, and where better to do that than on Twitter," he said.
"We think the 140 character limit per tweet will actually be a big challenge, given that law students are taught to use really big words and lots of them. It's going to be a fascinating social experiment. And it'll cut down on our reading."
The idea is that by the end of the week, the firm will have selected the top 30 tweeters who will then be invited to send in a clerkship application form, which must comply with "our usual rules so that we can verify that they're actually studying law and weren't involved in the UK riots".
The field will then be narrowed down until there is one lucky summer clerk standing.
So why is the firm really doing it this way? According to its website, it's really quite simple: "Three reasons: nobody else would dare; it's a cynical ploy to pick up more Twitter followers; and we'll be reading job applications of 140 characters or fewer.
"It's like they say, you are what you tweet".
