Team sports, clubs, volunteering: Law firms look beyond degrees and good grades

While a law degree and good grades used to be enough to get you through the door into an entry level job at a law firm, some recruiters are now looking at the wider skills of potential employees.

Kate Cruickshank, partner at MinterEllisonRuddWatts told Morning Report it's becoming more common for firms to look for candidates with life skills beyond the lecture theatre.

"It's not only grades that matter these days. We're looking for people who can build relationships, communicate clearly, really engage with a client, work effectively as a team, and have a degree of resilience," she said.

"Those are the kind of things that we will see what a student can do, and they can demonstrate that through some of the other activities they do outside the lecture theatre," Cruickshank said.

"The legal profession is always a human profession. My clients always need someone who can understand their problems, talk to them with a degree of empathy, apply the law in a real-world sense, and help them solve problems."

Cruickshank says the pandemic and cost of living may have played a part in changing the level of life experience graduates have as they enter the workforce.

"We're seeing graduates who have had fewer opportunities potentially to have developed some of those life skills in more recent years.

The cohort coming through at the moment would have had their last few years at school potentially disrupted with COVID, so completed more online learning.

"I think with the cost of living pressures, people are less likely to move away to study, or leave home, move to a different city, and put themselves outside their comfort zone.

"There's good reasons why they haven't been able to do that, but it may have presented fewer opportunities to develop some of those life skills and key interpersonal skills," Cruickshank said.

"It's just the way that they have built their connections in this digital age. They'll be far more comfortable with emailing or messaging. And when you're a lawyer, that direct communication is really key. And clients do want to speak to you face to face."

New Zealand's unemployment rate was at 5.3 percent in the March 2026 quarter, with pressure on those seeking work to stand out amongst a crowded market.

Cruickshank has some tips for how that could be done.

"Just do anything that stretches their experience, like getting involved in a variety of opportunities. Play team sport, that shows how you can work as a team, get involved in a club, put yourself in some sort of leadership role, whether that's through volunteering or organising something at your university that shows how you manage responsibility and also how you can be proactive and take the initiative. All of those things are really great on a CV.

"I think these days people don't stay in their careers for their whole life. They move around a bit more. And all of those skills are really helpful for that, completely transferable," she said.