Building a Legal CV While You Study for SQE1

Here's the trap a lot of candidates fall into. You tell yourself you'll sort the CV out after SQE1 — once FLK1 and FLK2 are behind you, once you can breathe again, once you've got something to show for the months of revision. Then results arrive, you start applying, and a recruiter asks what you actually did during that year. The honest answer is "I revised", and revising, on its own, is not a story a firm can hire.

The candidates who land roles fastest are almost never the ones with the highest mock scores. They're the ones who treated the SQE study period as a window to gather evidence — of competence, of commitment, of the soft skills that don't show up in a single-best-answer multiple-choice question. The good news is that you can do both at once. Revision and CV-building are not competitors for your time. Done properly, they feed each other.

Why the study window is the best time to build, not the worst

It feels counterintuitive. You're already stretched across thirteen legal knowledge subjects — Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Contract, Tort, Land Law, Trusts, Criminal Law and Practice and the rest — and someone is suggesting you add CV-building to the pile. But the timing genuinely works in your favour, for three reasons.

First, you have a legitimate, current reason to contact people. "I'm preparing for SQE1 and hoping to qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales" opens doors that "I'm a recent graduate" simply does not. You're visibly committed. Second, the law you're revising is fresh — you can talk about a directors' duties scenario or a limitation period with a fluency you won't have eighteen months later. Third, and this is the one people miss: Qualifying Work Experience does not have to come after you pass. The SRA lets you complete your two years of QWE before, during or after your assessments. So the placement you start now can count towards qualification later.

A CV built during SQE study isn't a distraction from passing — it's the proof that passing actually meant something.

One caution before we go further. Anything I say here about the framework — what QWE is, how the SRA wants it confirmed, what the character and suitability assessment involves — is a principle-level summary. The procedural detail shifts, and the only authoritative source is the SRA itself. Check the current position at sqe.sra.org.uk and sra.org.uk before you rely on any specific rule.

Understand what "legal experience" actually means under the SRA route

The old training-contract model trained a generation to think experience only counts if a magic-circle firm signs it off. The SQE route deliberately broke that. Qualifying Work Experience can come from up to four different organisations, and it doesn't all have to be glamorous City work.

What can count towards QWE

• Paralegal or legal assistant roles, full or part-time.
• Work in a law clinic or pro bono advice service.
• A placement or vacation scheme with a solicitor.
• Working in an in-house legal team.
• Volunteering at a charity that gives legal advice — a law centre, a Citizens Advice setting, a community project.

The test the SRA applies is, broadly, whether the experience gave you exposure to the kind of work that develops the competences a solicitor needs — and whether a qualified solicitor (or your organisation's compliance officer) can confirm it. Two years full-time equivalent is the headline requirement. It doesn't have to be continuous, and it doesn't have to be with one employer. For the precise confirmation procedure and who is permitted to sign it off, go to the SRA's QWE guidance directly — don't take a forum's word for it.

Why does this matter for your CV specifically? Because it widens the field of things you can chase right now. You are not waiting for a single golden training contract. You are accumulating signed-off, qualification-relevant experience from several sources, and every one of those is a CV line.

Turn revision itself into demonstrable skills

This is where most people leave value on the table. You're spending hundreds of hours on SQE revision, and you're treating all of it as invisible. It isn't. The trick is to translate what revision develops into the language a recruiter or supervising solicitor actually recognises.

Think about what FLK1 and FLK2 preparation genuinely builds. Working through 180-question assessment conditions, twice over, under tight timing, trains decision-making under pressure. Reading dense fact patterns and isolating the legally relevant facts is, literally, the core of client work. Holding the structure of a Business Law and Practice problem in your head while you eliminate three wrong answers — that's analytical reasoning a firm can use on day one.

Three concrete ways to evidence it

1. Keep a "subject log". A short note of the topics where you went from weak to strong, and how. When an interviewer asks how you handle a steep learning curve, you have a real, specific answer about, say, getting on top of Solicitors Accounts from a standing start.
2. Write up one worked problem properly. Take a Trusts or Property Practice scenario, write a tight note on how you'd analyse it, and keep it. It doubles as revision and a writing sample.
3. Track your data. If you can say "I lifted my Dispute Resolution accuracy from 55% to 80% over six weeks of targeted practice", you've shown self-direction and measurable improvement. That sentence sells.

This is one place a good question bank earns its keep twice. When I was grinding through FLK2, I used the Ant Law SQE Question Bank partly for the obvious reason — 14,000-plus single-best-answer questions tagged by subject and sub-topic, with a smart engine that kept feeding me the things I kept getting wrong. But the subject-level mastery analytics turned out to be quietly useful for the CV too: they gave me the hard numbers to describe my own progress, instead of the vague "I worked hard" line everyone else uses.

A worked example: from two days a week to a real CV line

Let me make this concrete, because abstract advice about "gaining experience" helps nobody.

Take Priya. She's nine months out from her first SQE1 sitting, working a non-legal job to pay rent, and revising in the evenings. She has no formal legal experience and is panicking that her CV is empty.

Here's what she actually does. She emails three local high-street firms and two community law centres, briefly, saying she's preparing for SQE1, naming a couple of practice areas she's interested in, and offering one day a week unpaid for three months. Four ignore her. One — a small firm doing residential conveyancing and probate — says yes to Saturdays and the odd weekday.

Over those three months Priya does the unglamorous stuff: chasing Land Registry entries, drafting straightforward client letters under supervision, sitting in on a couple of probate matters. Nothing dramatic. But look at what it gives her:

• Real exposure to Property Practice and Wills and the Administration of Estates — two FLK2 subjects — which makes those revision topics click in a way the question bank alone couldn't.
• A supervising solicitor who can, subject to the SRA's confirmation rules, sign that time off as QWE.
• Two or three specific anecdotes for interviews: a client who didn't understand a completion date, a probate file with a missing beneficiary.
• A reference from a practising solicitor.

Priya's CV is no longer "graduate revising for SQE1". It's "candidate gaining hands-on conveyancing and probate experience while preparing for SQE1, with measured progress across FLK1 and FLK2". Same person. Completely different document. And the work she did made her revision sharper, which is the whole point.

Structure the CV so a busy recruiter gets it in ten seconds

A legal recruiter or hiring partner skims. You have seconds, not minutes. The structure below is deliberately boring, because boring-and-clear beats clever-and-confusing every time.

Lead with verbs and outcomes

"Responsible for assisting with client correspondence" is dead language. "Drafted first-draft client letters under supervision in a residential conveyancing matter, reducing the fee-earner's turnaround time" tells a story. Same task. One reads like a job description; the other reads like someone who'll be useful.

Be honest about where you are in the SQE

If you've booked FLK1 but haven't sat it, say exactly that. Do not imply you've passed. Do not invent a sitting date — and if a form asks for one, give the real one or write that it's to be confirmed against sqe.sra.org.uk. The SRA's character and suitability assessment sits at the end of the qualification road, and a CV that misrepresents your status is precisely the kind of thing that comes back to bite you. Honesty here isn't just ethical box-ticking; it's self-preservation.

Network while you study — quietly, not desperately

The word "networking" makes most people wince, and fair enough. Forget the image of working a room with business cards. For an SQE candidate, networking is mostly just staying visible and being useful to people who are slightly ahead of you.

• Reconnect with anyone already in practice. A former colleague, a friend's older sibling, a contact from a clinic. A short, specific message beats a generic "can I pick your brain".
• Attend law society and local practitioner events. Many are free or cheap, and SQE candidates are genuinely welcome.
• Write the occasional short post about your SQE journey. Not performance, just honesty — what FLK2 taught you, how you cracked a tricky topic. It signals commitment and keeps you on people's radar.
• Ask the right question. Not "do you have a job for me" but "what made the difference for you in your first six months?" People answer the second one.

A senior candidate's blunt observation: most placements I've seen offered to SQE candidates came through a warm contact, not a cold application portal. The portal applications matter, but the conversations matter more.

Don't let CV-building wreck your actual exam prep

Here's the balancing act. None of the above is worth much if you fail FLK1 and have to resit. The SQE is a demanding assessment, and while published pass rates move from sitting to sitting — check the SRA's latest reports for the current figures rather than trusting any number you half-remember — it's fair to say a meaningful chunk of candidates don't pass first time. Your CV needs experience, yes. But it needs a pass even more.

So protect the core. A few rules I'd hold to:

1. Cap your experience commitment. One day a week of placement work, sustained, beats three days a week that collapses your revision schedule. Consistency over intensity.
2. Make experience and revision overlap. A probate placement should reinforce your Wills and Administration of Estates prep, not compete with it. Choose placements that map onto FLK1 or FLK2 subjects where you can.
3. Keep a hard floor of revision hours. Decide your weekly minimum for question practice and don't let CV activity eat into it. Realistic mock sittings under proper timing — the 90-question, 180-minute format that mirrors the real ratio — are non-negotiable in the final stretch.

If you're choosing tools to keep that revision floor solid while life gets busy, the practical question isn't "which brand is loudest" but "does this fit the way I actually study". Look for a bank that prioritises your weak topics automatically, lets you review wrong answers properly, and gives you exam-realistic mocks. The Ant Law SQE Question Bank does that, and the on-demand AI tutor is handy when a single tricky MCQ on, say, fixed and floating charges sends you down a rabbit hole at 11pm. If you'd like a second opinion before you commit, CELE SQE is the other resource worth a look.

The mindset that ties it together

Stop thinking of yourself as "a student who will become employable once they pass". Start thinking of yourself as "a trainee solicitor who happens to be sitting their assessments". The shift sounds small. It changes everything about how you write to firms, how you describe your revision, and how you carry yourself in a room.

Becoming a solicitor in England and Wales is a marathon with several legs — a qualifying degree or equivalent, SQE1 and SQE2, two years of QWE, and the SRA's character and suitability check. The candidates who finish strongest are the ones who run several of those legs at once instead of strictly in sequence. Build the CV now. Let the revision and the experience reinforce each other. By the time your FLK1 and FLK2 results land, you want to be the candidate who already has a story to tell — not the one starting from scratch.

Your next step is small and immediate: this week, send three short emails to local firms or clinics, and lock in your weekly revision floor with a proper question bank. For hands-on FLK1 and FLK2 practice — with weak-topic targeting, realistic mocks and progress analytics you can quote on your CV — try the Ant Law SQE Question Bank at antlaw.ai. Build the evidence and pass the exam. Do both, and the job offers take care of themselves.