Rare wins award for its Articles programme

Specialist diversity recruitment company Rare's Articles programme (ie, a scheme to help candidates applying for vacation schemes with Rare's legal clients) has won the Race for Opportunity Future Workforce Award 2013, facing down stiff competition from big-name organisations such as Sky and Microsoft.

Rare has run its Articles programme for four years. It has two elements - first, candidates take part in group sessions at each of Rare's nine client law firms, namely Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells, Slaughter and May, Shearman & Sterling, and Travers Smith.  Next, candidates have a one-on-one session with an ex-magic circle lawyer, described by Rare as being a "virtual dinner table for candidates who may have grown up without one".

Raphael Mokades, Rare's managing director, said: "It is a great honour for us to win this award, especially against such stiff competition. We're flattered and honoured. We want to continue to get even more fantastic people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds into the world's leading law firms."

Clifford Chance trainee and Articles alumnus Roy Kwasi Appiah said: "What was the best thing about applying through Rare? I cannot pick a single thing, because there were so many: the individually catered feedback, the high calibre candidates, the inspiring individuals, the case studies. But I guess the best thing was their cumulative effect, in that all these aspects of the programme gave me the confidence to believe that being myself was enough, rather than needing to impersonate 'the perfect candidate'."