Samantha Pearce is the owner of Words Worth Reading an online editorial service for Job Seekers, Students, Writers and Businesses. Words Worth Reading offer individually-tailored, comprehensive resume and application form writing and editing services. Sam is also CaribbeanJobs.com’s resume expert. She says that job seekers must take as much care filling in an application form as they do writing a resume.
Application forms are a bug bear for everybody, from the poor applicant who has to trawl through all the guidance to the poor interviewer who has to read the same thing over and over and over again.
My colleague Sian, an experienced member of the Words Worth Reading Editorial team, spends lots of her time working with managers who have the unenviable task of frequently participating in the recruitment process for their own staff, and supporting others in their recruitment. She says there are some simple steps that could ease the process for everyone involved.
Firstly, lets start with a question – who do you think the application form is there to help?
Is it:
a) The applicant so that they can demonstrate why they are suitable for the advertised position
b) The person doing the recruitment or
c) None of the above?
The answer, obviously, is a mixture of A and B, but it may be a surprise to some that from the point of view of the employer it is definitely more b than a.
In these times of increasing unemployment, recruiters are being bombarded with many applications for every job. One recent round of recruitment for a middle ranking post that I was involved in resulted in 70 applications in a two week window.
That’s 70 applications each of which had 10 sections over anything between a minimum of 8 pages to a mind blowing maximum of 20 pages.
To do justice to each application takes a minimum of 15 minutes per application to long list. That’s at least 2 working days to long list the applications – comparing what’s been written on the form to the person specification you lovingly wrote, and, depending on how many are to be interviewed, at least half a day to short list.
Usually the process involves at least two (more often 3) managers – so in this case that’s 7.5 working days for the organisation to get to a point where it can begin to think about the interviews.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that managers respond best to those who make their job easier.
How can you do this?
First things first, if they have gone to the trouble of writing a person specification and job description, the applicant needs to have read it – and show that in their form.
This does not mean attaching or pasting in your resume. If resumes were required then they would have been asked for.
The application form has been designed for a purpose to make sure that managers get all the information they need, and to ensure that they take into account all the factors required, such as diversity, experience, qualifications and legal requirements. By attaching your resume instead of completing the application form, what you are saying to the manager that you don’t have the time or the inclination to do what they expect – not a great first impression.
Every industry has a different standard way of recruiting, from application forms, to invites for resume submissions, to head hunting. Your application should match the way that the recruiter or manager is asking for it.
Once you have read the person specification, demonstrate that you have. The section of the form that strikes terror into all of us is the ‘supporting statement’. But it shouldn’t – the person specification tells you what the manager is looking for in a successful candidate and the job they want you to do; the supporting statement is your chance to tell us how you match these requirements. Don’t be afraid to be blatant in setting it out – tell them which point of the specification you are responding to (if you want to do it in the same order as the person specification is written, that’s not a problem), make your layout clear.
However, remember that what is required is more than a statement that says that you meet the specifications – don’t just say ‘I have the ability to write clearly and concisely and have experience of writing reports’ or ‘I am able to analyse complex data from different sources’; give evidence. State what reports you have written, where they get presented and most importantly, if something changed as a result. What managers need is something that justifies them calling you for interview, so your supporting statement needs to answer the requirements and demonstrate how you have achieved things in the past.
In the section that asks you to tell the manager what your current job entails, be concise. You don’t need to include as much detail as in the supporting statement; bullet points of your major responsibilities and tasks will be fine. Quite often applications duplicate information from one section to another, and it’s easier for the manager if everything flows and is concise.
Presentation is important; managers need to see correct punctuation in order to be able to read your application. If you’ve cut and paste it from some other document (e.g. if you’ve written it in word to spell check it and then copied it in) make sure the punctuation and spaces haven’t been corrupted. It is a good idea to spell check as it shows that you’ve put time and effort into the application.
Behind all of this, remember that the application is your chance to sell yourself and demonstrate how you are suitable for the job. Managers want to employ you – that is why they are advertising the post.
Sam is CaribbeanJobs.com’s Resume expert.
Sam’s company Words Worth Reading offer individually-tailored, comprehensive CV and application form writing and editing services at fantastic prices, with quick turnaround times.
For more information visit www.wordsworthreading.co.uk
You can contact the team on sam@wordsworthreading.co.uk
Call them on 00 44 1277 824640.
Samantha Pearce
