The Application

My thoughts are that if you’re serious about the job which you’re applying for then the application should be serious, well considered and thought out. Like most things the “Garbage in, Garbage out” rule applies.

Often I’ll be working on a particular role and see an application come through which raises the question in my mind “have you even read the advertised role … “ I think some people do take a hopeful shotgun approach to applying for a job rather than the surety which can achieved with a rifle. This experience should lead us into the first consideration of applying for a job and that is “Are your skills and experience relevant to the role which you’re applying to?” There is a lot of talk about transferrable skills but this I think is best approached with some common sense; a refrigerator mechanic for instance isn’t going to be given the opportunity to work on a HVAC system going into a 5000sqm commercial building. However, I have seen engineers that have been a part of designing and assembling aircraft bodies transferring across to designing and assembling passenger rail carts, and power transmission line design engineers transferring to overhead line design for rail projects etc. In saying this though many roles will detail what is called “essential” which is pretty much mandatory skill sets and others which are ”ideal”, or nice to have in conjunction with the essential skill sets. If you don’t have what’s listed as being essential then I think, as a rule of thumb that that’s pretty indicative that the role isn’t for you and to continue looking, be patient there’s something out there for everyone. If in doubt contact the recruiter or the hiring company for greater clarification.

When planning your application, everything should be taken into consideration. I would even go so far as to create an email account with your provider or Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail for instance solely with the express purpose of applying for work. Use a semi-professional naming convention such as firstname.lastname@mymail.com or initial and surname jsmith@mymail.com put a “.” or an “_“ in there to break it up if need be; just avoid those emails which you may have thought fun five years ago but aren’t really something that you’d pot on a business card … there have been some doozies and I dare say that there’s a few recruitment firms out there with a white board listing the most inappropriate email addresses listed by seemingly oblivious job applicants.

The Subject Line and the Body of your email are vitally important in the application process. If you’re under the impression that your application is one of a few, try one of hundreds and then multiply that by other roles which the Recruiter or Internal Recruitment staff are also looking after; this makes what I say next quite poignant. The Subject Line should identify the actual Job Title and Job Number (if quoted) and personally I think that you should also add your name to the Subject Line as well for easier differentiation. Often the Subject Line acts as a quick reference allowing the Recruiter or Internal Recruitment staff to quickly identify and organise applications for open roles, depending on the time available they may also at that moment open your email and peruse your Resume with regard to the role which you’ve applied to and/ or forward your details onto the hiring manager. Making your application orderly and easy to identify considerably speeds up the process and takes the guess work away from the Recruiter or Internal Recruitment staff.

The Body of the email should I believe identify “who you are”, “what role you’re applying to” and “why you’re applying for that particular role”. This is also an opportunity to introduce any extra files which you may have attached such as appendices; again we are trying to be intuitive and take the guess work away from the recipient. A tip on files is to name them accordingly such as; jsmith_resume, jsmith_coverletter, jsmith_appendix1, jsmith_appendix2. I recently had a coffee with a friend applying for a role internally within her existing company and we had discussed Appendices and where do we put them, separately or at the bottom of the Resume. I think that either is fine but I do believe that the Body of the email represents a good opportunity to introduce the existence of these appendices or other supporting documents to the intended reader. This is also a good time for those of us who are a little bit tentative about having recruiters or prospective employers calling us in our current workplace; you can indicate a best time/day and number for them to give you a call should they be interested. Most recruiters and internal recruitment staff are quite good anyhow but at times you can get the overzealous type that will jump on the phone at any time of the day without too much of a thought.

I’m not going to go into writing a resume as this can be contentious and there’s a million different ways. In a very simple overview I always have “Education”, “Summary”, and “Work History” sometimes I’ll finish off with “Hobbies & Interests” as it’s good to see that people also have a life outside of work and that they have some balance. If you’re using LinkedIn or such sites, keep it on the straight and narrow, don’t embellish your career, make up titles or have friends give you false or overly grandiose recommendations. It should be a mirror, perhaps in summary so a little shorter but quite close in comparison to your actual resume. You will more often than not find that someone within the company potentially hiring you has worked with you before or knows somebody that knows you, transparency and honesty will go a long with your application and as well we hope with your soon to be new employer. There are professional Resume Writers out there in the industry and I won’t get into a spat with them as somewhere along the line they serve a purpose. However, I would personally prefer that someone made the effort and attempted for themselves to write a Resume and Cover Letter, for me it represents your ability to communicate, not just the written word but also communicate your actual experience so it should have your voice. You will certainly need to demonstrate suitable communications skills via email, a tender or slideshow, perhaps even in written form at some stage in your career and this will be seen by staff both within the firm and outside the firm.

Your Cover Letter is similar to the Body of your applications actual email but expands into much greater detail discussing your skills and experience as it fits the requirements of the role, arguing why your application should be successful and why you’re the best person for the job … in reality this is your sales case for the role, you can’t do this in your Resume, a Resume simply states and maps your career experience from the start of your working history to now, what you’re doing currently. I would do my research on the company and projects that they’ve been involved in, projects that they’ve recently won and explore avenues so that you can build this information into your actual application and Cover Letter, show them and demonstrate to them that you’ve researched the role and the company themselves. It can be a page or longer but make it concise, don’t just add paragraphs for the sake of adding paragraphs. At the level of staff that I work with I will pay attention to the Cover Letter and what has been written, have they put the effort in, or is this document a generic letter which has been copied down off of the internet as a “filler” in the application. A good well constructed Cover Letter will always demonstrate to me someone that not only communicates at a high level but also someone that’s a thinker and has considered the role and the actual company that they are applying to, effectively detailing and confirming to me their understanding.

Not everyone is a great writer. I’m certainly not one; this blog is more a vehicle which allows me to share my personal experience and knowledge with Job Seekers and Hiring companies alike. If you do lack confidence or haven’t picked up a pen in a while, or perhaps English isn’t your first language, go and do a creative writing course or at the very least pick-up a couple of books. One book that I highly recommend is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynn Truss you can buy this is most bookstores or on amazon. I have a copy and constantly find myself thumbing back and forwards in its pages. Unfortunately the digital age makes it all a little too easy on many of us but not necessarily better especially when it comes to communications. Let’s face it there’s a very very good chance that you will be expected to communicate both with internal and external assets on projects, or tasks in your workplace. It’s better to acknowledge communications as being a potential weakness and working towards developing those skills more, just as you would any other skills which you rely on for your work and to progress your career then to rely on someone else doing it for you. It just takes some time and solid application.

Note: Our next blog will be on the Interview itself, going over some preparation before you walk through the door or take the phone call … thanks again for taking the time to read my blog and I hope that it’s been of some benefit to you.