Crafting An Impressive Job Application
In today’s highly competitive and increasingly complex business environment, the curriculum vitae (CV) or resume is the single most important career document for any jobseeker. Preparing an impressive job application is thus undeniably an important starting point in the process of searching for a suitable job. However many people enter the job market without a clear understanding of the job search process and the purpose of the CV/resume. It is quite common to find jobseekers with the mistaken belief that the purpose of the CV or resume is to land them their desired job. As a result of this mistaken belief many jobseekers view the job interview as a mere formality and spend an inordinate amount of time on crafting their job application. The end result is usually an unimpressive and tedious document that highlight to potential employers their desperation rather than the jobseeker’s suitability for the job.
As a jobseeker you need to first understand that searching for a job is actually a two stage process. The first stage is carefully crafting a good job application to hook an interview from a prospective employer. The more focussed and relevant your job application, the better are your chances of getting selected for the job interview. The second stage involves determined effort and adequate preparation to perform well at the interview to secure the job offer. It is then through the job interview that suitable candidates are shortlisted before the employer makes the final decision on filling the position.
With the clear purpose of the interview in mind, jobseekers should also be careful that they are using an appropriate CV or resume format to present their information to match the expectations of the potential employers. Today you can readily find a vast number of CV and resume templates from the internet, management publications and institutions. This can easily confuse and lead you to use an inappropriate template for your job application.
Fundamentally all jobs can be profiled into four categories based on the required level of education, working experience, professional expertise or a combination of these needed to perform the work functions effectively. Thus as a consequence despite the numerous templates available there are also basically only four formats as far as job applications are concerned. Which format is appropriate would then depend largely on the educational qualifications, competencies, experience and accomplishments of the jobseeker matching the profile of the job position.
Formats
Education-centred: This format is generally most appropriate for new entrants with little or no work experience. The primary emphasis of the CV/resume is on your educational qualifications, academic achievements and key skills. For a new entrant skills can include internship, volunteer work and other campus experiences relevant for the applied position. Any suitable employment history is briefly summarized or avoided.
Experience-centred: This is a suitable format for individuals with many years of working experience but with little or lacking in educational qualifications and training. As experience is the major focus, facts on the person’s employment history are listed in reverse chronological order with brief description of key skills and responsibilities.
Expertise-centred: This format is only suitable for professionally qualified individuals with specialist qualifications, extensive training, experience and achievements in a specific field or industry. Prominence is given in the document to work experience supported by summaries of key competency areas, expertise and career accomplishments.
Integrated: This is suitable for individuals, especially young graduates with the necessary educational qualifications and a few years of relevant working experience. The emphasis is on the individual’s educational level and skills while also presenting employment history and relevant experience to strengthen the job application.
No matter which format is used, fundamentally five elements are important in making a job application impressive.
Important elements
Suitable length: A resume is essentially a summary of what is covered in slightly more detail in a CV. Generally a resume application is about two pages long and a CV about five pages. Employers usually evaluate and judge a job application within five minutes when there are many applicants. Within this time frame the document should be able to attract the employer’s attention to salient information on the applicant.
Readability: Most importantly the document must be easy to read. The CV or resume has to be clearly structured to help the potential employer find necessary information easily. It must be inductive such that the reader need not have to go through the whole document to gather relevant information. Long sentences and paragraphs with too many ideas as well as slangs and jargons should all be avoided.
Professional image: The first impression of the jobseeker comes from the job application. As such it should be neat and consistently well organized. Sentences should be short and clear with consistency in headings and fonts. Inappropriate e-mail addresses and unsuitable photographs that do not project a professional image should be avoided.
Relevant content: Only relevant information should be included in the document as this would demonstrate to the potential employer that the applicant has good judgement. Generally strengths should be highlighted and weaknesses given less emphasis. Jobseekers should avoid sending a single standard document for all job vacancies. Each document should be tailored to emphasize only competencies and experiences directly relevant for the job position applied for.
Error free: Sufficient thought and time must be invested to carefully write, edit and proofread the job application. There should never be any factual, typographical, spelling, grammar or punctuation errors in the final document. Even a small error can affect a professional image and cost the jobseeker the opportunity for a job interview.
