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Applications, CVs and Interviews

Applications and CVs

A CV or application form is a summary of your skills and experiences to demonstrate to an employer that you meet their specific criteria. Different employers will have different requirements so find out what the recruiter is expecting.

The Take Action section of Career Planning Toolkit offers helpful information and tips on

Things to consider when writing an application….

  • Allow more time than you think you need to prepare any application and make sure you target them to each role separately.
  • Get a variety of perspectives on the content of your application, ask friends, family, colleagues to make sure you are not using jargon or haven’t made any silly mistakes.
  • Read your application and ask yourself ‘why am I telling them this? what am I trying to demonstrate?’ and then make sure you make that clear. Ensure you focus on explaining the significance of your achievements.
  • Try to identify the relevant transferable skill used, include evidence of that skill and the outcome.

Interviews

Ideally, you need to give yourself plenty of time to prepare for an interview as it is the main way an employer has to confirm your suitability for the position they have available. However, sometimes the amount of time available to you can be severely limited.

For help with your interview preparation, see the career planning toolkit: Perform well at interview.

Planning your interview answers
 
It is good practice to think about the questions you could be asked at interview and think of work situations you have experienced which will help underline your skills. STAR is a technique that is familiar to many recruiters and can be used to enhance your response to questions in the following ways:
 
Situation or Task: Describe the situation you were in or the task that needed to be completed, set the context. Make it concise and informative, for example, if the question is asking you to describe a situation where you had to deal with a difficult person, explain how you came to meet that person and why they were being difficult. If the question is asking for an example of teamwork, explain the task that you had to undertake as a team.
 
Action: Demonstrate and highlight the skills and personal attributes that the question is testing. Here you may want to describe how you utilised the team to achieve a particular objective or how you used your communication skills to keep everyone updated on progress. Be sure to remember the following:
  • Be personal, i.e. talk about you, not the rest of the team.
  • Go into some detail. Do not assume that they will guess what you mean.
  • Steer clear of technical information, unless it is crucial to your story.
  • Explain what you did, how you did it, and why you did it.
Result: Explain what happened eventually – how it all ended. Also, use the opportunity to describe what you accomplished and what you learnt in that situation. This helps you make the answer personal and enables you to highlight further skills. This is probably the most crucial part of your answer. Interviewers want to know that you are using a variety of generic skills in order to achieve your objectives.
 

After the interview

After any interview think about what went well and what didn’t, noting any important conclusions. If you get the job, well done (see Respond to job offers and negotiate salary). If you didn’t make sure you ask for feedback and learn from the experience.

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