Job Applications

I detest writing job applications. Yet here I am doing it again, after swearing never to write another one in my life. I have a perfectly good job but something inside keeps niggling away. I’m sure I could do the job that was advertised, and it is only for ten weeks. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain – experience at a higher level, more options in the future and of course that little bit more money would never go astray.

I applied for the job and didn’t get it. No-one did. Unlike some of the other applicants who threw their hat in the ring, I called the convenor for feedback. She gave me lots of useful advice, including how to structure my paragraphs to make it easier for those on the panel to find key information. The first sentence is to introduce what I will talk about, the second to state how this relates to the selection criteria and the next sentences to give detail before closing off with the impact of my work. It sounds easy but is incredibly difficult to do in half a page with several examples.

I am not a fast writer and I do overthink things. The first application took a good couple of days. Rewriting this application, I started from scratch and put my ideas into an Excel spreadsheet under each category. Just that process took two days to complete and then another day and a half to rewrite the application within the limited space provided.

The job hasn’t been readvertised, but I am ready. I have asked my boss for some feedback, and we will meet tomorrow morning to go through what I have written. No doubt there will be more changes. I have come this far, so I can go the distance. There are no guarantees that I will be successful next time, but at least I have listened to feedback and learnt some useful tips in the process. Surely, that is worth the time I have invested.