Bruce Woodcock
University of Kent
Careers and Employability Service
Application Forms
You can download a copy of this
presentation at
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/slides.htm
Selection methods of top employers in 2014
How not to do it ….
Working on a farm has improved my communication skills which are especially
important when working with large livestock.
Applying for job at biscuit company: my life-long love of chocolate biscuits, is the
main reason for my interest in the company
It's best for employers that I not work with people
On an application for a position requiring considerable people skills - My hobbies
include watching television, computer chess, stamp collecting and walking my 2
spaniels.
Reason for leaving last job: my employers insisted that all employees get to work
by 8.45 am and I could not work under those conditions.
I would like to be a prat of your respected company (email I received recently!)
I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.
Why do you want to work for us?
• Knowledge of company: products, services, clients,
competitors
not “Because you are a prestigious international
company with a good training scheme”
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/commercialawareness.htm
• How your skills and attributes fit the role and
the company e.g. competitive or collaborative
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/interviews/cultural-fit.htm
Evidence of careful research
What is wrong with this?
Investment bank CV scorecard
Finance firms often use ‘scorecards’ to rank CVs and decide who
to interview. Here is an example scorecard.

15% Class of your degree and ‘rank’ of university you went to.

10% Grades achieved at A level or equivalent. (more weighting
given to ‘classic’ A level subjects: economics will score higher than
business studies, for example.)

20% Amount of relevant work experience.

10% Speaking foreign languages.

20%. Extracurricular activities. (A high score requires high
achieving, exciting and multiple, extracurricular achievements.)

15% Presentation of your CV.

10% Demonstrating conviction about the role you’re applying for.
How to “sell” your degree
• List relevant modules (plus marks if good!)
• Projects – especially if relevant
• Technical/IT skills
• Soft skills – evidence of teamwork, project
management, problem solving etc..
Why you need to use a spell checker
•
I am a prefectionist and rarely if if ever forget details.
•
Proven ability to track down and correct erors.
•
I have good writen comunication skills.
•
Lurnt Word computor and spreadsheet pogroms.
•
Develop an annual operating expense fudget…
And why you must read it carefully as well
•
Extra Circular Activities
•
At secondary school I was a prefix
•
Over summer I worked for an examinations bored. (Kent BA English graduate!)
•
In my spare time I enjoy hiding my horse
•
I want experience in a big sex practice
•
I am a conscious individual.
•
Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave
•
I have a desire to work with commuters
•
Dear Madman (instead of Madam)
•
I hope to hear from you shorty
WORK EXPERIENCE
Summer 2013
Sainsbury's, Canterbury
Checkout assistant
This job developed my ability
to deal with the public and
work under pressure
Don’t feel you have to include every job
“In addition to the above, I have held a variety of
temporary jobs during school and university
vacations, including fruit-picking, factory work,
bar work and waiting on tables”
INTERESTS
• Reading, cinema, travel
• Travel: traveled through Europe by train
this summer in a group of four people,
visiting historic sites and improving my
French and Italian
• Reading: helped younger pupils with
reading difficulties at school
• Cinema: member of the University FilmMaking Society
• Diverse interests: evidence of people
skills, organising, leadership, initiative,
responsibility.
The Application form
Work Experience
How? Why?
Was this the
main
benefit?
“My role as a intern at xxx was of the most benefit
as I increased my confidence. My team had a high
degree of autonomy and it was a demanding
working environment where I was often required to
work long hours, followed by presentations to senior
managers. The role particularly allowed me to
experience the many different functions that exist
within a business. It was also a great opportunity to
experience new cultures.”
How is this
relevant?
But did you
have autonomy
+ demanding
work?
What did
you present
and how?
And? What
did you
learn? How
has this
influenced
your career
decisions?
COMPETENCY QUESTIONS ON FORMS
Describe a situation
where you had to .....
• show leadership
• make a difficult
decision
• overcome a difficult
obstacle
• refuse to compromise
• work with others to
solve a problem
COMPETENCY QUESTIONS: STAR APPROACH
• Start by briefly outlining the Situation
• Keep the focus on your specific Tasks and responsibilities
• Say what Action you took, then try to summarise what
you achieved. If it’s a group task, make sure you define
your own role and contribution. This is the biggest part
• Give concrete Results when possible. If you cannot be
totally positive about the experience, say what you
learned from it and what you might do differently next
time.
• Situation/Tasks/Action/Result =
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/compet/skillquest.htm
Competency-based questions
The bad…..
•
The biggest challenge whilst carrying out the assignment was
conducting a financial analysis on the company. I was assigned this
task, as I had previous experience in this area as I have carried out
two financial and accounting modules during my University degree. I
conducted a full ratio analysis on the company, which included
analysing Next's Profit and Loss Account and Balance Sheet. I
presented the ratios and included details of the company's current
financial position, along with an explanation of how the company
could improve their position.
The Presentation involved presenting our group's report on Next Plc
to the rest of the Marketing group. Our group conducted a Microsoft
Powerpoint presentation, to ensure it was conducted in the most
efficient and systematic way. Each member presented their individual
section, the final section then included contributions by all group
members. Our group had practised the presentation on numerous
occasions prior to the final presentation, which ensured a smooth
running. Each member of the Marketing class was given a feedback
form to report their opinions of the presentation. Our group received
all positive feedback and were all awarded a 2:1 for the presentation,
this contributed towards the final outcome of or Marketing modules.
Apathy- did
not put self
forward for
task.
No
ownership,
leadership.
No
individual
result.
Competency-based questions
The ridiculous...
• Mealtimes are a difficult and challenging time as this is one
affair when my friends and I are truly tested in our decision
making skills.
• There has been more than one occasion where a unified
agreement on what to do about dinner has proven to be a
problem. I therefore take it upon myself to be the
spokesperson for the group. One example would be where
two of my friends wanted chicken nuggets and hence
wished to go to McDonald’s while three others preferred the
Chicken Royale from Burger King as opposed the the
McChicken Sandwich one can get at McDonalds. Using my
initiative, intuition and lateral thinking I suggested that we
all go to KFC instead. My reasoning was that this was that
KFC do chicken popcorn and are a far better choice than
chicken nuggets. While their Fillet Tower Burgers are a step
up from the standard Burger King Chicken Royale as they
have a hash brown in them as well. Thus using some
originality of thought, a certain degree of diplomacy and a
persuasive tongue I convinced them all to join me at KFC.
Does not
bring the
group with
them.
No
recognition
of others’
opinions.
Competency-based questions
The good:
Throughout my A Levels, I worked part-time with Flora Motley, initially
as a sales assistant although after one year I was promoted to Weekend
Accounts Manager.
Within my extended duties, which also included bookkeeping and
budget plans, one of my principal tasks was to increase the intake of
Store Account Card customers, as Head Office was concerned that the
branch was under-performing in this area.
To tackle this assignment, I took the initiative to introduce new selling
techniques and to increase staff awareness in relation to the account
card and our customers' specific needs.
This involved running fortnightly training sessions and monthly
meetings to monitor our progress as a branch. I also developed an
incentive scheme, which offered prizes or additional paid time off, to
reward staff upon completion of continually increasing targets. As a
result of this work, the branch's customer account card uptake rose by
45% over the year, and our store's nationwide ranking in this criteria
escalated from 40th to 6th position. My efforts received commendation
in the Flora Motley Monthly Newsletter.
High performer
The problem
Identified a
solution …
… and
implemented it
A positive
outcome
Action Verbs
created
instructed
analysed produced
negotiated
designed
calculated
maintained
administered …….
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cv/actionverbs.htm
CAREERS WEB SITE
• Help with applications and interviews
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/applicn.htm
• Example CVs and Covering Letters
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cvexamples.htm
CV Checklist
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cv/cv-checklist.htm
VIDEOS
• APPLICATIONS
• INTERVIEWS
• ON-LINE APPLICATIONS
• SELECTION CENTRES
• All last about 25 minutes and are
excellent!
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/IntVid.htm
Careers Employability Award on Moodle
• Half the unemployment rate for students who complete the award
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/moodle.htm
• DP2650 Email bw@kent.ac.uk if you have problems enrolling
DP2650 Careers Employability Award on Moodle
 Get your CV quickly and professionally reviewed
online in the CV assignment
 Learn how to give high quality answers to
application form competency questions in the
Competency Skills assignment and get a
question answer reviewed for quality.
Employability Fest
26th Oct. – 6th Nov.
www.kent.ac.uk/ces/empfest
100 careers events all over campus
Careers Fair
134 employers
Tues 3rd Nov 12 to 3 pm, Sports Halls
www.kent.ac.uk/ces/careersfair
AXA, Allianz, Accenture, CIMA, Deloitte,
Fidessa, GT, Halifax, ICAEW, Lloyds, Morgan
Stanley, PwC, RSM, Institute of Actuaries,
Kent-Teach, DSTL, Airbus, IBM, Civil Service
etc.
Bruce Woodcock
University of Kent
Careers and Employability Service
CVs and Covering Letters
You can download a copy of this
presentation at
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/slides.htm
IBM Mentoring Scheme at Kent
For further details and info. on how to apply, see www.kent.ac.uk/careers/IBM.htm
In 2015-6, IBM will be working with students at the University of Kent, mentoring first-year students looking to
do a placement as part of their degree and second year students who will be applying for employment in
their final year. You can be studying for any degree subject and don't need advanced computing skills.
The aim is to increase awareness of employability, the recruitment process, key competencies employers are
looking for and advice/tips for securing a placement or graduate scheme position. The mentors will either be
currently on the IBM placement scheme or will have joined as a graduate and will be encouraged to share their
own experiences with their mentees.The scheme is not about encouraging you to join IBM but will give you
valuable skills to apply successfully to any organisation.
IBM is keen to encourage undergraduates to begin considering their careers sooner. We want to make students
aware of how competitive today’s job market is and give them guidance on how best to promote themselves. This
will give them the best chance of applying not just to our schemes but other employers’ too. The scheme also
provides students with a fantastic chance to improve and enhance their skillsets before they begin applying.
It is a virtual mentoring scheme: most contact with students is either via email, telephone or by Skype. Mentoring
is a relationship, and communication between mentors and mentees is key. Students who are selected will be
encouraged to manage their relationship with their mentor.
Application is by CV and short answers to 2 questions: how you would benefit from being mentored and
what are your interests?
I have learnt a lot of useful things from the scheme. My mentor is amazing person who is always ready to guide
you help as much as possible. I feel lucky to be within this scheme. She has advised me across all issues which
did concern me before the scheme. After consistent cooperation with her I gained valuable knowledge regarding
how to improve my employability. Moreover, the importantly I have secured a place for a summer insight program
in PwC. I would have not been able to do that without her help.
Talking to someone who has relatively recently been where we are now has been very helpful as they understand
the decisions we have to make and how overwhelming it can be. Having the mentor focus on areas we
specifically want to improve or learn about has been extremely helpful and has provided me with the next steps to
take towards my desired career.
Moodle Careers Employability Award
14 Quizzes: need 75% to pass
• Employability skills quiz
• Employability skills quiz: drag and drop
• How to develop the skills employers want?
• Test your spelling and grammar!
• What makes you happy at work?
• How commercially aware are you?
• Special interests topic lesson
• Interview preparation
• Practice interview
• What are the most common interview
questions?
• Aptitude tests and assessment centres
• CV quiz
• CVs and covering letters: drag and drop quiz
• Career planning drag and drop quiz
Assignments: complete 3 of
these
• Analyse your skills and learn
how to make top quality
applications
• Do you want to live to work or
work to live?
• Researching careers
• Choosing a career
• Submit a CV
• Social media
Action planning
DX_CEA Careers Employability •Award
(2014/15)
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/moodle.htm
Types of CV
Reverse Chronological
outline your career history in date
order, normally beginning with the most
recent
items.
The
"conventional"
approach and the easiest to prepare.
Skills-based
highly-focused CVs which relate your
skills and abilities to a specific job.
work well for mature applicants and
for those whose qualifications and work
experience are not directly relevant to
their application.
P 14 Applications Booklet




EMAILING CVS
• Many employers are happy to accept CVs as an attachment
to an email.
–Put your covering letter as the body of your
email. Format it as plain text (use the format
heading on Outlook Express to do this), so it
can be read by any email reader.
–Your CV is then sent as an attachment, in MS
Word format, Rich Text (.rtf) or html format are
acceptable. Say you'll send a printed CV if
required.
–Email it back to yourself first to check it.
Research by forum3 found:
• The average graduate will send out 70 CVs when looking for
their first graduate job. The average number of responses is 7
including 4 rejections and the remainder inviting the graduate to
interview or further contact.
• The more CVs you send out the more interviews you get.
• Applicants who included a covering letter with their CV were
10% more likely to get a reply.
• Applicants who addressed their application to the correct
named person were 15% more likely to get a letter of
acknowledgement and 5% more likely to get an interview.
• Applicants sending CVs and letters without spelling mistakes
are 61% more likely to get a reply and 26% more likely to get an
interview. The most common mistakes not found in a spell
check were: fro instead of for, grate: great, liased: liaised,
stationary: stationery.
What is the purpose of a CV?
To inform the employer about your:
• education
• work experience
• skills
• interests
To persuade the employer that you are
potentially suitable for the job and are
therefore worth Interviewing.
Quiz!
• How long should a CV be?
• How long should a covering letter be?
• What is the sweet spot of a CV?
• What is a reverse chronological CV?
• Use spelling and grammar checker
carefully
• Can cut and paste sentences from CV
examples to make sure English is correct.
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cv/cvexamples.htm
Think about the job
CVs are normally targeted on a particular
job
 What tasks would the daily routine
involve?
 What skills would the job call for?
 What type of personality would suit the
job?
Answers for 300 jobs on:
www.prospects.ac.uk/links/occupations

PROVING YOUR ABILITY
There are four main things employers look at in CVs:
• Education - ability to think clearly, analyse and
assess information, draw conclusions, work
independently, research, etc
• Work experience - ability to get on with people,
work under pressure, meet deadlines, etc
• Leisure interests - ability to plan and organise, cooperate with others, compete, work hard to achieve
results ...
• Specific skills – e.g. driving licence, computing or
foreign language skills
CV Marking Criteria
•
Pleasing appearance: and clear logical layout. The 10 second quality test: hold the CV at arms
length and look at it for a few seconds. Does it look pleasing to the eye?
•
Clear structure with appropriate headings and logical development. Carefully organised. Identified
sections (e.g. Education, Work Experience). At least a line gap between sections. Name in big letters at
start. Normally Education before Work Experience for a student CV.
•
Don't separate education and qualifications: try to keep all the information about a particular topic
together in one place on the CV, rather than fragmented throughout.
•
Absence of spelling, grammatical and syntax errors. Correct capitalisation
•
Modules, projects, technical skills gained and grades (if good!) for vocational courses. Neat
alignment.
•
Reverse chronological order – most recent jobs first.
•
Lively writing style. Use of positive, active language. Easy to easy to read and pick out important
information. Appropriately selected examples to provide evidence that you have the skills, interests and
personal attributes to do the job and fit into the organisation.
•
Describe key tasks, responsibilities and skills gained from work experience e.g. customer
service skills.
•
Concise and to the point - no more that 2 sides of A4. Short, clear phrases.
Use of bold and italic to draw eye to key points. Good use of bullets. Proper bullets rather than
hyphens
Just one or two sensible fonts e.g. Tahoma 10 points. Not too small font sizes. Larger fonts for
subheadings.
•
No dense paragraphs - a good rule is no more than 7 or 8 lines in a paragraph. If more, separate into
smaller paragraphs, use bullets or bold out key words.
•
Interests. A broad variety? Social and active rather than solitary and passive interests? Serious
commitment to at least one activity? Evidence of getting on well with other people? e.g. team sports.
Independent or challenging holidays/foreign travel? Organising or leadership experience/evidence of
taking responsibility?
SKILLS-BASED CVs
Examples of evidence of skills:
• Verbal Communication - assisted visitors
of many nationalities as a seasonal Tourist
Information Assistant, advising on places
of interest, transport and accommodation
and helping resolve any problems
• Time Management - have successfully
combined studies with a part-time job and
involvement in a number of drama and
music productions
Competencies
• Good attitude to teamwork. Friendly and cheerful
personality
• Proactive: able to use initiative. “No problem, I’ll do it!”
Problem solvers, not problem creators!
• Flexible and adaptable: learns new skills quickly.
• Enthusiastic, motivated Excellent communication skills –
dealing confidently with students, take phone messages
• Organised and efficient. Able to plan and organise their
own workload. Work to strict deadlines
• Microsoft Office: ECDL. Familiarity with databases, Excel
and the web
When should a CV be used?
• When an employer asks for applications to be
received in this format
• When an employer simply states "apply to ..." without
specifying the format
• When making speculative applications (i.e. when
writing to an employer who has not actually
advertised a vacancy but who you hope may have
one)
Choose a sensible email address:
Such as:
• eek_eek_i_am_dieing_eek_arg_errrg@milk.com
• death_metal_kitty@milk.com
• demented_bovine@gnumail.com
• platypus_mcdandruff@mail.com
• flockynockyhillipilification@gnumail.com
• virgin_on_the_ridiculous@hotmilk.com
• yourmywifenowgraham@gnumail.com
• original_madcow_jane@gnumail.com
• rage_against_the_trolley_fish@gnumail.com
• sexylikewoaaaah@hotmilk.com
PRESENTATION OF YOUR CV
• Use short sentences and
concise phrases
• Use bold type and bullet
points, but in moderation
• BSc. And MSc. Not Bsc or
MSC!
• Don’t use lower case I: “i am
……”
THE COVERING LETTER
One side of A4 maximum
First Paragraph
Third Paragraph
 State the job you’re applying for.
 Summarise your strengths and
how they might be an advantage
to the organisation.
 Where you found out about it.
 When you're available to start
work (& end if it's a placement)
Second Paragraph
 Relate your skills to the job.
Last Paragraph
 Why your interested in that type
of work
 Mention any dates that you won't
be available for interview
 Why the company attracts you (if
it's a small company say you
prefer to work for a small friendly
organisation!)
 Thank the employer and say you
look forward to hearing from
them soon.