Job applications - cover letters, application forms and interviews

Today’s session is how to write yourself into an interview, effective Cover Letters and Application forms.

What will we aim to do today by the end of this session?

The objectives are understanding the differences between application forms and cover letters.

Know when to use one or the other, or possibly both of them.

And some final tips on how to make the best impression on the hiring committees that actually receive your application forms and cover letters.

Would anyone like to tell me in the chat if they have recently filled out an application form or prepared a cover letter, and if that was for a, um, an academic position or a non-academic position?

Just a yes or no is fine. Yes. Academic. No, no. Yes. For academia, more than 20. No. Interview industry. One application. One interview, yes. Academic. Okay. Thank you for, to those who answered.

So, let’s start with what is a cover letter? You’ll see here on the right hand side, we have a quote from one of the employer partners that Prosper has collaborated with and being in touch with throughout the pilot phase of Prosper, which finished during the summer.

And as you can see, what it says here is, let me just move this: ‘the best covering letters have clearly been written specifically for the role and demonstrate why a candidate is interested in the specific position and where they feel their strengths and experience fit’.

Cover letters should, should address specific points, should show the skills that you have, the motivations for you to go into that specific position, show your abilities to fulfill the criteria, that are delineated, expressed into the job description.

And they should match: anything that you write in a cover letter should match the job description.

So, it is not an easy, an easy thing to do, but there are ways of doing it. There are some tricks.

So I would like to get you to do a small group activity now. You should have received a link to a folder where you can download a file for exercises. This includes, the file includes a sample cover letter on the first page and some examples answer for an application form on the second page.

If you haven’t received it, please let me know and we can share it with you. So what I would like you to do is in breakout rooms. First of all, I’m giving you 10 minutes for this exercise, but I would like you to dedicate the first couple of minutes to actually introduce yourself to the rest of the group. What I would like you to do in the group is then read the sample cover letter and assess it, give some pointers.

How would you, how would you improve it? What are the issues in this cover letter? And I want you to pick a person of your group to them feed back, and you’ll probably, and later you’ll understand why I want you to do the exercise before actually giving you the solutions: I want you to come up with solutions yourself.

So has everybody got access to this, to the files at this link, please, if you don’t let me know. If not, Andrew, when you’re ready, you can get them into breakout rooms.

Yes. Okay. Welcome back everyone. Just to give you a few pointers, yes, as some of you have said, there is, it’s very basic. There is, uh, no indication of who this letter is addressed to specifically. It feels as if they have a standard one that they just sent, not really made it suitable match the job description or the job they are applying for. The fonts are not the same or they are different size, so it’s not tidy in a way. Even the details at the very top are incomplete. They’re not complete. As you can see, it gives the name, but then it doesn’t give the full, the full address. So why would you put half of it rather than the full address?

Um, okay. That’s great. Thank you so much. I’ll start sharing again. So let me see. General feedback that I sort of put in that in a slide is incomplete. It is addressed ‘to whom it might concern’ rather than specifically the hiring manager, that is usually specified on the job description. No self-introduction. We know nothing about this person. They just refer to an enclosed cv. Why would you do it? No indication of motivation. So again, there is no why, no indication of skills or very basic and not tailored to the job. So, great. Thank you so much for participating in the exercise.

So to give you some pointers about what a cover letter should look like. So I’ll start from the right hand side. You’ll see that the cover letter should be one or two A4.

Usually for an academic job, you can probably spread it over two A4s, two sides, two pages. But if it’s an industry job or a job in another, in another organisation that is not academia, stick to one, try and squeeze it into one, because that’s a standard practice.

Remember to include your contact details, full details please, including email address and phone number.

Put a date, include the company details. Make sure that you know who you’re talking to: include the details of the hiring manager.

The cover letter should be clear and consistent, and have consistent fonts. Don’t write something in size 14 and another one in size 11, that’s very bad practice.

And try and use action verbs: I can do, I do, rather than I would like, I will do. It is more positive rather than passive.

Now, there is a general cover letter layout that you can use as a sort of mini template. We can’t really talk about a template because every cover letter has to be specific to the job.

But in general, you can sort of divide the cover letter into four paragraphs.

The first paragraph is about introduction. Use this paragraph to actually introduce yourself: be specific to who you are, indicate the vacancy you are applying for

because it could be that that specific organisation has several vacancies opened at the same time. So you want to be specific, making sure that the person reading your cover letter knows what you’re applying for.

Then if we go to the second paragraph, you have to tell the hiring manager why them, why do you want to work for that organisation, for that department, for that faculty, for that person. It’s very important to do that.

You demonstrate your understanding of a sector, for example, and why you are enthusiastic about that specific field or about a specific career in that field.

In the third paragraph, you should focus on why you, why you are the most suitable candidate for that specific job. Look at the job description or the person specification. Give brief examples of your strengths or abilities and how these match to what is written in the role. Use action verbs as I suggested. Use, for example, success, how you succeeded, how you achieved in something that’s very important. Give examples of skills, specific skills that might be mentioned into the job description. Again, this is very important: it shows that you’ve read it properly, that you know

what they’re looking for. And ensure that any example you give about your work experience matches to what is in your cv. Remember that they still have to match. You shouldn’t, you should avoid, um, give an example for something that is not specified in your cv.

And finally, the the last paragraph, um, is the paragraph that sort of closes your cover letter and where you thank the hiring committee or the hiring manager for their attention

for reading the cover letter, for taking time. Where you can state if you’re not available for interview at any specific time. And always conclude with salutations. So yours faithfully, for example.

Do anyone have questions up to now? Now why are we going to application form and why is it important to differentiate between cover letter application forms.

If some of you have applied for academic jobs recently, you will probably know that lots of academics jobs allow you to write a cover letter where you sort of tell them why you will fit that person’s specification.

But a lot of jobs that are not in academia, or not specifically research jobs, so also jobs within higher education institutions, but that are for professional services for example, actually require you to fill out an application form.

Application forms nowadays tend to be online, so you literally have to fill out specific details, um, on an online application form. This will include of course your personal details, but also your work experience with dates, for example.

And, and then you can fill out usually either an entire section, so just copy and paste, basically whatever you write on a Word document; or specific smaller text box, that refer to the essential and desirable criteria that are included in the job description of that specific role.

So it’s important to be prepared to actually, address and be ready, and make a bit of an experience in writing a response to what the essential and desirable criteria of different job descriptions.

As you can see here, a little quote: ‘application forms should showcase your rationale as to why you are interested in the role in the company and a bit more about your background that a hiring manager might get from a cv. And they should aim [application forms] should aim to get a feel for you as an individual’.

So it’s very important to make sure that you know how to answer these.

So when you read a job description, you’ll have a section at the very beginning that just states where this job would be, where this role sits, for example, a department. And then you have a list of essential criteria, followed by a list, possibly a list of desirable criteria.

So remember that when you write an application form, it’s imperative to address every single criteria that is on there, especially the essential ones. Don’t feel scared and don’t feel that you can’t apply for a job if you are not sure if you fulfill completely one of the essential criteria. As long as you can demonstrate that you have some experience in that area or that you have skills, that you’ve gained skills in the different areas, that these are transferables for skills and that you can show that you can apply them to that specific criterion, then you should always apply and you should make, always make reference to those skills that you can bring in.

Now, how do you answer these criteria to make sure that you make the best impression to a hiring manager?

So the easiest way to think about it is using this form, this formula, which is called, what we call the STAR formula. STAR stands for situation, task, action, result, and sometimes reflection. So this type of formula is not used just exclusively to answer application forms or to answer to address the essential criteria. You can use this type of formula even at interview stage when you are asked question from the interview panel.

Now, what each of these means. So situation is, for example, a specific situation or problem that you encountered in the past. A task is a task that you were assigned to fulfill in  that specific situation, what your role was and what was expected from you. An action is the action you that you took to address the situation or solve the problem. And result is the outcome of the, the action or what you might have achieved or learned. If you think about adding reflection, reflection is very useful if you, if the result of this experience was not as positive one. So you can turn around this negative outcome with a reflection on it. This is very important because you show that you have learned from your experience.

Now, thinking about this star method is very important. It’s not always an easy thing thing to do, but it can give you a, it gives you a headstart. It sorts of helps you to make sure to articulate your experiences and your skills. So has anyone used the STAR method previously? Yes or no in the chat, please? Yes. Thank you. No, yes, no. Great. So one suggestion that I will give you, we’ll go into a breakout room soon, where you can look at some sample examples, and I would like you to think about this STAR method when you look at them. But one thing that I will tell you to do from now on is try and look at job descriptions that you like or of roles that you would like to have and try and write for every criteria an example and answer how to address that specific criterion, using the STAR method. So you think about your own experience and you lay out the situation, lay out the task, what you had to do in that situation, the action, the result, or the reflection if needed.

Okay? And try and do this quite consistently. It will help you in the future quite a lot. One thing that I always say to the people that I support in their development is try and make a collection of these direct examples. So you have them there ready and you refer back to them whenever you have to apply for a new job or whenever you have to apply for, or whenever you have to prepare for an interview.

So what we’ll do now in that same file that you used just earlier, in the second page, you have some sample, some answers, some examples to some of the of possible selection criteria. You’ll have seven minutes for this exercise. I would like you to have a read through them in group or each, each can have a read through them and think about answering these three questions.

Are the answers clear?

Do the answers address the criteria or the criteria that they refer to?

And would you select the candidate for interview? This is very important. It gives you an idea of what a selection committee might look for in a candidate. Okay? So Andrew, when you’re ready, you can break them out.

We have everything, everyone back. Perfect. Thank you so much. I hope you had a nice chat.

Would anyone like to feed back what your chat was about, how you thought the answers were, whether they were specific to that criteria, specific enough to the criteria and whether you would select the candidate for interview.  You can share in the chat if you don’t want to talk.

What did you think about the second one, the second example? It looks very blurry. It doesn’t give specific examples. It says many things, but nothing specific. And the important thing is actually being more specific to give evidence. We’re very good as researchers at giving evidence for what we say, but then when we write application forms, we’re very bad. We forget about the evidence. So it’s like, you know, when you write a paper, you want to cite other, other papers. Well do the same. Use your work experience, your experience, your skills, and make sure that you evidence them with good examples.

Yes. Thank you. What about the third one? Anyone would like to say anything? No, I’ll say something. It was not bad. It wasn’t a bad, a bad answer. It was not excellent, but it was definitely not a bad answer. Did you notice that this third one was for a desirable criteria rather than an essential one? That’s another thing that it’s important. So if you have, for example, if you’re pressed in time when answering, when filling out an application form, focus on the essential ones. Those are the more important ones and then go to the desirable ones. If you have them, that is great, but don’t worry too much about those if you don’t have time. And we know that most of the times you might, you know, you might be getting really close to the deadline. So focus first on the essential one. That’s the most important bit because that’s what the hiring committee will sort of look first and they will say, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick: they have all of these, this person, this candidate has all of the essential ones. And then they will go to the desirable ones.

Okay, thank you so much. So last but not least, final tips, and then you can go. Final tips. So application forms and cover letters are more than a simpler variation of your cv. Please, please don’t just refer to your cv, make them specific. Tailor your cover letter and application to whatever job you are applying for. Remember to read the job description properly. Read it more than once. Make sure that you understand what they’re looking for. Use the words that are included in the actual job description. Use those words because those are the ones that the hiring committee will remember. Do your own research into the company and organisation you’re applying to work to. This is the same as tailoring your cover letter and application form. You can show within the, the cover letter and application form that you have done your own research, that you know what the company organisation is looking for, not just in that specific role that you are applying, but in general what they are about. In general, it’s very important to understand the values of an organisation and referring to those values, the goals of the organization. Make sure to address those or refer to those, you’ll definitely make a very good impression. And finally, showcase your skills. Cover letters and application form are a great way to showcase in the skills that you are more proud about and the ones that are more suitable for that specific job. So use them in a suitable way. Use those skills. Use the cover letter, the space that you have in the cover letter and application form

I’m Elizabeth, I’m one of the Prosper career coaches. This video is intended to help you preparing for job interviews by doing mock interviews. By that, I don’t just mean thinking through what you might want to talk about, but actually doing it, and roping someone else in to help you with that, and help you improve on your answers and get some feedback and some reflection. So I’ve included lots of resources for the person who is interviewing you as well, as well as yourself, and some mock interview questions, so that you can really go through that process and start to build your confidence in doing the interview. Before we start, I want you just to pause the video and write down what it is that you want to be proud of when you leave your next job interview.

So before you’ve heard anything about outcome, what do you want to know, ‘Yes, I nailed that thing, and that was my objective’, because that will be your objective going forward, to really improve on that one thing, or to really know that you’ve got it in the bag and feel happy and proud that you’ve achieved that. So pause now and think about that. Okay, hopefully now, you’ve got some clear ideas for what you want to achieve out of your next job interview, and they could come up at any point at short notice. So in an interview, you might end up with lots of different things, lots of different aspects to prepare for. The key thing is to understand what to expect in the format of the interview.

Now, some companies might share a lot of information in advance about what to expect. Some of the larger companies, they might have information on their website or even sometimes run sessions that you can go along to where they explain what they’re trying to get out of different approaches and question styles. There might also be a test, some sort of practical activity you have to do. For example, if you’re working, or if you’re interviewing for a publisher, they might give you a writing task, or there might be something to prepare in advance, or a presentation to give. This talk’s primarily based on the interview questions and how you prepare for those, but understanding where that factors in the rest of the interview format’s really important. Then when you’re thinking about the questions. Is there a particular style that the organisation might be likely to adopt? They might tell you. Bigger organisations will probably talk to you about things like doing competency-based interviews or strengths-based interviews.

If it’s an SME, they might never have interviewed before. They might never have hired anyone before. They might have a very structured approach, or actually, they might just have more of a conversation. I think if it’s a large public sector organisation, they’re much more likely to have a very structured approach to how long the interview lasts, exactly what questions they ask each candidate, and the process they do that, and who in the panel would ask those questions. That’s generally quite well-documented in the larger organisations. Just understanding what to expect is pretty important, and that’s the kind of thing you can try and find out in advance either by talking to HR contacts in the organisation or looking at their website, or talking to other people having those informal, informational interviews. Definitely draw on that, and I know you will as a researcher.

Also, looking at the company website to understand what their strategy is. If they have value statements or mission statements, what does that tell you? What does that connect with in you? Are there particular competency frameworks that they’ll look for? What does the job description tell you about what they’re looking for? What other clues do you have, and how can you piece them together so that you know what to expect. So I’ve put down here some example role-specific questions that you might be asked in an interview. These are ones that you probably have to practise and really think about for every role that you apply for. It’s not just something that you can bring out of the bag for different roles. I just wanted to mention, though, that those first two questions aren’t the same question. So quite often, a nice warm-up question might be, ‘What made you want to apply for this role?’ Sometimes, people use that as a springboard to say why they suit the role or why the role’s perfect for them, and that’s not actually the same thing. I think, if you want the interview to be a two-way street, then you need to think about why do you want it? What are they going to see that’s in the way that you talk about this job that makes them think, ‘Yes, this person really wants to work for us’? That’s maybe where some of the research you’ve done about the company and the organisation will give you some insight for those questions.

The third one down about, ‘What do you need to learn to be good at this role?’ They’re trying to find out if you have some self-awareness of your own skills and your own learning needs. It’s also a chance for you to demonstrate that you can learn things. So if, for example, in the job description, you read that they’re looking for a particular coding language, you might not know that or have any experience of it, but maybe you’ve already taught yourself a different coding language. So that would be your chance to say, ‘Well, actually, I’m not so hot on this one, but I know that I’d learn it, and this is the approach that I would take to learn it.’ So you’re demonstrating that you’re aware of where you’re not as strong, and no one’s good at everything in a job description, but you’ve got a plan in place for how you’d address it. Then, ‘What else would you like us to know?’ That’s just being aware of what’s really important about you for this role? So it’s a bit like the first two.

Then the final question about, ‘What questions do you have for us about the role?’ That’s the one that usually comes at the end and it’s your opportunity to leave the interview on a positive note, to ask any questions that you have, and find out a bit more about the team you might be working with or the organisation itself, the strategy, the role, if it’s a new role. I think it’s your chance to show that you’re interested, and be careful not to ask questions that could easily have been read in the information on the interview. Yes, just have a conversation. It is a two-way street. You have to want to work for this organisation, so ask them the questions that will help you make that evaluation. I mentioned at the start about strengths-based interview questions and competency-based questions. So these are some examples of strengths-based interview questions, and these are more commonly used, I think, in larger organisations, often where they do a lot of graduate recruitment and where they don’t feel that people maybe have as much experience to draw on. Also, because they think that people are going to work well where they’re playing to their strengths and their values and the things that are important to them. Those are all things you’ll have considered a lot, I think, during the Prosper programme.

So being able to actually think about what are you proud of? What do you do well? When are you in a good flow state when you’re working? What is it that makes that happen? How would other people describe you? Having this self-awareness will really help you with all of these questions, but also with other types of questions. You can find out more about that on the Prosper website, but practise a few of these. Competency-based interviews, on the other hand, can be quite complex. We’ve probably all had some experience of them, where they bring a particular competency from a framework and say, ‘Tell us about a time when you’ve had to do x.’ Give an example of something. There’s a way to answer these, and it’s drawing on evidence. I would say the strengths-based interviews are also drawing on evidence. It’s not a fluffy approach. It’s thinking about, who am I, what is my evidence for that? It’s the same for competency-based questions.

Sometimes, it helps to break them down. There might be more than one element in a question. So if you have a question that’s quite complex, you have to make sure that you think about what is it that they really want out of this? In this particular example, there might be three things that they’re looking for. They’re looking for a sufficiently complex example of when you’ve had to analyse data. They are looking for your approach to that. What did you have to take into account? Did you think about different stakeholders, and what might influence them? Then did you articulate the outcome, and were you actually successful at influencing or informing those management decisions? I think, sometimes, it can be tempting to hover around that middle bit about the approach and the data analysis, particularly if it’s really important to you. Make sure you get right the way to that outcome. So what happened? What did you do to influence, because that’s what they’re really asking here. So just being able to break down any competency-based question, and you might just want to write a few notes when they ask a question, so that you remember that you’re going to cover all of those three points. Feel free to ask for clarifications as well, and that maybe gives you a bit of time to think and formulate through your answer.

A model that you’ve probably seen for answering competency-based questions is the STAR model. So you take them through the situation that you were in, you set the scene. What was the task? What was required? Then what did you actually do? So just make sure that you check yourself for answering about ‘we’, or perhaps answering about what you always tend to do. What they want to know is what did you do in this specific example? Which specific action did you take? So if you are practising this, that’s probably the most helpful thing that someone can observe, is did you actually say what you did, and what you specifically did, not just what you might do or what you might always do. Then what was the outcome of that? Don’t forget that bit. Don’t waffle on for the action and then forget to actually them what happened as a result. So you wrote a report, and what happened with the report? What did that mean for people? Just being able to understand the learning in that as well can be quite helpful. So what we did in the workshop was we split into groups to look at how you could practise these interviews. This is something that I’m going to recommend that you go back and do with your friends, your colleagues, your family members.

Get someone to interview you and reflect on it yourself, but also get them to help you improve your interview answer. So I’ll lead you through the process that we worked on. So after you’ve asked someone a question, the observer should be looking for, did this person give an example that demonstrated what they did, rather than what we did as a group? Was there a clear context and action and a result? So there has to be a specific action there. Try and resist the urge to summarise all your experiences in one, or try to resist saying an answer that anyone in the job interview could say. So, ‘I like to lead by being a really good communicator,’ that’s not specific, and it’s something that most people would say. If you think about it, if I said the opposite, would it make sense, or would it be silly? So yes, if you say the opposite, ‘I don’t like to communicate.’ Well, no one’s going to say that, so just try and think about what’s the specific actions, and what does communication look like? If I say that I will be a good listener, what does good listening actually look like? What would people see happening there? So think about a clear context, action and result. As an observer, it’s really helpful if you can notice the level of technical detail. Did the person go off on a tangent that actually didn’t add anything, and took away from the listening, or was it confusing? Did they make any assumptions about your knowledge of academia and how things work? If you’re using publication, this is a proxy for something, is that going to be obvious to the person from outside of higher education who’s interviewing you? If you’re talking about a PI or supervising master’s students, will they necessarily know what that means? If not, it might be worth just spelling that out. So ask your observer just to note down when they’re listening, any assumptions that you’re making. Then the crucial one, did it actually answer the question? Did it demonstrate the thing that they were looking for? The influencing, the communication of complex data, all of those things. So these are your cues for the observer.

For you, as the person being interviewed, you also need to reflect on, was this your best example for that competency? Also, what other examples do you have? Did you talk about the things that you wanted people to know about? Also, you don’t have to talk about the things that you don’t want people to know about. So if, for example, they ask you a question about disagreements, working in situations of conflict or difficult situations, you don’t have to choose the most difficult thing in your life. It doesn’t have to be about a context where you’ve worked with someone that you really didn’t like personally. It might just be where you worked with someone from a different perspective, a different subject area, perhaps, in a collaboration, where you didn’t immediately know how to work together because you had different norms around how you work, how you publish. All of those things. So think about an example that you’re happy with sharing, but it doesn’t have to be something that’s really difficult to talk about.

Think about what else you’re proud of in that example, or what other people might have observed. Think about other examples as well, just in case that you’ve used your best example, and then you need something else. This is a role for your observer or the interviewer, to help you build a better answer. So if you give your answer, the interviewer might also ask, ‘What were you most proud of here? What else did you do? What was it you enjoyed about this? What was the learning here that you would take forward into a future career? What did others appreciate about what you did? What did your research collaborators or your students see you do?’ That actually adds something to this story that you’re telling, and it maybe adds some of the evidence that you had an impact or that there was an outcome to your action. ‘What were the specific skills or qualities that you brought to this situation? Then what happened, and what else? What else have you not talked about already?’ So someone asking you those questions might just help to expand your answer a little bit and give you a different perspective. So just thinking about it through lenses of different people.

How can you make this answer something that really tells a story and draws people in, and really provides that evidence and the depth to your story, rather than just a quick, transactional action? So this is your task, is to go away and recruit someone to interview you and to observe you. To go and reflect on your own experiences, and to help them as well, and hopefully it can be a two-way process. That, I think, is also my take-away for the interview itself. Remember it’s a two-way process, and it has to be a company that you want to work for. If you get a good vibe in the interview, that usually is a good vibe for the future as well. So go in feeling confident and think about it as more of a conversation. Yes, I hope it goes well.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]