You’ve found the ideal job to apply for. It offers the salary and benefits you want, is in the right location and, most importantly, you know you have the experience, education, and skills to do the job well. Your challenge now is to show the employer that you have everything they want.
Before you can do that, however, you need to find out exactly how good a fit you are for the job.
Matching you to the job
You know that you’re a good fit for the job, but at this stage, the employer doesn’t. The first step in proving your suitability is to identify the crossover between your experience and skills and those listed in the job description.
- Make a list of:
- your hard and soft skills, for instance, touching typing, computer programming, communication, and leadership
- education and qualifications, such as GCSE, A ‘level, BTEC qualification, degree, apprenticeship, and courses completed at work
- work experience, for instance, roles and responsibilities, size of company worked for, industries you’ve worked in
- Read through the job description and pick out any skills or experience that you have but haven’t included in your list. Add them to your list.
- Find the crossover between your list and the job description. How many of the essential requirements can you tick off? How many of the ‘would like but not essential’ requirements do you possess?
- If there are skills, qualifications, or work experience mentioned in the job description that you don’t have:
- could you develop them? For instance, could you work towards a qualification or ask for extra responsibility in your current role to gain leadership experience?
- can you explain to the employer how you can bridge this gap or why you would be a good fit for the job without that skill or experience?
- consider whether this is the right job for you now or whether you need to gain extra experience first?
- Research the employer. Specifically, research the company culture to find how good a fit you would be for the organisation as well as the job.
With all this information in hand, you can now provide proof of your suitability to the employer.
In your CV
Your CV is an ideal way to demonstrate your skills, qualifications, and experience, but it’s essential that you adapt your CV to each job that you apply for. That means focusing on the factors that the employer wants to see.
Begin with a powerful CV summary that states who you are, what you’re looking for, and the skills and experience that you bring to an employer.
Your work experience should speak for itself, but it may still be necessary to reword this section to show your suitability.
Finally, show off your key skills. This can be done in the work history section, but you may also like to create a separate skill section that details both your hard and soft skills.
Once you’ve adapted the separate sections of your CV, check over the document as a whole to make sure that each section works together in showcasing your suitability for the job.
In your application letter
Your next opportunity to demonstrate that you have what the employer wants is in your application or cover letter.
Gone are the days when your cover letter simply stated that you wanted to apply for the job and your contact details. Nowadays, your cover letter provides you with a chance to inject some personality into your application and reiterate what makes you the best candidate for the job.
At interview
Should you be invited to interview, you may feel that the employer is fully in control of what you tell them. However, while the employer will decide what questions to ask, you are in control of your answers.
One way to structure your answers is to use the STAR technique. STAR stands for situation, task, action, result:
S – find a situation that is relevant
T – explain the task you were asked to carry out in that situation
A – explain the action you took to improve/solve that situation
R – describe the result and the part you played in reaching that result
At the end of the interview, you will generally be asked whether you have questions for the employer. This is your chance to show that you’ve researched the role and the company but also to portray yourself as an ideal candidate. Think about the type of impression you want to convey. By the way, if the employer doesn’t ask this, don’t be afraid to say that you have questions for them.
Final Thoughts
It’s tempting to think that if you’ve provided a CV and/or fill in an application form, you don’t need to sell yourself further to the employer. However, if you’re just one of several candidates who are ‘on paper’ a good fit for the job, then you need to go that one step further to demonstrate your suitability.
Kent Recruitment Bureau thanks Fi Phillips of JobLookup for this article.
