Application Forms - Selling Yourself
* On Top Form
Whereas the resume or curriculum vitae is quite rightly your own personal advertisement.
The application for tries to take away your ability to tell the employer what you would like them to know and replace it with what they want know about you.
To be fair, the employer may just want to have a level playing field, unfortunately very few of them know much about the layout of Application Forms and the effect that a bad form can have on the applicant.
With that in mind many people will make mistakes on Application Forms or will not provide the information that has been requested.
So, lets take this in a methodical way and reduce the chances of making a mistake.
* Step by Step - Follow this easy guide.
1) If possible make 2 or 3 photocopies of the Application Forms.
2) Read the questions on the Application Forms carefully, most of the questions will be straight forward, but some of them may be badly worded.
3) Using a pencil and one of the copies, complete the standard bits of the Application Forms, name, address, date of birth etc.
4) Whenever you are required to provide employers or previous details, dates of employment and job titles, use your resume as a guide so you don't forget anything.
5) In any area of the form that allows you to provide extra information about yourself or your previous employment, use the short punchy statements from your resume. If the Application Forms has plenty space for that sort of information (most don't) then use bullet points and space the statements.
6) Complete the rest of the Application Forms.
7) Make yourself a coffee.
8) After you have finished your drink, go through the completed form carefully. Identify any mistakes that you have made.
(i) Check spelling.
(ii) Check that non of the boxes look crowded.
(iii) Get a friend to read through the Application Forms.
9) If you make any mistakes, erase the mistake and add the corrections.
10) If you need to, use the other photocopies until you have a perfectly completed Application Forms.
11) Now carefully transfer that information using a Black ink Biro to the original Application Forms.
Although these 11 steps are incredibly time consuming, when done correctly, they make a big difference to the look of the completed original.
Once you have completed the Application Forms make a photocopy and ensure that you have a high quality covering letter to accompany it and you are done.
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