Ace applications Types of questions: open or closed? Some questions are straightforward. You are asked to provide personal details, followed by exam results and work experience. These questions require short, factual answers or selecting options from drop-down lists, such as your preferred geographical location and choice of career, and the function or role of interest – e.g. research, production, marketing or finance. Open questions are harder to answer. These are designed to test your self-awareness and career understanding, for example: • Why have you chosen a particular career? Click to watch a short video Take action on your applications and tailor each one. Your efforts should then pay off. Recruiters apply their company’s selection criteria when assessing an application and gain their first impression of you from reading this. Producing a well researched and carefully focused application is vital! Make or break Many applications fail for basic reasons that could easily have been avoided – such as mistakes in spelling and grammar, waffle, clichés or not being concise and specific enough. Most large organisations will want you to use the company application form and apply online. Check the instructions carefully so you know whether you need to be fine-tuning your CV or filling in an online form. Be aware that for some large multinational organisations your application documents may be scrutinised by applicant tracking software to score how relevant your application is to the job requirements. Using similar language to the advert and providing clear and unambiguous evidence of the skills and qualities required will help you do well with this part of the application process.
• What evidence do you have of the qualities and abilities needed to succeed in it? • Do you understand what the career involves? • Can you provide examples of skills such as teamwork, commercial awareness and problem solving? Employers want your broader skills to match their selection criteria, hence they may ask the following of you: • Give an example of when you achieved a goal through working in a team. • What did you do that made a difference? • How do you know you were successful? Your answers • Draw up a list of skills the employer is looking for • Review your activities and achievements to find evidence that matches the selection criteria • Draft your responses, giving yourself credit for what you have achieved or learned • Always market yourself positively • See the application forms webpage for more information
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