With
the final Master of Marketing course wrapping up last week, many students have
already begun looking for job opportunities. Some have even sought out short-
term professional experience opportunities to undertake during the study break
period. To speed up the process, we spoke to the Careers and Employability
Office at the University of Sydney Business School who gave us some useful tips on how
to effectively navigate the job application process.
We start this series of posts with
tips for resumes
Your
resume is your marketing tool to an employer.
They will use it to determine if you have the potential to do the job
and want to further explore this potential at an interview. Your task is to ensure that your resume
presents you in the best possible light and provides information that convinces
the employer that you can do the job.
Therefore it should focus on the skills set needed to for the advertised
role – this skills set is often described as the selection criteria.
So
how can you focus your resume?
Don’t
use the same resume for every job, highlight information most relevant to the
selection criteria.
Under
each job heading when you record your duties, record the most relevant duties
(to the job you are applying for) first.
Use active verbs to start the sentences that highlight your duties.
Make sure your resume is achievement oriented – highlight academic achievements and work
based achievements. These could include
positions of leadership, prizes, awards, promotions, additional
responsibilities, targets met or exceeded etc.
The achievements could be included under each job you have held or
recorded as an Achievement Summary
Include
a skills section that directly addresses the selection criteria. Don’t rely on
a simple dot point list – state the skill and then provide evidence to
demonstrate where you have developed or enhanced the skills. For example:
Special Events Coordination
- Initiated several local and regional promotions. This involved extensive
research, planning, negotiation of sponsorship, liaison with police, councils,
community service groups, volunteers, sponsors and media. Organised production
of leaflets and promotional material and distributed and directed operations on
the day. Responsible for budget and the financial success of events.
Employers
will spend a very short period of time scanning your resume looking for
relevant information. An often quoted
figure is that they will spend no more than 30 seconds –although one recent
report says only 6 seconds! Therefore you need to make it reader friendly, with clearly
defined headings, and dot points instead of long blocks of text.
Many
large companies and government departments use online applications and some
will not require a resume so you may not need to send one for every job you
apply to. Read the instructions
carefully before you attach your cover letter.
Online applications
Think
about this simple equation:
Your
strengths and skills + the skills
and behaviours the job requires = A
MATCH!
Online
application forms are designed to see if you have the motivation, the necessary
insight and the personal effectiveness to make the right impact as a graduate
in that organisation.
Follow these top
5 tips and ensure your application form makes it through to the next round.
PREPARE! – all the clues are right in
front of you.
Research
and analyse the company, its goals and values, the graduate stream that you are
applying for. All the clues you need to
complete your online application form are there on the company literature,
annual reports and website. Attend
employer sessions on campus and use every opportunity to network through
careers fairs and campus events.
WHY THEM? - what is it about THAT organisation that
stands out?
Don’t
proceed to tell the employer why you want to work for them by stating the
obvious. Banks already know if they are
in the top 4 in the country. You need
to differentiate more on why they are your employer of choice, by the values
they hold, the graduate programme they offer, the opportunity for exposure to
key influencers and mentors in your profession.
WHY YOU? - be
clear about your skills and value.
Approach
the application with a clear idea of your strengths and skills and your career
aspirations. Draw out how this
organisation will play to your strengths and enhance your career prospects. You
need to be aware that every question they are asking on the application is a
chance for you to market yourself well. Have you really understood the role that you are applying to and what
you will be asked to do as a new graduate? Within a couple of weeks, you’ll be working with your own clients and
solving problems that you might not know anything about! Resilience, the ability to ask the right
questions, the confidence to take the lead, the professionalism to deal with
the situation.
WHY NOT? – give them a reason to say
yes!
Try
to steer away from bland, vanilla statements that don’t really get to the heart
of the question. Really THINK what
behaviour or skill they are trying to elicit from the question. Be specific, be focused and drill down to a
deeper level to describe your behaviours and prove why you should get the job.
Susan Smith
Careers Services Manager
– Education, Careers and Employability Office, The University of Sydney
Business School
