Why writing a job application is like baking University of Manchester Careers Blog

Why writing a job application is like baking University of Manchester Careers Blog When you’re applying for quite a few jobs that ask for a CV, it’s tempting to send the same CV to each. It saves time and the CV describes you, that must be good enough, right? Wrong! You have your ingredients of skills, experiences and attributes, but you need to combine them in the right proportions and describe them in the right way in order to meet the shortlisters requirements. Cake please! Imagine your ingredients are eggs, flour and butter and you combine them to make a delicious quiche. The problem is the shortlister asked for a cake. You might have the best quiche in the world, but if a cake was what was required it was a waste of your time and ingredients! You need to adapt your CV for every new application. Each shortlister has a specific shopping list of requirements, you need to make sure you cover each one in your CV in the right proportions and order â€" the most important ones should have more space and appear higher in the CV. It’s also a good idea to use the same keywords from the job description in your CV. It makes it easier for the shortlister to tick each item off their list. You are more likely to be shortlisted if you apply for a small number of jobs properly rather than 100 jobs using the same CV. Think specialist cake, not batch-baked quiche! All Applications and interviews applications Applications and interviews