Work experience applications
Top tips on being successful when you apply for work experience or an internship. In many cases employers are looking for potential future employees when recruiting students for their placement schemes
Before you begin any application, do your research – the more you know about the job and organisation, the easier it is to convince people that you are the right person for them. Anna Worsley, work placement project officer at the University of Leeds Careers Centre, explains: ‘In many cases employers are looking for potential future employees when recruiting students for their placement scheme and, in some cases, the recruitment and selection of placement students is given as much attention as the recruitment of permanent staff.’
Applying ‘on spec’
Speculative applications can be a way into organisations that do not advertise work experience. ‘Try to think about what the company would gain from offering you a placement and then articulate this to them’, says Anna. ‘Don’t just send one standard letter and CV to hundreds of companies – you need to tailor your speculative application in order to make it stand out and you need to prove your enthusiasm.’
When you send a speculative application don’t simply address it to ‘The Manager’. Find the name for whoever deals with such queries, such as the HR manager – you may be able to find this information from the company website, but a quick phone call could also be the answer.
Work experience CVs that impress
Your CV, if requested by employers or included in a speculative application, is vitally important. Use your careers service which is always happy to help you make your CV the best it can be. Remember to give the most space to the most important facts of your life. If a part-time job or a course module is critical to your application, give it twice as much space as other, less important facts.
The traditional CV format has personal details followed by education and work experience (usually in reverse chronological order) followed by achievements, interests, and referees. You can also be creative and vary the order of sections, give them different titles or experiment with different styles to help your CV stand out from the pile.
If your CV doesn’t include any prior work experience, Anna suggests you, ‘make sure you demonstrate the variety of transferable skills employers are looking for. Employers realise you’re looking for experience, so won’t always expect you to have prior experience, but they will expect you have skills they can utilise’.
Concentrate on your personal contribution to whatever it is you’re writing about and stress achievements and outcomes
Application forms
Employers who have a formal work experience scheme in place will often have an application form to go with it. Application forms are designed to extract the right amount of information needed to select or reject you. Some employers use paper forms but the increasing trend is for online applications. The better systems also give you rapid feedback on your application, your strengths and weaknesses and your chances of getting a job with them.
There is no such thing as a difficult question if you have a clear idea of what their selection criteria are and what matching skills, knowledge and experience you have. When answering questions that ask about how you have demonstrated teamwork or found original ways to solve a problem, choose examples from different parts of your life and be as specific as possible when describing them. Concentrate on your personal contribution to whatever it is you’re writing about and stress achievements and outcomes. Even the most routine summer job can show an employer how you react under pressure, deal with people and solve problems. Don’t forget that flashes of originality will make you stand out.
‘You should also ensure’, advises Anna, ‘ that an application reflects and reiterates everything you are saying about yourself – so if you claim to have “a keen eye for detail” you need to ensure there are no errors in the finest details on your application form.’ One of the best way of ensuring this, as with CVs and covering letters, is to ask a friendand/or a careers adviser to read through it before you send it off.
Training for graduate job applications
If work experience is the training ground for full-time graduate jobs, then work experience applications are training for graduate job applications. Learning to be professional is all part of the process. With online applications and speculative e-mails especially, make sure you don’t lapse into informal web or text speak and abbreviations.
Perhaps the most important thing with any application is, as Anna advises, to ‘tailor each letter, CV or application form to each organisation. You need to prove that you are interested in working for them in particular as opposed to just looking for anything – even potential employers want to feel special!’.
If you are really enthusiastic about gaining experience with a particular organisation, your enthusiasm will be infectious and flattering. But it’s also important to learn how to handle rejection. A ‘no’, says Anna, is simply ‘an opportunity to ask for feedback and improve your chances for future applications’.
Find more help and advice on applications
This article has been viewed 4536 times.
Rating: 3 / 5 (10 votes cast for this article)
Rate this article:
Related articles