Make A Song & Dance About Your Skills
Here’s a good job application sample. In your Job application, please remember to say what you can do and not what you can’t. It might sound daft but really, the British can be shockingly bad at self-promotion, and, what is a job application, if not self-promotion?
Claim and rename those skills: Own them, for they are yours and were gained through bitter experience and hard won gains. Never leave them behind in the place where you first sourced them. They are anchored in you and not your previous sector or last working environment.
Set aside any Protestant Work Ethic nonsense. ‘Pride Before a Fall’ will just have to Do-One for the time being. If you want this new opportunity then sell them your skills: Take the time to explain the benefits of them, shout about them, celebrate them. Educate your intended employer about the benefits of your brilliance for them. Actually, really do make a song and dance about them!
Job Application Sample
You will need to translate in your application. This translation is your job: It is for you to pick up each skill that you have honed in one environment and envisage how that will be useful in your next. Then you may need to reframe that in the language of your intended sector.
All cultures have their own languages. Some cultures know it, some are blind to it, and, some cultures actively choose their own language in order to exclude those who do not belong. All cultures use a unique language whether they recognise it or not. It is your job to translate for them, in service of gaining the role that you seek. This way you can be of best use for yourself and out in the world. Once you’re ‘in’ the door you can hone the language your own way.
“Your skills are anchored in you and not your previous sector or last working environment.”
It is like a website. If it’s too difficult to navigate the content, or, if it’s too difficult to contact the business, if you are anything like me, you’ll swiftly quit and look elsewhere. With the application for your next role or promotion, make it easy for the decision makers. You can have all the potential in the world, but, if you don’t fail to make it visible and accessible in that application, then it will be wasted. Those who are recruiting are way too busy to be trying to read between your lines.
Put you skills and their benefits in bold. I dare you.