Job Application Letter
Question Description
The Job Hiring Process
A college experience can give you many things. You learn self-discipline -- how to respond to complex tasks with a measure of responsibility and determination. You learn how to learn -- learning with patience and perseverance what is often difficult information and complex skills that don't come naturally to anyone. You learn important information about the field you have chosen, about what the people in your field expect from someone who has been educated in their field. You learn how to associate productively with people who intend to use their heads and education for a good living, and expect you to do the same.
Most of all, a college experience should provide you a profession ... a job ... by all reports and statistical evidence, a much better job than that earned by a high school graduate. But do you know the one thing that can completely sink you when you try to get a job?
A lousy job application letter.
I have in my academic career been on a number of hiring committees, and let me explain a little of what happens. The process is generally the same in all professions. A particular position opens up and the hiring committee sends out a number of “calls for application,” usually job advertisements in the kinds of publications that people look at who want jobs in the field, notices to web sites that typically advertise such jobs, and hiring information to college career centers across the country.
Then the job application letters come pouring in, sometimes dozens, even hundreds. Maybe 2/3rds of them are tossed aside immediately because the applicant indicated by something in the letter that he or she either wasn’t specifically prepared for the job as advertised or wasn’t particularly eager for it. In most of these cases, the applicant simply didn’t know how to write a good job application letter and therefore gave the wrong impression. It often shocks undergraduate students that typos or inconsistent fonts or a single misspelling or an irrelevant reference (your love of World of Warcraft?) can take an application out of the game. Your teachers have, most likely, forgiven such "minor things" for years in the written assignments you have turned in, but they aren't putting a company or organization on the line by hiring people who are careless or clueless. And why should the hiring committee let sloppy work pass? There are usually plenty of meticulous people waiting in the wings.
Those few letters that don’t get immediately tossed then get circulated among the hiring committee and a meeting is held to vote upon the applicants. Most of the remaining letters are voted down by most of the committee, but maybe 5 or 6 are held aside for further discussion. From these, the committee may recommend that 3 or 4 may be asked to submit resumes (if a resume didn't accompany the application letter), or submitted resumes or then carefully considered. Those 3 or 4 made that job-application-letter cut. Most likely, two or three of these will get a job interview and then one will be offered the job.
So what happened to those job applications letters that didn’t make the cut? What did the writers do wrong?
They wrote lousy job application letters.
The difference between an application letter and a resume
The resume is an inventory of your qualifications listed in a fairly objective manner. Even in the summary section you don't want to get chatty or personal. As the old detective show used to say, "just the facts."
The job application letter, on the other hand, is more of a narrative, a story that explains that you (1) well understand the nature of the job you are applying for and are convinced that you have what it takes, (2) your view of how your education has prepared you for this job, (3) a description of similar responsibilities you have had in other jobs, and (4) your sincere assurance that you really want the job and would be a good fit.
I need a job application later drafted. 4 paragraphs. My major is medical humanities. and I graduate summer 2019.
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