Application Form or Essay

TrevDR

TrevDR

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Sorry if this is the wrong section to post this in.

I'm seriously thinking of giving up being self employed and applied for a job.

Apart from the usual previous employment and qualifications etc I've just had to write what amounts too a little over 2000 words about myself.

Is this the norm these days ?
 
Well I wouldn't want to have 100+ applicants send in a 4-5 page life story

From Uni onwards I was always advised to summarise on 1 page so someone can quickly see the salient points as interviewers can't be arsed to read much (if any) more

What sort of jobs are you after that requires this?

Journalist or novelist perhaps ???

DD
 
I'm with DD I think if it were me, doing this I would have a "front page" with a few bullet points summary style,
and then on the other page or 5 elaborate
 
My CV is 1.5 pages, the second page is references and my published papers
 
Go with a simple 1 page cv as the others have said and add at the top a box with maybe a 4 to 6 line summary of yourself (something that you can readily customise to whatever job you are applying for at the time). If you still need to elaborate then attach a more detailed cv but make it easy to read with suscinct bullet points.
 
Anything over the 1.5 pages that POAH cites is more likely to get filed in the bin than read
 
Depends on the company recruitment requirements. If they are asking for a story about you then you need to give it to them, if they require a CV then give them that. As DD says it would not be fun to have to read many 1000 word stories if I was the recruiter.

Trick is to get it to stand out from the crowd and keep it relevant.

Good luck..
 
lol I like that!

I've just filled in an 8 page essay of an application form, believe me that's not my choice.

My own CV is unfortunately 7 pages but I find that if I miss anything out historically then they throw it in the bin for that too.

Can't win on that one, just ask them what they want and give them it whether it's 2 lines or a book worth!
 
A CV is a factsheet and should be fairly concise. 2 pages is usually regarded as the maximum.
 
I have been self employed on and off for the last 15 years and owned my own building company until it collapsed 18 months ago. I have struggled to get a job and I'm sure its because people are very wary of taking on ex self employed or ex business owners as you technically have no references to follow up. Fortunately I have now gained full time employment which I take up in January
 
This was stipulated in the application No CV's allowed, 8 sections to be filled in with 250 words on each competency. This is just to get to the interview stage.
 
A lot of employers only want to know your last 5-years employment history these days anyway. So historically if you have 7-pages worth of jobs, you probably wouldnt get interviewed anyway.

As a person who used to recruit for my old job, we had 80 applicants for one full time position. That was hard to go through. We ended up interviewing 10 applicants, and called two back for second interviews. And in the end, it still went to an internal candidate cos they were the best person for the job.
 
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