How To Apply

A CV (curriculum vitae) allows you to summarize your education, skills and experience and helps you market yourself to employers. CVs are commonly two or three pages long, depending on the number of entries and the chosen layout.

When writing a CV, there are a few helpful rules you should follow:

• Match your CV to the position. Make sure that you highlight your education, work experience, and skills to relate to the particular industry or job. For example, if you are applying for a job in education, you might want to put your teaching experience at the top of your CV.
• You can also include keywords from the job description in your CV. This will show the employer that you are an ideal fit for the position.
• Use a template. You may want to use a template to structure your CV. This will give your application a clear structure, which will help the employer to quickly see your qualifications and experience.
• You need to thoroughly edit your document to make sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors and that the format is consistent. For example, if you use bullet points in one job description, use the same bullet points in all the remaining job descriptions as well.

A cover letter is a letter sent alongside your CV and other attachments to introduce yourself and explain why you are sending in the application. It also provides more information about yourself and your motivation for the job.

Make sure your cover letter is:

Designed for the specific job opening

• Adapt the letter to the needs of the job you want
• Refer to that job in the opening sentences

Describing your related skills

• Tie your experience to your skills
• Show how they directly relate to the job description

Personal

• Address the letter to a specific person/employer (the receiver mentioned in the advert)
• If you have a contact, use the contact
• Use a comma after the name (eg.: Dear Ms Xx, Dear Mr Xx, or Dear Hiring Manager,)

Interesting and convincing

• Keep in mind that readers go through the contents attentively
• Open with an attention-grabbing sentence
• Describe why you are the best for the job

If you are registered at Kora jobportal, you can save a cover letter example, but do not forget you always have to re-write it and adapt it to every vacancy! Never use the same letter twice!

If you are invited for a job interview: Congratulations! You already made it very far! Now you must prove that you are the most suitable candidate for the position.

I have some tips for you:
A job interview is a meeting with an objective. It is the objective to find the best person for the job. Therefore, an employer will want to review your experience and abilities. In this meeting, the employer will try to find out:

• Can you do the job? (skills, abilities, qualifications)
• Will you do the job? (interest, attitude, motivation)
• How will you fit into the organisation? (personality)

• What does this position offer me?
• How does it fit with my career plans?

• Review your own skills, experiences and qualities
• Check your CV again
• Anticipate questions and identify relevant examples
• Prepare key selling points (self-marketing)
• Research about the organisation or company
• Check their websites, reports, articles, company literature etc.
• Contacts with knowledge of the organisation or sector can help
• Read relevant articles in the press
• Think about a personal visit or telephone call before the interview
• Research job and occupational area as well as current challenges
• What are salary standards for such positions or similar ones?
• Prepare your questions
• Practice, Practice, Practice!! You can ask your nearest Employment Service Centre for help, or practice with family and friends.

Application management means that you should keep record of the positions that you apply for and dates when you applied. These records will help you stay organised and create a history of your searches that can be helpful. After some time, you may need to improve your application documents or rethink your job search strategy or maybe need more training or take a new short course or volunteer work or internship to gain more experience.

Sometimes it can help to gain more working experience before applying for jobs. You could consider interning or volunteering! This would help you to gain practical knowledge in technical terms but also make you more familiar with working environments. Furthermore, you get to be surrounded by people who have jobs and have a chance to increase your personal networks.

For information on how to apply for an internship, contact the Employment Service Centres or if you are doing a university degree or you are about to finish school, refer to your institution to help you out with recommendations on which companies to apply to.