Week 02- Applying for a job

Posted on by mccarney-o1 Posted in 302: Creative Entrepreneurship, Uncategorized

This week’s lecture covered what is necessary when applying for a job and advice from previous students and employers.

Advice

Most of the advice given came to about 2 major points

  • Eagerness/ passion to work in this company- whether it be showing you’ve done your research about the company, referencing their work and blogs- makes the employers feel appreciated.
  • Standing out in applicant process- A well designed cover letter/CV or portfolio in a way they wouldn’t expect can make you stand out amongst others.

CV

Next we got into more detail about what a CV is. CV is  formal document summarising your skills/education/experience. It must be easy to scan and  find key information.

A CV must include…

  1. Contact Details
  2. A Short Bio
  3. Skills
  4. Work Experience
  5. Education
  6. Awards and Additional Info
  7. References
To further explain how we should be designing our CV we were given some advice  about what we should do:
  • Keep it short– A CV should not be long or work to read, making it easy to scan makes the employer more likely to read it.
  • Spelling and Grammar should be checked – words spelt wrong produces an unprofessional, lazy look.
  • Put recent information first- Employers want to know your most recent experience, that is the most relevant.
  • Avoid obnoxious skill indicators- “80/100 in Adobe XD” Doesn’t actually show how skilled you are and appears obnoxious.
  • Limited colour palette- Too many colours is distracting and looks unprofessional,
  • Use white space appropriately – White space aids the idea of being able to scan the document.
  • Use a nice typeface-  Aids the design quality of your CV while still remaining a clear and concise document
  • Have a link to portfolio site- Makes sure the employer knows you have one to look at.
  • Tailor bio towards job your applying for- Makes you appear more relevant to the employer
  • Be honest- Don’t say you have skills or experience you don’t have, it will catch up on you.
  • Use references – and tell them!- It’s good practice to tell the people you are using as a reference so they are prepared for questions.
Next we moved on to the Cover Letter.
The Cover Letter’s purpose is to act as a personal introduction from you to the employer. It gives us an opportunity to explain what it is exactly that you like about the company and to emphasise and summarise your skills and experience again.
The same rules from the CV  to the Cover Letter, keep it professional, minimal and easy to read. We should also be matching our CVs and cover letters in terms of typeface, layout and colour.
If you know who you are addressing the letter to use their name and job title, this can add a personal touch to your letter. We were also given the advice to call the company and ask if we are not sure.
In the Cover Letter it is important to understand the tone of voice you are writing in, it should be a balance of informal/formal. It is also important that you show your passion for the job role and company. Cover Letters aren’t just a part of the job application process they can be a really nice way of introducing yourself to a company that might not be hiring and could be useful for networking.
To finish off the lecture part of the class we were shown example of how to make your application stand out. We can do this through sending it in its physical form. To show that you are creative and passionate you could think of more inventive ways to give in your CV, such as; a parcel tube, was sealed envelope, branded packaging. All these things lead to you standing out and if you’re not successful in placement, it makes you memorable for future opportunities.

 

Workshop

In this week’s workshop we had a  fun game of ’20 questions’ in groups. All the answers we were given were job roles and the aim of this was to get us thinking about what exactly what qualities and skills these jobs require.

Summary

I found this week’s class very helpful, I have made my own CV before and have had a previous job and a job I am currently in part-time. These jobs were part time roles in a nursing home and currently a job in retail. As much as I am well aware of the job application process at this point I still had no idea what it consisted of in a design setting.

I also thought the game of 20 questions was fun and a way of breaking the ice with my class as even though I’m in my second year I haven’t really met any of them before.

Next Week’s Task

The tasks for this week were to create our cv and a corresponding cover letter addressed to one of the local companies we researched last week.

I decided to tailor my application towards Made to Engage as their company was one of the local companies here that stood out to me and I really enjoyed looking through their website.

I used Word to make my CV as that is what I had used prior. I used a very minimal colour scheme with really only white and black but pink as an accent colour. I did this to add a bit more of a design element to my application and because my favourite colour is pink. I feel it is the best colour to brand myself with and it is similar to the shade I used last year in my brand identity module.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall

I found this task fun as it was different to our usual design tasks as it had to be professional. Something I think I will change as I continue working on this is aligning my headings on the left column to the top of the text on the right column. I think I will also make the heading text a bit smaller as it feels slightly out of place.

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