BY SYCORAX NDHLOVU –
EFFECTIVE job application letter writing skills are critical in a competitive labour market environment.
The way one writes job application letters increases or decreases chances of that person being shortlisted for job application interviews.
As one of the lecturers of language and communication skills at University of Zambia (UNZA) under the Department of Adult Education and Extension Studies, I find that many people, regardless of their academic and professional backgrounds have many challenges in how to write effective job application letters.
Investigating how such ways of writing job application letters still exist today, most people say: “This is the way our teachers at secondary schools taught us.”
And for those who are working, they also admit that that is how they write in offices; that even when they receive job application letters from potential job seekers, they see that almost everyone writes like that.
Allowing uniformity in a competitive labour market can be dangerous. Differentiate yourself from the crowd in a positive manner.
What is further surprising is that this challenge is not only found in school leavers but it is also found in people with high academic and professional achievements.
Most people write job application letter the way our parents were writing in 1970s and 80s when the population was still low; and the number of formally educated people was also low with many job opportunities yawning, while looking for job seekers.
The situation on the labour market is no longer the case now.
Competition has increased. Therefore, even the way we write our job application letters should change proportional to the level of competition on the labour market.
Unfortunately, it appears both those who learnt how to write job application letters some years ago; and those who are learning now are still using the same textbooks which might be a bit outdated considering local labour market dynamic situations.
The purpose of this article is to remind our esteemed readers that in a competitive labour market environment, a job application letter is a sales letter.
It must be your good representative. It must be persuasive.
A job application letter should be convincing. It should represent you the way you would have presented yourself if you were invited personally before the job interviewing panel.
To achieve this, many factors are considered in writing a job application letter and a CV. But in this article, only a letter for seeking a job will be discussed.
The level of position one in applying for a job in any organisation influences how a job application letter should be written.
A job application letter for an office assistant’s position might not be expected to have that professional touch as that of a deputy director or chief executive officer in a government ministry or in a certain private firm.
The nature of an organisation one is applying a job for also determines the quality of a job application letter.
Some organisations are highly professional and highly expectant on professionalism more than others.
But most critically, the level of labour market competitiveness also influences how best to market yourself to get that job.
The format of a job application letter is critical in determining your success in that job seeking process.
Margins, and the positions of your address and that of the organisation you are applying a job to has an influence on whether you should be shortlisted; and be invited for interviews or not.
Format is highly related to appearance of your job application letter in the eyes of anyone reading it.
Will someone be impressed just by looking at your letter. Does it look smart? Is it well presented?
Then, spellings and sentence construction are other factors in effective job application letter writing.
One is supposed to display good command in the official language. Good command in spellings and having wide vocabulary in job applying letter writing can help you increase your chances of getting a job you want.
Select each word for a specific purpose.
Sentence construction skills are critical in job application letter writing. If you write the way any other person would write, you are piling yourself up on a huge heap of applicants who cannot add value to an organisation.
Be unique in your sentence construction.
Demonstrate that you went to school for a purpose. Show that you are better than many others who have applied for that job.
Having considered sentence construction, one can also talk about paragraphs.
In job seeking letters, one writes points that can help him or her to market oneself in that vacant position.
Therefore, one doesn’t write anything that anyone can write. Write good selling points. Each point you write should constitute a paragraph for clarity’s sake.
But be honest, accurate and fair to yourself and to the potential employer in all that you state.
Write about unique qualities in yourself. What is it that you have which makes you positively different from a long queue of applicants in that position?
Answering such questions determines what points to include in a job application letter, how many paragraphs to write; and in what order.
The order of paragraphs influences how convincing your job application letter is.
Don’t forget to state that you have attached your CV and photocopies of your academic and or professional qualifications as stated in the letter.
State in your job application letter that you are looking forward to being invited for personal interviews where you will prove your claims stated in your job application letter.
Considering the above stated factors and many others you and other human resource management practitioners can think of, one can discover that a job application letter should be honest, accurate and factual.
It should be convincing in an interesting manner.
A job application letter should be written in such a way that anyone who reads it should develop appetite to see you in person.
Though in brief, write as if you are talking to the reader of your job application letter.
This is one of the strategies of chasing away unnecessary huge crowds or long queues in job seeking; and in the process putting yourself above such a huge crowd or putting yourself in front of a long queue of job seekers.
To ensure your job application letter becomes an effective sales letter, don’t write it in a hurry.
Draft it many times until you feel you have the best copy to effectively represent you to a potential employer.
Comments: Cell: 0976/0977 450151, sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk