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Interpret Job
Description
Interpret Job Adverts
Learning to properly interpret job description
or a job adverts may sound a basic skill.
Well it is a basic skill, but a important one.
Before
spending anytime on tailoring your CV / Resume you must ensure you are
going to emphasise the skills and experiences that most interest your
reader.
For various reasons its not always easy interpret job description or job adverts. Changes to legislation have meant that
often the real message is hidden or softened to conform to legal
requirements.
The intention of this page is to convince
you that for desirable jobs there will be many applicants, and
your resume is your ticket too interview.
Therefore tailoring
your resume to meet both the obvious and less obvious requirements of
the job ad or job description will be a very profitable skill to
develop.
Its
not a difficult process, an organisation of your observations and
thoughts, with a little research mixed in if the advert of job
specification becomes vague.
This disciplined approach to interpreting the job description will serve you well.
Process to extract the key requirements from Job
Description / Job Advert
All
that is required for this is the print out of the job description / Ad,
a beverage of your choice, and a notepad and pen (highlighter pen if
you have one).
A quiet place where you can interpret job description / job advert think and consider without interruption.
Interpret Job Description - Step 1
Simply
read the job description or Ad 2 or 3 times SLOWLY – not the usual skim
reading we all tend to do. The idea is you relax and absorb the
information into your brain.
Interpret Job Description - Step 2
Highlight
or underline what you consider to be the critical skills, experiences
and behaviours required by the role. Some Ads and descriptions will
leave you in little doubt by using words like critical, mandatory, or
“must have” to describe key elements, others use vague wording such as
“some knowledge of” or “experience of”.
Anyway don’t get stuck with this just highlight or underline everything
you feel they are interested in, even the vague stuff.
Interpret Job Description - Step 3
Starts getting a little harder. Grab your pad and write a top heading.
The job title for example "Project Manager".
Then create 3 columns in your page, and head them. I have created a
form to make this easier download the Microsoft
word version or the Adobe
pdf version.
Skills
/ Function
Market / Sector
Behaviours / Soft Skills
List all your highlighted points under each heading (most will be under
skills and function)
Interpret Job Description - Step 4
Put a value against each point use 1 for critical points, 2 for quite
important and
3 for “nice to haves”.
You
will probably find that most of the items are listed under skills and
function, and market sector as these are the easiest to detail in a job
ad.
Behavioural or soft skills are harder to write about, though most will
contain “dynamic” or “self motivated”.
However
behavioural skills are very important, and though the job ad / spec may
not go into detail, when you are interviewed they will be looking for
these skills.
Interviewing is moving increasingly towards
behavioural / competency based questioning, and though the ad
or
job spec may not specify the detailed behaviour the role demands. This
invites you to set yourself apart from the majority of other applicants.
For
example in my example for a project manager the ad may concentrate on
the type of projects and the market experience, and offer little in the
way of behavioural requirements.
But any experienced project
manager will tell you that there are a number of critical
behaviours that a successful project manager must have.
If you knew this, and added them subtly to your resume, you give
yourself a MASSIVE advantage.
Its vital to add behavioural context to resume. It will levitate it
from being a dull page of facts and figures, by adding your desirable personality.
For
example if you weave into your resume that you are a commercially
savvy, a good motivator, communicator and are calm under pressure they
are core competencies / behaviours for a project manager.
Interpret Job Description - Step 5
Look
to identify 5 – 10 desirable behaviours that you can weave into your
resume; as long as they honestly apply to you. Add them under your
behaviours / soft skills heading, and rank them if you can.
You
know have a great foundation of knowledge from which to build or to
modify your Resume to specifically appeal to your reader.
Your
next task is to take this information and ensure your CV / Resume
addresses all the points rated as 1 (critical) and 2 (quite important),
ideally you can also cover most of the nice to haves as well (3's).
You are now moving on to the actual building of your resume.
Return from interpret job description to resume writing tips.
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