How short is a short list

The answer is quite short, employers need to narrow down applicants. This will be anything from:-

How well you meet the person specification

• Qualifications

• Skills

• Experience……relative to role/their business offering

• Location….maybe?

How well constructed your CV, cover letter, and maybe show reel- online persona is.

• Spelling

• Design

• Grammar

• Social Media posts

• Work themes, designs, style

So as an applicant I need to factor all of the above, I need to think about how everything will be viewed. I should constantly review any showreel, Vimeo, Youtube, Instagram, Flickr type accounts, including any personal webpages such as this.

Any content should be relevant, show continual practice and growth both from a profession and from a personal interest perspective.

Where a cover letter is required, I should tailor this to how I fit with the role, their culture, how it can be evidenced, how I can add value and also how I could professionally grow with the role.

We recently ran a mocked up short listing exercise reviewing CV’s against a Person Spec- Job Spec.

Shortlisting was hard, there was some debate on if a person met an essential or desirable criteria. Some was a bit subjective and some was very obvious, but only 2/6 met the criteria out of our assessment.

If I am harsh on myself- realistic/honest, my CV and Cover letter needed improvement as they were a bit too generic as it was based on where I am today rather than being tailored to the Person Specification so an own goal here, but a leaned experience!

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