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Letters in response to advertisements

Caroline Morris - November 2006
caroline.morris@kirklees.gov.uk

Key points
An example
Further help

Advertised vacancies represent only 40% of your potential market. Any employer (at least in the private sector) will normally only advertise as a last resort because it is time consuming and costly. As a result, by the time a vacancy is advertised there are two drawbacks to contend with:

You are immediately in competition with other applicants which makes it that much more difficult to achieve the interview. The quality of your application must be better than that of your competitors.
By advertising, the employers have committed themselves to defining their needs. Such definitions may, in reality, be quite arbitrary but once committed to paper they can become carved in tablets of stone. You may have to work harder to convince them.

However, because the advertised job market is 30 – 40% of your potential market you cannot afford to ignore it. The following notes are designed to help you overcome the drawbacks outlined above. The examples given are not exemplars and are not to be followed blindly.

Ensure that any written correspondence you send indicates your suitability and enthusiasm for the vacancy. If the advert states that you should write for an application form then do only that.

Key points

The employer will reject all applicants who have given any reason to believe that they would be unsuitable.
The 'ideal candidate' does not exist.
It is not always the most experienced or best-qualified applicant who gets the interview.
Read the advertisement carefully. Underline the key points. Determine the employer's needs and your ability to fulfil these.
In your letter accentuate the positive – eliminate the negative.
If you sit back and wait for an advertisement to appear which you feel was written for you then you would have a long wait.
Look for indicators such as 'ideally', 'preferred', 'likely' which highlights those factors upon which the employer is willing to negotiate.