Describing yourself for jobs is quite daunting, mainly because you don't
know where to start and you don't know what to say. This has been a problem for
me so many times, I don't want to get stuck between the conventional, standard
answer to the questions on screen - I mean, how many people are going to list
themselves as 'hardworking, reliable, trustworthy' after a while, the person
reading these answers is going to see 'blah blah blah'. Everyone is going to
put down these "qualities" and let's say the employer who is going to
pick the person most suitable for the job has received 100 applications, if
they're all a string of descriptive words with a CV attached, what makes you
different? Why should they pick you? What if the other person is more skilled? You're
going to receive a rejection email or nothing at all and you will spend the
next month looking at your phone screen hoping to receive a call. I don't want
that to be the situation when I am applying for a job, I’ve been in that
situation countless of times and I always think it's so unfair. Not because I
didn't get the job but because of how I am being assessed. 'What makes you
suitable for the job?' the conventional answer that would be accepted is to
list your skills and back it up with some mundane example. Everyone is going to
pick the best adjectives in the English dictionary - it isn't that difficult to
describe yourself like you're the queen when you have Google by your side. For
example, I want work experience with Vogue, who doesn't? And that is what makes
it so difficult - everyone wants that. So when the application question is 'why
should we pick you?'
what do you do?
Surely being passionate is the best thing, is it not? If you have a strong
want to put your all into the job, everything else follows: the hard work, the
reliability, the "can do" attitude.
I know I need to put my all into the job I want because I see myself being
somewhere, being a someone and for that I need to work hard, I need to put
myself into the job and not do it because it gets me by. I don't want to live
to work, I want to love the job and if I have a strong idea of what I want to
do and where I want to be, only then would I apply for the job. But I get it,
1000s of people have a desire and an ambition, and we can all make ourselves
look good on paper, whether you have experience or not. It's just annoying to
see these questions across every job board because apparently it's the best way
to figure out a person. I disagree - my issue is not with the question but the
way it is expected to be answered. Even though employers ask these questions
and give you 400 characters to form your answer, they are still looking for
certain words to fill out the square box - it's ironic because you're being
asked think outside of the box yet you're words are trapped.
The best answer would not be 'I can work hard and within a team because I
worked in a group that one time' it should be I see myself being somewhere and I
know I have to work hard to get there (a bit rough but you know what I mean).
There are so many words you can use so why stick to the odd 100? Be daring,
don't say you're creative - show it! Use words to your advantage. And if they
don't want you, find something else. And I’m not going to say it's easy or
smooth, because it isn't, I know it isn't but you have to keep trying, because
no job is going to come up to you and say 'hey, work for me'. You have to look!
