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Category: Changing Jobs

How To Write A Great Cover Letter

Posted on by Farrah Wells

After writing your CV, the next step is to do a cover letter. We have created this blog to be your helpful guide to creating a great cover letter. 

What is a cover letter?

A cover letter is a document sent to hiring managers describing why you are the right candidate for the job. It also complements your CV as you are able to expand on your skills and experience.  In addition to this, you are able to demonstrate your writing skills and show off your personality.

An engaging cover letter is your opportunity to introduce yourself and highlight your most desirable skills and traits, and it can create a great first impression in the hiring manager’s eye.

Some ServiceNow jobs will state a covering letter as a requirement for application; others won’t. It’s always a good idea to include one even if it’s not specifically requested, as it allows you to expand on your skills and attributes and sets you above the competition.

Think of it like this – your CV lists your skills and experience. Your cover letter is there to expand on how you fulfil the job spec and create interest in order to make the employer even more interested in you as a potential employee.

A good cover letter should include in-depth information about your skills and why that will make you the right person for the job. You must convince the hiring managers to hire you in your cover letter as well as including what value you will add to the company.

Is your cover letter enhancing your application – or letting it down? Here’s how to ensure you’re making your cover letter work hard for you.

How To Write A Great Cover Letter Linking Humans

How to write a cover letter?

1. Contact information

Firstly, at the top of your cover letter, include your contact information. This is so recruiters can easily find your name and information to contact you. 

2. Address the letter to the hiring manager

The next step you should take is addressing your letter to a specific person. This usually will be the hiring manager or department. If you are unable to find the hiring manager’s name, look on LinkedIn. If you type in the company and then hiring manager, you may be able to find a name.

This adds a nice personal touch to the cover letter and it demonstrates you have researched for their name. As a result, you will impress the hiring manager.

3. Introduction

Once you have addressed the hiring manager, the next section will be the introduction paragraph. You should state the purpose of your cover letter in this section. Keep it straightforward.  

This section should only be a few sentences. You should describe the role you are applying for, why you are interested in the job and the company. As well as what makes you the perfect candidate for the role. 

4. Main paragraphs

After the introduction, will be your main paragraphs. This should be no more than two paragraphs. Highlight the value you will add to the company. As well as the responsibilities of your position, projects you undertook, and skills you gained. These must be relevant to the role. You should emphasise you role in these experiences. For instance, if you are applying to one of our ServiceNow jobs, you should highlight your experience or qualifications in ServiceNow.

You must not summarise your CV in this section. Explain why your skills and experiences make you the right person for the job. Our tip is to incorporate keywords from the job description into this section.

Moreover, in these paragraphs, you should use action words. For example, addressed, accomplished, directed, integrated, redesigned, investigated, or negotiated. This avoids overusing the word ‘I’. By using action words, you are showing what the company can gain from hiring you. 

5. Closing paragraph

Once again state your interest in the position, the company, and why you are a good fit for the role. 

You should also include a call to action in the closing paragraph. Invite the hiring manager to follow up with you. 

Additionally, thank the reader for their consideration, state you look forward to hearing back from them, and include your signature at the very bottom. 

Formatting

Finally, visual consistency makes a big difference, and it is a nice professional touch. Keep your cover letter to one side of A4 and use the same font and size as your CV. 

Do a thorough proof to ensure what you have included makes sense. Then let your recruiter read it through before they send it for you.

We hope this helped you in writing your cover letter! If you are looking for tips on how to ace an interview, check out our blog!

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Helping You To Prepare For Your Interview

Posted on by Farrah Wells

At Linking Humans, we pride ourselves on helping you to prepare for your interview to give you best possible chance of securing your dream role!

This blog will focus on preparing you for competency-based interviews. As these are becoming increasingly popular. To break this down, this interview is a series of behavioural questions.

What is a competency-based interview?

Depending on the size of the company or organisation, your interview can take many forms.

Firstly, a general conversation, with the interviewer asking questions related to the job and trying to get an overall picture of you, including your strengths and development areas.

By contrast, a competency-based interview is based on a series of questions related to the various behaviours and competencies listed on the job specification.

This type of interview uses questions that aim to confirm if you have the specific skills relevant to the ServiceNow job and sets out to see how you approach tasks, problem-solving and challenges.

The interviewer will ask you to describe a situation which demonstrates your abilities that will be integral to the role you’re interviewing for. The best way to answer a competency-based question is to try and think of examples. Such as, a situation where you have been in that answers the question is a positive light.

At Linking Humans, we have a team of consultants who are specially trained in running and conducting interviews. We will be able to offer the best advice possible to give you the best possible chance at succeeding.

Below is a list of core-competencies that employers tend to look for in candidates and example question they may use:

Adaptability and Innovation

Tell us about the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to get where you are today. What different approaches did you use to deal with it?

Attention to detail

Tell us about a project that you have worked on, what checks did you put in to ensure that you met the deadlines?

Business Awareness

Tell us an idea you have put to your manager on how your department could cut costs.

Continuous Learning

Tell us what steps you have taken to develop your work skills.

Customer Service

Give us an example of a difficult situation with a customer and how you overcame it.

Effective Communication

Talk us through a situation when you felt that communication broke down, what did you do? What was the end result?

Influence and Negotiation

Tell us about a time when you have had to deal with a conflict within your department, what happened?

Initiative and Commitment to Achieve

Tell us about a contribution or idea you have had in the workplace.

Interpersonal Ability

Tell us about a time when you have had to discipline a colleague.

Leadership

Tell us about a member of your team you have coached or developed.

Organising for Results

What are some of the recurring problems you encounter at work? What do you do about them? Or tell me of a time when you had multiple tasks with competing deadlines and how you handled them.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

Tell us a time when you have had to make a difficult decision and what steps were involved in this?

Professionalism

Tell us an area within your professional development that you have worked hard on to improve.

Motivation

What was your greatest achievement in your last role, and how did you get there? This provides a check on your levels of enthusiasm and drive.

Strategic Thinking

From your knowledge of the job in question, what do you see as being the main challenges?

Teamwork

Tell us about a time when you had to engage the help of others to succeed in a job.

We hope this helps you with preparing for your interview! Check out our blog page for other helpful tips in your job search!

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How To Write The Perfect CV!

Posted on by Farrah Wells

Your CV is your gateway to landing your dream job! It can also kickstart the career of your choice. 

As a human, you are unique, your CV should reflect this. Get it spot on, and you’ll be able to secure your chosen companies interview in no time. However if you get it wrong, and you may face rejection.

The CV has been around for hundreds of years, and over time it has changed and evolved with the world of work.

As ServiceNow recruiters, we have seen the evolution of the CV, and today we are sharing some invaluable top tips to ensure you get on the radar of the best ServiceNow employers.

This may seem daunting, but do not worry – Linking Humans are here to help! We have created a simple guide on how to write a great CV that will not attract attention for all the right reasons. Let’s get started!

The Purpose of a CV for Employers

Let’s start by thinking about what function your CV serves for employers.

For a start, we should point out that many ServiceNow employers are pushed for time, and they are looking for shortcuts in their recruitment process – they want it spelt out to them that you are the candidate they are looking for.

So to fit this requirement, your CV should be highly tailored to the employer or hiring manager that is looking after the recruitment process.

Aim to find out where possible exactly who to address your CV and cover letter to – this makes it stand out more than letters simply addressed ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ and tailor your CV and cover letter specifically to the company and the role you are applying for.

All too often, ServiceNow candidates send generic CVs or cover letters – these are usually the candidates who don’t get past the first round of the recruitment process.

In today’s competition-led job market, your CV needs to do the following:

  • Immediately capture the attention of the recruiter or employer
  • Illustrate how your skills and abilities clearly relate to the job description
  • Show how much of a culture fit you are to the organisation
  • Increase your chance of getting a first interview

Your CV should be a succinct summary of why you are the ideal candidate for this role.

So let’s look at what makes the ideal ServiceNow CV.

Make Sure it’s Relevant

Many people include skills, knowledge and experience on their CV that, although they might be proud of, it is not relevant to this company or role.

Remember the following tips when thinking about what to include in your CV:

  • Make sure your CV includes everything the job advert specifies.
  • Use similar terminology to that found in the job advert to strike a connection with the employer or hiring manager.
  • If there are any areas that you don’t have the required skills, address this by demonstrating your desire to learn, which you can back up with previous examples of learning a new skill for a previous role.

Keep your CV short, and to the point. The ideal length is two pages, but it can be longer if you have lots of relevant experience.

The following are what to include in your CV to make sure it ticks all the right boxes.

Contact Details

Firstly, we have contact details. It’s important to include all your contact information at the top of your CV. You want to make it as easy as possible for an employer or hiring manager to contact you about the job you’re applying for.

Make sure to add your full name, email address, telephone number and your address. 

Personal Statement

A personal statement is next. It is a great way to let the employer know about yourself in a small nutshell.

This should be a small paragraph which sits at the top of your CV under contact details. It should highlight your key strengths and achievements. Think of it as a sales pitch on why the employer should hire you. 

One question that will be going through the employer’s mind when they read your CV is what value can you add to their business? By giving examples of your key achievements in this section, it can really make you stand out.

Sounds like quite a mouthful, but personal statements are no problem to write, we promise. They’re actually really similar to cover letters. Except, you’ll be selling your best points to a potential employer in about four sentences, rather than an A4 page.

Employment History

This section comes next. It is important to be accurate with your dates, list your employment history in order of the most recent first and work backwards. In this section, you want to list bullet points on what you did in the roles. For example, produced digital marketing content across 5 social media channels. Our tip is to keep your bullet points brief. You should include all of your relevant work experience, which demonstrates your ability to thrive in a similar role. Include the name of the organisation, the time you held the position for and your job title.

For those looking for work in ServiceNow, make sure you list all the technologies that you have worked with in your employment history. This is so the reader of your CV can understand exactly how much commercial technical experience you have with each technology and which company you used it in.

Education History

After completing your employment history, it is now time for the education sector. It is important to be accurate with dates, list your Education in order of the most recent first working your way backwards.

If you are educated to University graduate level, you should always focus on your degree/Masters / PhD. You could include relevant modules you studied.

Also include college and school level information, however use less detail to minimise your CV getting to long. You want to outline the qualifications you achieved. For example, 10 GCSEs, A*-B.

Qualifications

Being qualified gives you more chances of securing the position that you are applying for. It demonstrates to potential employers you are eager to learn and grow. You can put these under your employment history or under your education history. If you have more relevant qualification, feel free to do a small section for it. A CV should not contain details about everything you have ever done. However, think about what is relevant for the job you are applying for and tailor your CV to their needs.

Hobbies and Interests

This is a great way to show your personality on your CV.  Your hobbies and interests can make you stand out from a crowd. However, remember to always maintain professionalism.  Great examples of hobbies include Sports, Music, Travelling etc.

References

Don’t forget to add at least 2 references on the bottom of your CV.  This gives the employer the confidence that if they are to offer you the job, they have people that will vouch for you.  Don’t worry as references are usually called upon once you have been offered the role.  If you are uncomfortable giving references on your CV, you can simply write “references upon request”.

ServiceNow CV Top Tips

Even with the right relevant information, your CV will still need to perform in other ways to catch the attention of the hiring manager.

The following are our top tips to get your CV noticed:

  • Check and double-check that your contact details are up to date – have you changed your mobile number since you created your CV?
  • Use a professional email address without nicknames or slang in it – if you haven’t got one, create one
  • Include a link to your LinkedIn profile – the hiring manager will probably look you up online anyway, you might as well direct them to where they can find your LinkedIn profile
  • Don’t include a picture on your CV – it’s an outdated concept and adds no relevance to the recruitment process
  • Run your CV through spell check before you print or send it. Also, have someone – a friend or a recruiter – to check for spelling and grammar mistakes
  • Choose a font that looks good, but that is clear and easy to read. Make sure the font isn’t too large or too small. Don’t use lots of different sizes or styles of font – simple is best

Avoid clichés such as ‘go-getter’, ‘think outside the box’ and ‘multi-tasker’ when describing yourself. If you are struggling writing your CV, we are able to help. Get into contact with us now.

Finally

Your CV is your chance to introduce yourself to a ServiceNow recruitment company or hiring manager in a meaningful way.

If you can show the person looking at your CV that you match the job description as closely as possible, then you’ll get the interview.

For more information on how we can help you craft your ServiceNow CV, as well as find new roles for you to apply to – get in touch with us today.

You can call us on 02381 542 542 or send us an email on farrah.wells@linkinghumans.com to discuss your CV and your next career move.

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